Session Notes

Simply sketch.

Notes that live with the set. Lyrics that land on the arrangement.

A minimal Markdown notepad for Ableton Live 12, built on the Ableton Live Extensions SDK. Jot lyrics, ideas, and to-dos without leaving Ableton Live, with clean, native-feeling typography and a render-by-default Markdown view. Tag a lyric line with a bar or timecode and drop it straight onto the arrangement.

Requires Ableton Live 12 with the Extensions feature (SDK 1.0.0-beta.0).

In pictures

Files to share: still, Paper · still, Night

Features

• Markdown, rendered by default. Write in Markdown; a single tap or ⌘E toggles between View and Edit. Headings, bullet/numbered lists, bold/italic, blockquotes, links, and clickable GFM task lists (- [ ] / - [x]).
• Lyrics on the arrangement. Tag a lyric line with its position, then send the block to the arrangement as locators or clips. Positions can be a bar ([17]), a bar and beat ([17.3]), a timecode ([1:04]), or a bit of math ([=8*4]). Untagged lines under a tag flow one bar apart, and a blank line ends the block so your prose and to-dos are left alone.
• Two kinds of notes:
  • Set notes are saved into a Session Notes/ folder inside the set's project folder, so they travel with the set when you move, share, or back it up. Keep as many as you like per set.
  • Global notes live with the extension, for anything not tied to a specific set.
• Manage notes in place. Create, rename, and delete notes from the dropdown; copy a note's path or reveal it in your file browser.
• Settings panel. Tune the note text size, pick a compact or default window, and flip on Zen Mode for distraction-free writing.
• Save-As aware. Start jotting in an unsaved set, then save it: the pad offers to carry those notes into the set's new project folder.
• Autosave on close. Close the pad (Done, ⌘S, or Esc) and it saves; Revert discards edits made since you opened it.
• Remembers your place. Reopens whatever note you had open last.
• Show file location and a built-in Markdown & lyric-timing help (the ? button).

See it in action

Write in Markdown, hit View to render it, then tag any lyric line with its position and send the block to the arrangement:

In the note (View)	Ready to send

They land on the arrangement as named locators (on the ruler) and clips (on a dedicated Lyrics track), lined up to the bars and timecodes you tagged:

Settings and the built-in help are a button away:

Settings	Markdown & lyric-timing help

Try it yourself: paste this into a note, switch to View, then press the send-to-arrangement button.

# Midnight Drive

Key: A minor · 128 BPM · ref: that Bonobo track

- [x] Track the drums
- [ ] Re-amp the bass on the second drop
- [ ] Mix the vocal louder in the bridge

Verse: keep it breathy, close-mic.

[1] low sun, high tide
swallow whole the off-key hums
[1:04] then slowly fade from sight

The # heading, the prose line, and the to-dos are left out; only the tagged block is sent to the arrangement. The untagged swallow whole the off-key hums flows one bar after [1].

Install

1. Download the latest Session-Notes-<version>.ablx from the Releases page.
2. In Ableton Live: Settings → Extensions, then drag the .ablx file onto the page.
3. Right-click a track, clip slot, or scene → Extensions → Session Notes: Open…

Usage notes

• Open it from the right-click menu on an audio/MIDI track, clip slot, or scene. (The SDK has no global menu, so it attaches to the objects you can reach almost anywhere.)
• Finding the project folder works even for MIDI-only sets: if there's no audio to trace, the extension briefly imports a tiny silent probe to learn where the project folder is, then removes it.
• An unsaved set has no project folder yet, so notes live in Ableton's temporary folder until you save. Save the set (and reopen it once) and your notes attach to it; a hint reminds you until then.

Develop

The Ableton Extensions SDK isn't included in this repo (its license doesn't allow redistribution). Get ableton-extensions-sdk-1.0.0-beta.0.tgz and ableton-extensions-cli-1.0.0-beta.0.tgz from Ableton and place them in vendor/ before installing.

Copy .env.example to .env and point EXTENSION_HOST_PATH at your local Ableton Live install (read by @ableton-extensions/cli, not tracked in git).

npm install
npm start        # build + run in Ableton Live's Extension Host (Developer Mode must be ON)
npm run build    # dev bundle
npm run package  # production bundle → Session-Notes-<version>.ablx

Node ≥ 22.11 is required (the SDK's minimum). Source lives in src/extension.ts (host logic) and src/interface.html (the webview UI).

License

MIT © Bengisu (@swwallowws)