If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know that I think shortcuts are essential to a good workflow. Unfortunately, not all menu items in Ableton Live offer a shortcut. The biggest oversight, in my opinion, is that the Collect All and Save function doesn’t have one. Whenever we drag samples or Max for Live devices into Live, they aren’t automatically saved to the Live Project folder. Especially for new users, this often results in missing samples. In the worst case, these samples can’t be located. So it is important to make Collect All and Save a habit. This would be a lot easier if there was a shortcut.
The good news is that you can create your own shortcut. In this video tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a shortcut for any menu item in Live on macOS. I’ll also show you how to modify others to suit your needs. And if you’re on Windows… While I can’t give you a full tutorial on how to add shortcuts as I no longer have a Windows computer, I have looked at free options that can help you either create or modify hotkeys (links below).
Watch the Video:
In macOS, this is a built-in feature, so there’s nothing to install or buy. Below you can see a screenshot which features I’ve created shortcuts for to improve my workflow, and which shortcuts I’ve chosen that are easy to remember, in case you want to simply adopt them.
Windows doesn’t have such a built-in feature, but there are ways how achieve the same functionality. I’ve focused on options that don’t require you to spend any money, but there are other programme you can buy. The first free one is AutoHotkey, which lets you create shortcuts, among other things. The second is Windows PowerToys, which allows you to change existing hotkeys and much more.
Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below. If you’re a Windows user who has set up the same functionality, please share what you’ve used.
