Can you suppress a new midi track from being created when dropping the .als lyrics onto your arrangement view set?

General
1

I’m pretty new to AbleSet. I have created a 60 song set and mapped all the tempos, etc. Now I’m using the lyric generator to add lyrics. I’ve only done two songs so far but I noticed every time I try to drop a new lyric.als a new midi track is added and the lyrics start at the beginning of song 1. So highlighted all the lyrics associated with song 2 cut and pasted them in the same Vocal +Lyrics track that was created with song 1. This is obviously a bit cumbersome and won’t be as easy when I’m adding lyrics to song 40 for example. What can I do to simplify the process? Is there a way to suppress the automatic creation of a new midi track and drop it in a specific location?

2

Hey @DSchutt, welcome to the forum!

What you’re experiencing is expected behavior from Ableton Live itself. When you drag any .als file into Live, it always drops the contents at the beginning of the timeline. That’s how Live handles importing projects.

So the workflow is exactly what you’ve been doing: generate the lyrics track for each song, drag it in, then cut and paste the clips into the correct position on your existing +LYRICS track. It’s a bit tedious upfront, but once all 60 songs are in place, you won’t need to touch it again.

Hope that clears it up!

3

What I do is find that .als lyrics project in ableton folder (usually in my download folder), unfold it (little arrow next to it), copy the Vocal + Lyrics “Track”. Then paste at the playhead position on my (already created) lyrics track in ableton.

2 Likes
5

Thank you for your response. Felix’s answer below is a bit more streamlined. Do “Open with” on your Mac or PC Ableton it will open a new project with just the lyrics. Do Select All, Copy. Then open your Setlist and drop right into the song in the exising lyric track right where you want it.

1 Like
6

Thanks for jumping in, @Felix-Antoine_Berger!

@DSchutt that works too! In the end, both approaches get to the same place. It really comes down to personal preference.

  • Dragging from the browser keeps you in your main session the whole time — you just deal with the new track appearing at bar 1 and move the clips from there.
  • Opening each .als separately (as you described) lets you copy and paste directly to the playhead position, which can feel more precise, but means switching back and forth between projects.

Whichever feels more natural to you is the right call!