What you can ask for
Written the way you’d say it, not the way it’s implemented. Each entry is something Tine performs in your open set — and where a capability has a limit, it says so here rather than after you’ve bought.
30 of the 38 show tested phrasings: those exact words are run against a real Ableton session by our test suite, on every model below, and what Tine said back is quoted verbatim — transcripts, not examples.
They are a floor, not a syntax. You can be much vaguer than these, and how vague you can be scales with the model you run: a small local model wants a clear verb and a clear target, a larger one follows pronouns and implied targets, and the hosted model takes the most roundabout phrasing and the most compound requests. The capability underneath is identical — what changes is how much interpretation sits in front of it.
Playing & recording
Start and stop playback
One word each. "Play" and "stop" run the transport in about a third of a second, without reaching for the space bar — useful when both hands are on an instrument and the keyboard isn't.
tested phrasings- “play”
- “stop”
- “start playback”
- “hit play”
- “stop the transport”
The metronome, in one word
Say “metronome” and the click comes on; say it again and it’s off. A button, not a sentence — it answers in under half a second, and it reads the click’s real state first, so it still works after you’ve toggled it by hand.
tested phrasings- “metronome”
- “metronome off”
- “turn the click on”
Set the tempo
Change the project tempo by saying the number, mid-session, without stopping what you're playing.
tested phrasings- “set the tempo to 90”
- “change the tempo to 128”
- “make it 100 bpm”
Launch clips and scenes
Fire a named clip or a whole scene, and stop them again, without hunting for the right slot in a full Session grid.
tested phrasings- “fire the seed clip on the RecScratch track”
- “stop all clips”
Arm a track and set monitoring
Arm the track you're about to play and set its monitoring, so the take starts on your terms instead of after a detour to the mouse.
tested phrasings- “arm Lead”
- “arm the Lead track for recording”
- “record enable the Lead track”
Record a take over a bar range
Punch in and out over a range you name out loud — "bars 5 to 8" — with the transport, the punch points and the record mode all set for you. This is the operation voice wins outright: your hands are already committed.
tested phrasings- “record a take on the RecScratch track”
- “record a take over bars 5 to 8 on the RecScratch track”
- “start recording a new clip on the RecScratch track from bar 4”
Choose between your takes, hands free
limitsPlay a few passes at a part, then pick one out loud — "keep the last take" — without stopping to drag anything. You can audition first ("play take 1"), and the take stays the subject afterwards, so "keep that one" means the one you just heard. Nothing else is thrown away: the other passes stay in their lanes.
tested phrasings- “keep the last take”
- “keep the first take”
- “keep take 2”
- “play take 1”
Move between Session and Arrangement
Switch views and hand playback back to the timeline, so you actually hear the arrangement again after working in Session.
tested phrasings- “switch to arrangement view”
- “take me back to session view”
Tracks & mixing
Create a named track
Add a MIDI or audio track that arrives already named, instead of a Track 7 you rename later — or never.
tested phrasings- “make a midi track called Keys”
- “add an audio track called Gtr”
Delete or duplicate a track by name
Refer to a track the way you think about it. When two tracks could match, Tine asks which one rather than picking.
tested phrasings- “delete the Scrap track”
- “duplicate the Lead track”
Set a track's volume in dB
Say the level you want in the units the mixer shows, rather than dragging a fader towards it.
tested phrasings- “turn the Lead volume down to -6 dB”
- “set the Lead volume to -3 dB”
Pan a track
Place a track in the stereo field by description — hard left, slightly right, back to centre.
tested phrasings- “pan the Lead hard left”
- “pan the Lead slightly right”
Mute and solo
The fastest thing to do by hand, and still worth saying when your hands are on an instrument mid-take.
tested phrasings- “mute the Lead track”
- “solo the Lead track”
Sends and return tracks
Set how much of a track feeds a return, and create returns to send to — the routing chore, spoken.
tested phrasings- “turn up send A on the Lead track”
Rename, colour and fold tracks
Housekeeping that everyone postpones: naming, colour-coding and folding groups so a session stays readable.
tested phrasings- “rename the Lead track to Melody”
- “make the Lead track blue”
Clips & notes
Create a clip of a given length
Make an empty MIDI or audio clip in the slot you mean, at the length you say, ready to play into.
