In our last post, we discussed some reasons why we suggest using a setlist management plug-in. In this post we’ll be getting into the basics of how the one we use, Conductor, works. So, let’s get started.
(Note: You will need Ableton Live 11 and Max for Live in order to run Conductor.)
Getting Started With Conductor
You’ve got standard functions such as play, stop, loop, previous track, next track, previous section, next section. You can also see the name of the track, the current section, the upcoming section.

Play
Starts playback (but is disabled afterwards to avoid accidentally re-triggering songs)
Stop
Press once stops playback
Press twice moves playhead to the start of the current song
Press 3 times moves playhead to the start of the current set
Loop
Toggles section loop
Count-In
Gives a count-in when starting playback (helpful for rehearsals!)
Song Navigation
Previous song – jumps to the previous song (quantised)
Next song – jumps to next song (quantised)
Section Navigation
Previous section – jumps to the previous section
Next section – jumps to next section
(NOTE: You cannot skip past sections using the previous/next section buttons)
Reload
Updates Conductor with any changes in Ableton
Expand
Opens Conductors expanded view
Final Thoughts
If this interests you, you can grab a copy of Conductor here. We’ll continue to give a breakdown in our upcoming posts, so stay tuned.
Thanks for reading!
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