So I just wanted to give my thoughts on the Ableton Move here. I was seeing numerous conversations around it during the hype phase and when it came out.

Many people saw it when it came out and said “oh hey it’s 4 tracks, it’s too basic, etc.” I think that’s not entirely incorrect, but at the same time I think those comments are a bit misguided. It’s true it only has 4 tracks. It’s true that sound design is somewhat limited. It’s also true that its workflow is somewhat basic. This last one though is frankly one of its best features.

Let’s say I’ve got an idea bouncing around in my head for a track. I could fire up something like an MPC or Ableton Live and start recording it. I need to go in, pick out the instruments I want, set my tempo, maybe set my key, etc…there’s a bit of pre-work that needs to be done, and then I can record.

On the Move, I turn it on, pick an empty set, maybe pick a key and just start noodling. If I use capture, I just noodle around, push capture - done. Well, for one track anyway. But in doing that, I have instruments out of the box ready to go. Maybe they aren’t the best for what I’m feeling, but I can change that later. Because I hit capture, it went ahead and guessed the tempo for me, and that is automatically applied to the rest of the tracks. So from there, just pop over to another track, rinse and repeat.

One thing that bugged me was that my kit didn’t have a shaker in it. So what did I do? I grabbed a little wooden shaker egg I had nearby, hit the sample button, sampled with the onboard mic and suddenly I had my shaker sample.

Oh, my hi hat was too loud? No bother. Just hold down the hi hat pad and turn down the volume encoder. Done.

All this is to say that while yes, it has its limitations, it is VERY good for getting ideas down quickly, and I’ve found it’s led me to pump out more creativity. Will I record an entire track on it? Nah, probably not. But it will let me record something quickly that I can flesh out later.

This message brought to you by Dunkin’, because why not.

What gear do you all think got a bad rap, and why do you love it?