tested phrasings- “make a two bar clip in slot 2 on the RecScratch track”
Write notes into a clip
Name the notes — "C E G C" — or the pattern — "a kick on every beat" — and they land in the clip. Tine writes what you said; it does not invent a part for you.
tested phrasings- “make a one bar clip on the Lead track with the notes C E G C”
- “put a kick on every beat on the Drums track”
Clear notes from a clip
Empty a clip, or remove what you just put in, without selecting anything by hand first.
tested phrasings- “clear the notes from the Lead clip”
Delete or duplicate a clip
Refer to clips by name or by where you're looking. Deleting a clip with content in it asks first.
tested phrasings- “delete the seed clip on the RecScratch track”
- “duplicate the Lead clip”
Set a clip's loop
Loop a clip, or set exactly which bars it loops over, spoken in bars and beats rather than dragged.
tested phrasings- “loop the Lead clip”
Clip launch settings
Launch mode, quantization and legato for a clip — the settings behind the Clip view's launch panel.
tested phrasings- “set the Lead clip to legato launch mode”
Warp an audio clip
limitsTurn warping on or off for a clip and choose the warp algorithm by name.
Rename and colour clips
Label takes as you record them, so "the chorus one" is something you can actually say later.
tested phrasings- “rename the Lead clip to Hook”
Devices & sound
Load an instrument or effect
Put a device on a track by name — no browser navigation, no dragging onto the right track.
tested phrasings- “add an EQ Eight to the Lead track”
Set a device parameter in real units
Say the value the way the device displays it — "decay time to 2 seconds" — instead of converting to a 0-to-1 knob position.
tested phrasings- “set the reverb decay time to 2 seconds”
Bypass or remove a device
A/B a device without finding its power button, or take it off the chain entirely.
tested phrasings- “turn off the reverb on the Lead track”
Draw automation inside a clip
Describe the shape — a fade in over the clip, a sweep across two bars — and it's written as clip automation.
tested phrasings- “add a volume fade-in over the Lead clip”
Arrangement
Copy a Session clip into the Arrangement
Take the loop you've been jamming on and place it on the timeline at the bar you name.
tested phrasings- “copy the Lead clip to the arrangement”
Move and repeat clips on the timeline
Shift a section to a different bar, or repeat it across the next eight — the block-moving part of arranging, spoken.
tested phrasings- “move the Lead arrangement clip to bar 9”
Set the arrangement loop
Loop the section you're working on by naming its bars, instead of dragging the loop brace to them.
tested phrasings- “loop bars 1 to 4 in the arrangement”
Build and fire scenes
Create, duplicate, name and launch scenes — the structure layer of a Session-view set.
tested phrasings- “create a new scene called Chorus”
Saving & exporting
Save without touching Live
Saves your set with no window coming to the front and no dialog interrupting you. Live's own scripting interface cannot save a project at all — this is one of the operations Tine reaches deeper to get.
Render audio in the background
Drives the whole export — format, range, destination — while you keep working in another window. Also out of reach of Live's scripting interface.
Bounce a clip or track to audio
Commit a part to a WAV without setting up an export by hand.
Separate a clip into stems
Split audio into vocals, drums, bass and everything else, with the parts arriving back as tracks in your set rather than as files to re-import.
Turn audio into MIDI
Convert a recorded part into notes you can edit, using Live's own conversion.
Run an operation across a whole set
Apply the same thing to every clip on a track, or every track in a set, as one instruction. This only works unattended because the operations underneath never need the foreground.
Start a new Live set
Open a clean set without leaving what you're doing to click through Live's menus.
And the things it deliberately doesn’t do
A question is not an instruction, and thinking out loud in front of an open microphone is not a command. An assistant that edits your set because you wondered something aloud is one you switch off — so these are tested with the same weight as everything above, except the test asserts that nothing changed.
A question, not an instruction. Tine answers it and leaves your set alone.
Asking about a feature is not asking for it to be applied to the clip you happen to have selected.
Answers the question without switching your view to demonstrate.
Thinking out loud in front of an open microphone. Nothing is added, nothing is changed.