Is the Ableton Move Worth it?
Overview
The Ableton Move is a compact, standalone music-making instrument built for spontaneous creativity. It has over 1,500 presets and sounds making it a “sketch pad on steroids” for musicians and producers who want to capture ideas anywhere.
Looking at the hardware itself, this device is packed with a rechargeable battery (around 4 hours fully charged). It comes equipped with its own speaker and microphone. It also includes stereo lines outputs, USB-C and USB-A ports. These make it easy to plug into a computer and use in midi mode. The obvious 32 velocity sensitive pads and 16 sequencer buttons make it great for production workflow.
My thoughts
I’ve had the Ableton Move for a couple of months now and I have been loving it. When I don’t have my computer with me, I bring the Ableton Move and I have been able to make full tracks and release them on Beatstars or even Spotify without any limitations. According to Ableton themselves, the entire point of the product is to start ideas on the Move, and then bring it into Ableton to finish them up. As an FL Studio user, I never did this; I have been able to start and fully finish tracks using only the Ableton Move.
Here is an example of a track I made 100% using the Ableton Move:
Wave House by Yashi Beats
The biggest thing that drives people away from the Ableton Move is the 4 track limitation. Look, if you’re going to be making some crazy EDM with insane drops and layers, then of course 4 tracks is not going to be enough. But for me, 4 tracks is always enough; all I do is have three tracks for melodic parts (like chords, leads, etc.) and one track for drums and bass. There’s been times where maybe I did want to add more melodic tracks, the Ableton Move allows you to add any instrument to a drum pad in a kit (not just drums). I never feel limited to only having 4 tracks.
I love the workflow that the Ableton Move provides. Upon starting a new project, it fills the tracks with 4 random instruments; a drum track, two melodic tracks, and one bass track. A lot of the times when I don’t have an idea in mind, these random instruments will instantly give me something to build on. I also love the fact that you can change the pad mode to a specific key. This makes it super easy to come up with chord progressions and melodies that will always be in key. The drum sequencer is also really helpful and it honestly reminds me of the drum sequencer in FL Studio a bit.
There are quite a lot of sounds and preset, over 1,500 to be exact. This is really nice for when I have a melody, I can quickly change between sounds and figure out which one I like the best. Adding effects with the built in knobs is really nice and intuitive, although you can only add two effects to one track at a time. I added my own drums and own shots to the Ableton Move, making it even easier to go for the sound I want.
Earlier this year, I went on a month long trip around the world and I brought the Ableton Move with me. It was so much fun to get inspiration and put it down easily into the Move. Most of the beats I made that trip was on the Ableton Move
It’s a great product, but…
Although the Ableton Move is one of my favorite music production tools, there are some things I don’t particularly like about it. One of the first things I noticed when I tried it out for the first time was the built in speaker, it’s really bad. I don’t know if I got one from the bad batch but I noticed that when I use the Ableton Move, I have to use it with other speakers or headphones. I have also noticed that although the battery is listed as “around 4 hours”, mine is a little closer to 2 - 3 hours. I also wish there was an easier way to use it as regular midi controller for other DAWS. (But who knows, maybe there will be an update in the future for this).
I honestly love the Ableton Move so much. It’s been so helpful for traveling, inspiration, boredom and much more. It’s super fun to use; I even let my friend produce beats on it for a bit and he said “Bro this is literally just a video game, I could probably do this for like 5 hours”.
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