Over the last few posts we’ve been considering a number of ways to make running sets in session view easier, but now, let’s turn our attention back to arrangement view.

Building sets in arrangement view can be time consuming especially if you haven’t got a solid system for doing so. One workaround is to build a master set list, however, the problem with a master set list in arrangement view is it can get quite messy and hard to keep track of where you are. 

Let’s say you’re in a cover band and you have a bank of 70-80 songs. You’ll need to find a way to navigate your setlist, for example using a MIDI controller and assigning song one to the first button, and so on. You’ll need to repeat this process every time you’ve got a set, which may be fine, but one potential pitfall is having to manually find a song during a show because of a mistake during setup or spontaneity. In this post we’re looking at how a set list plugin can help us organise a master set list in arrangement view.

Introducing Setlist Plug-ins

There are a few options out there but the main idea is that the plug-in will be able to locate and categorise songs so they can be sorted into a list which is more easily accessed and arranged.

So, rather than having to sort through a 70-80 song long Ableton file, the plug-in will list the songs and give the option to add the songs you want to a setlist that you can name, save and load up. You can also reorder set lists without affecting the Ableton file. It can control some of Ableton’s functionality like Play/Pause, Stop, Loop from the plug-in, which is MIDI assignable.

Some Suggestions

Here are a few suggestions for Setlist plug-ins.

Setlist by Strange Electronic ($299)

https://www.strangeelectronic.com/product-page/setlist

Ableset by LeoLabs ($149)

https://ableset.app

Conductor by Full Fat (£69)

Image 3

https://www.fullfat.co/conductor

Closing Thoughts

Our weapon of choice is an app called Conductor by a company named Full Fat however, there isn’t a ton about it online. We’ll be diving into how we use it and how it can be helpful to you in our next post.

Thanks for reading!