User's Manual

C. Ableton Live

i. Set Up

1. Navigate to your Live Preferences by going to the ‘Live’ menu, and choose ‘Preferences…’,

or use the keyboard shortcuts CMD + Comma (CTRL + Comma on Windows).

2. Click the ‘Link/MIDI’ tab.

3. In the ‘Control Surface’ drop-down menu select ‘SL MkIII’.

4. Next, select the ‘Novation SL MkIII (SL MkIII InControl)’ port (‘Novation SL MkIII (Port 2)’ on Windows) in the

drop-down menus of both the Input and Output options.

5. Finally, in the ‘MIDI Ports’ section set ‘Track’, ‘Sync’ and ‘Remote’ to ‘On’ for ‘Novation SL MkIII (SL MkIII

MIDI). Be sure to do this for both Input and Output options. Additionally, switch Track to ‘On’ for both

‘SL_MkIII Input’ and ‘SLMkIII Output’.

ii. Live Set Navigation

• Selection Ring

With the SL MkIII correctly connected to an Ableton Live Set you will see a ‘selection ring’ (red rectangle) in Live’s

Session View. After pressing the InControl button (if you have not already done so), the names of tracks currently

inside this selection ring will display at the bottom of the SL MkIII’s screens (‘Bass’ or ‘7-Audio’ for instance). The SL

MkIII can control these tracks in various ways: Pads represent and control the clips of tracks enclosed in the selection

ring, faders control track volume, and rotary knobs above the screens alter Live device parameters, to name a few of

InControl’s features. Read on to learn much more about controlling Ableton Live from your SL MkIII.

• Track Selection

One way to navigate through the tracks in your Ableton Live Set is with the Track Left and Track Right buttons (shown

above, lit green). Press the right Track button to select tracks to the right of the currently selected track; press the

left Track button to select tracks to the left. Selecting a track does not arm it, but does allow you to view or modify its

devices. (See the section 8x2 Soft Buttons to learn about track arming).

Since the red selection ring is just a visual aid, you can quickly move beyond its scope by pressing the right/left Track

buttons. When you do this the selection ring is ‘dragged’ along to include the newly selected track. Note that the selec-

tion ring can only contain eight tracks at a time.

Holding ‘Shift’ while pressing the Track Left and Track Right buttons will cause the selection ring to ‘jump’ in eight-track

increments (as track availability allows). A selected track will remain in the same relative position when jumping by

eight tracks. For example, if you have selected the second track and you then jump the selection ring eight tracks to

the right, the selected track will become the second track inside the new ring position, in other words, the tenth track.

When your selected track is the last track in a given direction, the Track button for that direction will become dark. This

indicates that you cannot go further in that direction. For example, if Live’s track number one is currently selected (e.g.

‘1 Simpler’), the left Track button will not light green since there are no tracks to the left.