Surfaces
Ableton Live extension prototype - paused
Leave Red Pen review notes on clips, tracks, scenes, and arrangement positions while you produce - the same notes model you use on the web, brought inside Ableton Live.
1.0.0-beta.0) - it is not on npm, it is distributed through a closed Centercode program, and it only runs against a matching Live Beta build. Because the platform itself is pre-release, Red Pen for Ableton is paused and tracked as a personal dog-food tool. There is nothing to install yet. This page documents what exists and what is intentionally deferred, so the design is on record for when the SDK ships publicly.
What it is
Red Pen for Ableton is a Live extension - a Node.js plus TypeScript project that Live loads, not a Max for Live device. It brings the Red Pen concept into the DAW: while you are working on a track, you can attach a typed note to a specific musical object instead of keeping a mental list or a separate document. "Fix the timing on this clip", "this scene needs a transition", "the drop at bar 49 is too quiet" - each becomes a note pinned to the thing it is about.
It is the third proof of the same thesis behind the whole family: one portable, vanilla-JavaScript notes panel sitting on top of a local store. On WordPress the store is the database, on Node it is a file, and in Ableton it is a file in the extension's own storage directory - the same face over a different backend.
How you use it
The extension adds a single right-click entry, Red Pen, across the surfaces a producer note attaches to. Right-click any of the following and choose Red Pen to open the notes board, pre-anchored to whatever you clicked:
- A MIDI clip or an audio clip
- A MIDI track or an audio track
- A scene
- An empty clip slot
- An arrangement time-selection (a range you have selected on a track in the Arrangement view)
Opening Red Pen without a specific target gives you a general, unanchored note. Whatever you clicked becomes the new note's anchor, so you do not have to describe where the issue is - the note already knows.
The notes board
Because the Live SDK exposes a real webview for extension UI, the entire Red Pen panel runs inside Live almost verbatim. It opens as a modal dialog, themed with Live's own dark-theme tokens plus the Red Pen brand red so it reads as part of the host. Inside the board you get the familiar workflow:
- Open and Resolved tabs with live counts.
- An add form with a note type (Note, Idea, Problem, Question) and a priority.
- Resolve, reopen, and delete on each note.
- Threaded replies for back-and-forth on a single note.
- Keyboard shortcuts - Ctrl or Cmd plus Enter to add a note, Esc or Done to close.
Anchors
Every note records what it was attached to, so it stays identifiable even though the board is not a live overlay. An anchor captures:
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| kind | clip, track, scene, arrangement, or general |
| label | A human-readable description of the target, shown in the board |
| track / clip / scene name | The names captured at click time, so a note reads "Clip: Lead (Synths)" rather than an opaque reference |
| beat range | For an arrangement selection, the start and end position in beats |
Time and beat ranges are the most durable anchors because they describe a position rather than an object identity. Object anchors (a specific clip or track) are captured by name and position and degrade gracefully if you later restructure the set - the same trade-off a CSS selector makes on a web page.
Where your notes are stored
This is worth being explicit about, because it is a common worry: Red Pen never writes into your .als project file. Notes are saved to an external JSON file, completely separate from the Set. When the extension is packaged and installed normally, it uses the per-extension storage directory that Live provides. In developer mode - where Live does not hand the extension a storage directory - it falls back to a stable folder in your home directory:
~/.red-pen-ableton/notes.jsonSo your project file is untouched, and your notes survive across sessions in a plain file you can read, back up, or move.
Current limitations and what is deferred
In the spirit of being honest about a prototype, here is what is intentionally not done yet:
- The board closes after each action. This is fine for quickly capturing a note, but less convenient for working through a batch of them in one sitting. A commit-and-reopen flow is a possible future upgrade.
- One global note store. The SDK does not expose the current Set's file path, so there is no automatic per-project scoping yet. Anchor labels carry track and clip names so notes remain identifiable, but all notes currently share a single store. Per-Set scoping via native cue points is a planned enhancement.
- No locator mirroring yet. A note's anchor is captured and stored, but it is not yet mirrored as a native Live cue point or locator you could jump to. Writing time-anchored notes as cue points - so they travel inside the
.alsand you can navigate to them - is on the roadmap. - In-Live verification is a manual developer step. Loading and testing the extension currently requires the Live Beta build with Developer Mode enabled and the extension host running.
When will this ship?
Red Pen for Ableton is gated on the Live Extensions SDK reaching general availability. The extension model is a strong fit - a real web UI, a clean typed object model, and a sanctioned place to persist data - so the plan is to keep it as a personal prototype, dog-fooded on real music work, until the platform is publicly shippable. At that point it becomes a candidate for release, with the deferred items above (per-Set scoping, cue-point locators, batch triage) as the natural first round of work. Track its status and the planned features on the Roadmap.