Good morning!
I am currently working on a set for my church in AbleSet and I am trying to essentially run one lyrics MIDI so that I don’t have to have my musicians switch songs, but I need to transpose.
I tried doing the “[+2] in the locator for the song name, but nothing is changing. What am I doing wrong?
Hey @Ben_Morgan, welcome to the forum!
Just to make sure I’m reading this right, a couple of questions:
When you say “run one lyrics MIDI so that musicians don’t have to switch songs” — do you mean using a single lyrics track to cover multiple songs?
What are you expecting [+2] to transpose — the chord labels shown in the Lyrics view, or the actual audio/MIDI of your backing tracks?
I’m asking because the [+2] flag only shifts chord displays in a lyrics track that uses ChordPro notation (e.g., [F] I know you tried...). It doesn’t touch the audio or MIDI in your Ableton session. So if your lyrics clips don’t contain bracketed chords, the flag won’t produce any visible change.
If your notation looks right and the chords still aren’t moving, could you send over a Log Package? You can create one by opening AbleSet’s icon tray, clicking the gear icon, and selecting “Create Log Package”. Please include your project files as well (just the .als files, no audio needed), and upload everything to AbleSet’s support inbox.
A short screen recording of your session setup (locator name, lyrics track, clip names) and what you’re seeing in AbleSet would also be a huge help.
In the meantime, you can also see the chord-transpose feature in action in the official tutorial.
I’m looking forward to your reply!
Hey Agustin! Thanks for your response.
Essentially my idea is to run 1 MIDI Track as the lyrics and chords to follow with the tracks on ableton. This is my goal so that my musicians don’t have to manually switch songs in the tab of ableset, but everything flows together.
However, the problem I am facing is that I have musicians that run capos so I was wondering 1.) what is the most efficient way to have 2 different setsof chords (Ab and then G for another player) projecting onto their tablets for ableset.
My other problem (which is the primary one) is that if I use only one midi clip/channel to run the automated lyrics and chords, it won’t let me transpose per song. I can only transpose in renaming the midi track, but it’s not engaging whenever I change the beginning locator name from “Yahweh we love you” to “Yahweh we love you [+2]” it’ll acknowledge that I have the bracket there (because it shows in the actual set) but it doesn’t transpose the +2 semitones I’m needing.
If you need more clarification I’ll send pictures, later!
Hey @Ben_Morgan, thanks for the extra info!
1. Two musicians, two different chord sets
The cleanest way is to use multiple lyrics tracks. You can flag more than one MIDI track as +LYRICS in the same session, and each device picks which one to view from a dropdown in the Lyrics page. Example:
Chords GTR1 +LYRICS
Chords GTR2 +LYRICS [-1]
Same clips, same chords —in this example, the second track is just transposed at the track level. Each musician picks their track on their tablet and they’re set.
2. [+2] in the song locator not transposing
That’s odd, the flag should be consumed by AbleSet (you shouldn’t see [+2] in the setlist view, it should just apply silently).
Ssince per-track transpose works for you but per-song doesn’t (and it seems just what you need in this case), could you please share:
.als files (no audio needed) and upload everything to AbleSet’s support inbox.I’m looking forward to your reply!
Hey Agustin! So sorry I’m just responding, it’s been a crazy week! I tried to attach my video but since I’m a new user, it won’t allow me. I followed you and messaged you on instagram if you have a chance to respond, there!