You're on a plane, waiting at the gate, lying in bed, trying to pass the time or have a burst of inspiration. Plenty of apps already give you tools for on-the-road music creation. Now with many years of computer software production under their belt—and even their own hardware—Ableton have finally released their first mobile application: Note. Their entry onto the iOS landscape brings the promise of integration with Live as well as its UI and sound engine.

Note, however, is not Ableton Live for iOS; it’s a lightweight entry focused on generating results fast. Any files created within the app can be opened directly in Ableton Live on a desktop, making it an effective sketchpad for experienced users. It may entice first-time producers to give production a go with its streamlined design as well.

What to Expect

Part of Ableton Live's appeal has always been its minimal, clip-focused interface. Note takes that design and distills it to its fundamentals. The first time you start it up, you’re given a brief tour before landing in a cleaned-up mobile version of Live’s trademark Session View grid. Each set starts with three instruments represented as columns: a drum kit, a bass synth and a sample-based instrument for leads, keys and so on. Note also randomly pre-loads different sounds each time you start a new project, so you’ll always have a bit of unexpected inspiration—like an 808, an acid bassline or a CR-78—to prompt you. From there, you can add more tracks and select sounds as you please.

Note was designed as a sketchpad, a bit like Apple’s Voice Memos, but for musical ideas. Select a part, and then tap on a drum machine-style set of pads to begin playing. (Drum kits can be toggled to a single pad; instrumental parts have a keyboard option.) You don’t even have to listen to a metronome ticking away; just start playing, and you’ll see a visual representation of your finger taps animate across the screen. If you like what you played, tap Add. Note will then guess at a tempo and set the project to that speed. You can also choose to set a fixed tempo and metronome, if you prefer.

You can leave your recording as-is, or quantize it to a rhythmic grid non-destructively, meaning you can return to your original performance at any time. There’s also a Repeat function as found on instruments like Push and the MPC, so there are ample aids for laying a musical foundation irrespective of how good your finger playing is (or isn’t). From there, you can build up patterns as Clips, add additional instruments and arrange Clips into finished tracks by playing different patterns individually or re-arranging them as Scenes.

Live Sound Content

Part of Note's strength is its unique and high-quality sound content and effects. There are tons of high-quality preset synths, drums and instruments, plus effects like saturation, delay and reverb. Each of these can be tweaked with a series of on-screen knobs, and those tweaks can also be automated to animate sounds as they loop. (You can’t record audio tracks directly into Note—at least, not in this initial version. You can, however, record into the Sampler, giving you options to record and manipulate audio. That’s a lot of fun with the built-in mic, which can capture your voice or found sounds wherever you are.)

Where Note stands out is its seamless, Cloud-based integration with Ableton Live. Choose a Set, select Upload To Ableton Cloud, and it will appear on any desktop version of Live 11.2.5 or later. A handful of iOS apps have offered support for limited export to Live or other tools, but typically with audio only, or at most basic MIDI. Ableton have given Note full native export to Live, with the ability to open everything as an editable, tweakable set of patterns, instruments and effects. This functionality is one direction only—you can’t save desktop Sets to the Cloud, and you can’t open desktop files in Note. But it’s still a level of integration Live users haven’t enjoyed ever before. Note also has support for Ableton’s Link technology for seamless, wireless sync and jam sessions with other apps on desktop and mobile, and even some hardware.

Apart from sync, most of the other described features are available in other iOS apps. Many of those apps even look a lot like Note, probably in part because those apps had Ableton Live as a model. Apps like Auxy, Akai iMPC and Novation Launchpad have tread much of this ground; Endlesss even does it with desktop-mobile sync and community features. There’s also no real integration between Ableton Note and other iOS apps or support for AUv3 plug-ins—Apple's native iOS plug-in formats, which allow more integration of iOS apps—so if you’ve built up a library of iPhone synths and effects, you may find Note limiting. Then again, while it may do less feature-by-feature, Ableton Note is also quick and accessible when some of its competitors’ UIs are more cluttered.

Our Take

Ableton has always developed its products deliberately. And while Note is late to the iOS party—the iPhone got its App Store way back in 2008—attention to detail and refined usability make it worth the wait. If you mainly want to produce on the iPhone, and especially if you want to use other apps or plug-ins, you may want to consider some alternatives like Endlesss and Auxy. But Note’s speed and ease do make it loads of fun for newcomers. And for anyone wanting a mobile sketchpad for Ableton Live, nothing else comes close.