Ableset Cues: Custom Cues work for some songs but not others

Support
1

I have uploaded my own library/folder of custom cues and it works perfectly for one song but not the next even utlizing the exact same section names/etc. Once I enable the built in voices like “Sarah” then the song that was not saying any cues begins to work. Any thoughts/Ideas?

  • OS and Version: (macOS Tahoe 26.5)
  • Version of AbleSet: (3.1.0)
  • Version of Ableton Live: (12.3.6)
2

Hey @Cjbelt14,

Thanks for the description!

Here’s how custom cues resolve under the hood:

  • Custom cue files live in a Custom folder inside the Cues folder of that project’s AbleSet folder, and they’re matched by exact filename = the spoken phrase (mono WAV).
  • When a phrase is about to be spoken, AbleSet looks for a match in this order: selected custom voice folder → default Custom folder → and only then falls back to a generated (TTS) voice.
  • If no custom file matches and no TTS voice is available, that phrase will stay silent.

So the fact that enabling “Sarah” makes the missing cues play tells us those phrases weren’t matching any of your custom WAVs in that song, as AbleSet had nothing to fall back on before. Two common reasons for that:

  1. Separate projects: the Cues/Custom folder is per-project. If those songs are separate Live sets (e.g. a Multi-File Project), your custom files only apply to the project folder they’re actually in — they won’t carry over to another project’s folder.
  2. Subtle name mismatches: filenames have to match the phrase exactly — “Verse 1” vs “Verse”, an extra space, or different capitalization will miss. (There’s a “Fall Back to Section Titles Without a Number” setting that helps specifically with the numbered case.)

To pin it down, could you let me know:

  • Are these songs separate project files, or sections within the same project?
  • Where exactly did you place the custom WAVs (which folder)?
  • Do the filenames match the failing song’s phrases character-for-character?

I’m looking forward to your reply!

3

To answer your questions:

  1. These are sections within the same project. We always collect all and save to send out sessions to multiple campuses. So all the necessary files are all within one Project file.

  2. The custom wavs are in Ableset>Cues>Custom MultiTracks.
    I had a folder just named Custom, but the drop down menu in settings still said none. After naming it “Custom MultiTracks” It had the option to select “MultiTracks” and the cues began playing.

  3. Yes! I double checked the naming to make sure it all matched. You’ll see below that the cues do play correctly when clicking through the session just not during playback.

    —————————————————————————————————————————————-

    So today I enabled the “Auto-Speak Section Titles” and “Include Section Descriptions”. The cues play correctly when I’m just clicking through the session, but not during playback you’ll see what I mean in the screen recording. So if they play correctly just clicking through the session that tells me the sections do match the Wav file names. At least for this particular song it seems to count into the song correctly but then gets no other cues as it plays.
    I Also can hear the description play while I’m clicking through the session correctly but not during playback.

Thank you for your help!

4

Hey @Cjbelt14,

Thanks for the detailed report and the video!

Could you please create a Log Package? You can create one by opening AbleSet’s icon tray, clicking the gear icon, and then selecting “Create Log Package”. Ideally, reproduce the exact scenario from your screen recording right before creating it.

Please make sure to include your project files as well (just the .als files, no audio needed). You can upload everything to AbleSet’s support inbox.

I’m looking forward to your reply!

5

Just got them sent off! Thank You!

6

Hey CJ I’m sure it’s just a bug for now, for some reason opening up the project file with a cues voice already saved onto it causes this issue. I would try changing the voice once the project has already been opened to another one. That’s the only workaround I could find that helped. But AbleSet kind of uses both voices:(for me) Jacob During playback and Sophie while paused and skipping around the timeline.

7

I gave that a try but still the same result unfortunately! The current session I’m working on doesn’t announce any cues on Song 1 and works flawlessly on Song 2. That’s with custom cues or the built in ones. I’m sure they’ll come up with a bug fix soon!

8

Hey @Cjbelt14, I just managed to reproduce the issue on my end and will ship a fix with the next version of AbleSet in the near future. The cause is that some of your songs have too many sections for the cues plugin to process at once, which shouldn’t be a limitation of course.

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9

Hey @Jorge_Flores, welcome to the forum!

I think I also found a fix for the issue you described. I’ll try to ship an update with a fix today :slight_smile:

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10

Thank you sir! Looks like 3.1.2 Fixed my issue. I’ll keep testing for sure, but we plan to guinea pig this feature at my campus this sunday!

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