About Song Sketch
Song Sketch 2 is an arrangement tool for Ableton Live
Song Sketch is a tool for creating and working with song arrangement in Ableton Live. In Song Sketch, you can load, import, edit and create different arrangement patterns and apply them to your loops. In this way, you can quickly draft an arrangement, experiment with different options and evaluate alternative arrangements for the music that you are composing.
Song Sketch 2 is available in a Pro Pack and a Starter Pack:
- The Pro Pack includes the full version of Song Sketch 2 and a total of 172 arrangement templates in 14 different styles: Hip Hop, House, Deep House, Techno, Dance & Mainstage, Pop, Drum & Bass, Trap, Reggae & Dancehall, Trance, Reggaeton, Downtempo, Disco and Rock & Country.
- The Starter Pack includes the full version of Song Sketch 2 and a total of 72 arrangement templates in 12 different styles: Hip Hop, House, Techno, Dance & Mainstage, Pop, Drum & Bass, Trap, Reggae & Dancehall, Trance, Reggaeton, Downtempo, and Rock & Country.
Add-on templates are also available in the shop.
The Song Sketch Workflow
The Song Sketch workflow takes you from a loop to a full track in a few steps:
- Start with your loop. Start with the loop that you are working on. You can use midi- and audio clips of different lengths. For each track or group of tracks, you can use either just one scene of clips or several different scenes.
- Apply an arrangement pattern. Load a template with an arrangement pattern for the genre. You can either use preset templates in Song Sketch, or you can create your own templates. In Live 11, it is also possible to import the structure of an arrangement into Song Sketch.
- Assign parts. When loading a template, your tracks will be matched with the different tracks in the template. Before placing the arrangement, consider how the tracks are assigned and make the adjustments that you like.
- Define scenes. You now have a draft arrangement to start working from. If you are using several scenes, for example if you like to use a different chord progression in choruses, select in which section each scene should be used.
- Play back the first draft. Click the "To Arr" button to place the arrangement onto the Live Arrangement View and play back to hear the first draft.
- Edit. Edit the song structure in Song Sketch, for example by changing the length of sections, adding new sections, drawing bars and adding automation.
- Play back and continue your workflow in the Arrangement View. Update the Live Arrangement View and listen to your result. You now have a starting point for a track and can continue your workflow in the Live Arrangement View, for example to work on layering sounds, creating variation throughout the track and adding automation.
Arrangement Templates
Song Sketch comes with a set of arrangement templates in different genres and styles. Applying various arrangement templates enables you to quickly test your loops in a full length song. You can also customise the arrangements, for instance by applying the pattern to your loops in different ways, or by editing the length and placement of the different parts of your song. Any work you do in Song Sketch can be saved as a new arrangement template. You can also create your own templates from scratch.
How we create our arrangement templates - read more on our Blog.
Song Sketch 2 System Requirements
Song Sketch is a Max for Live plugin and works with:
- Mac OS (Sierra or later), or Windows 10/11.
- Ableton Live 10/11/12 Suite, or Live 10/11/12 Standard with Max For Live 8 as an add-on license. Max for Live version 8.3.1 or later
- Ableton 10 users may need to update Max for Live to version 8.3.1, this is a free update for Suite users.
- Minimum 8GB RAM, recommended 8GB+.