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I want to export my multi-track compositions in Ableton to MIDI to make them usable in Sibelius and to make them less susceptible to "ageing out" (what with proprietary project formats and all that annoying jazz). I can't seem to find an easy way of turning .als files into a batch of .midis or anything similar. Any ideas?

You can export one track to MIDI, but it's way, way, too cumbersome to manually flatten all of my tracks into one and then export that; not least because you can't have unison notes without destroying information in one of the tracks.

I don't care about preserving any timbre/instrument information whatsoever - let's pretend that it's just raw note information completely abstracted from implementation and production (but if we can keep that, too, all the merrier).

Thanks.

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    I don't think this is possible. You can go to the arrange view, and on each of the midi tracks, select the entire time range of the song and then consolidate (ctrl+j) the midi clips. This will create one midi clip per track but it doesn't seem like a nice solution.
    – Magrangs
    Commented Sep 28, 2012 at 8:16
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    there is no way you can do this in Ableton live.
    – 1ucid
    Commented Mar 20, 2013 at 17:18
  • Surely there must be an easier way than using MIDI Yolk or an IAC Driver and rerouting your session!
    – ClSMIDIG
    Commented Jan 3, 2014 at 13:37
  • 1
    Just found this useful service: ofoct.com/merge-midi-files
    – Konstantin Voloskovich
    Commented Mar 21, 2020 at 23:00

1 Answer 1

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Alternative 1: Scripting Software:

It seems that Ableton Live hasn't such functionality (batch midi exporting). But you could try to use some scripting software like AutoIt, AutoHotkey or WinAutomation. Give it a try. (Considering it's possible to export midi for individual tracks).

WinAutomation will appear more user-friendly, the construction of scripts rely on a list with all commands and a nice description of them. See:

enter image description here

AutoIt is more like a compiler, you'll program by typing, not by clicking as WinAutomation:

enter image description here

Alternative 2: MIDI Yoke:

You could also use MIDI Yoke as well. It'll create virtual MIDI ports in your computer - just route every Ableton Live midi channel to one of these ports, then open a multi-track MIDI recorder and put it to record from MIDI Yoke ports, now you'll just need to press play on ableton live and wait until the end of the music.

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  • I appreciate the effort, but I don't think UI-automaton scripts like AutoHotKey et al really count. You could equally apply these to everything; the end result is always a hack. My question was really asking if there was somewhere in the Ableton API to export all as MIDI.
    – iono
    Commented May 13, 2013 at 19:12
  • Yes. I assumed there isn't one - then I answered with something that may be useful, a hack in the case.
    – Pristine Kavalostka
    Commented May 13, 2013 at 19:27
  • I guess there's also another idea: You could use MIDI Yoke and use it's ports for transfering MIDI from one program to another.
    – Pristine Kavalostka
    Commented May 13, 2013 at 19:34
  • Oh, I hadn't heard of MIDI Yoke! This seems really useful; thanks!
    – iono
    Commented May 14, 2013 at 3:10
  • I'll add in the answer.
    – Pristine Kavalostka
    Commented May 14, 2013 at 3:17

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