Strip Silence

An Ableton Live extension that removes silence from audio tracks in the Arrangement view. Built with the Ableton Extensions SDK.

Installation

1. Download Strip-Silence-1.0.35.ablx from this page
2. Open Ableton Live → Preferences → Extensions
3. Drag and drop the .ablx file onto the Extensions page

Requires the Ableton Live beta build that supports Extensions.

Features

• Detects and removes silent regions from one or more audio tracks
• Works with both AIFF and WAV renders (follows your Record/Warp/Launch preference)
• Configurable threshold, minimum silence duration, pre-roll, and post-roll
• Option to snap cuts to the nearest beat
• Ripple edit — automatically closes the gaps after stripping, sliding clips together
• Right-click an arrangement time selection to process one or more tracks simultaneously
• Right-click a track header to process the full track automatically
• Renders only clip extents — skips empty gaps between clips for faster processing
• Remembers your last-used settings between sessions
• Styled with Ableton's own UI font and colour palette

Usage

From a time selection (one or more tracks):

1. In the Arrangement view, drag a time selection across the region you want to process
2. Right-click anywhere in the selection → Strip Silence
3. Adjust the settings and click Strip Silence

From a track header (single track, full extent):

1. Right-click any audio track header → Strip Silence
2. Adjust the settings and click Strip Silence

Settings

Setting	Description
Threshold	Signal level below which audio is considered silence (dB)
Minimum Duration	Shortest gap that counts as silence — shorter gaps are ignored
Pre-roll	Silence kept before the next sound starts
Post-roll	Silence kept after the previous sound ends
Cut to nearest beat	Snaps each cut point to the nearest beat
Ripple edit	Slides clips together after cutting, closing the gaps

Development

All source files are in the source/ folder.

Prerequisites

• Node.js ≥ 24.14.1
• The Ableton Extensions SDK (available to beta testers via Ableton's Centercode program — place the .tgz files in source/vendor/)

Setup

cd source
npm install

Scripts

npm start          # build (dev) + load into Live via Developer Mode
npm run build:dev  # dev bundle with sourcemaps
npm run build      # production bundle
npm run package    # bump patch version, build, and move .ablx to repo root

npm run package automatically increments the patch version and places the new .ablx in the repo root ready to commit.

License

MIT © Ellis Moss