Als Preview Download

Reference

Changelog

What’s new in each version of Als Preview. Updates come from the Mac App Store; this page lists them newest first.

Version 2.1

Released 22 October 2026.

Quick and better previews

  • Better previews, if you turn them on in Settings › Previews: rendered with Live’s instruments and effects, racks and sidechains, and your plug-ins installed as Audio Units, with the sounds saved in each set. They take about a minute per set, play while they render, from the playhead first, and show in blue. See Quick and better previews.
  • Quick previews are the approximate previews of 2.0, now in gray. Plug-in instruments and Live’s synths play a stand-in that follows each part’s notes more closely than before.
  • The newest render is the brightest: while a set is rendered again, the preview it replaces turns darker in the Recording lane, and the new render shows in full color as it’s made. See Takes always win.
  • Render Quick Preview and Render Better Preview when you like: Control-click projects or sets, or the Recording lane’s header. Stop Rendering Preview stops a render under way.
  • Settings per kind: render when a set is shown, how many of your recent projects are rendered in advance, only while your Mac is plugged in, and how much space previews may take, 1 GB each unless you choose another limit, with which go first. See Settings.

Search and the library window

  • Or, leaving out and parentheses in the search field: techno or house, vocal -is:recorded, (techno bpm:>125) or (house bpm:120-124) and key:am|em, shown in color as you type. See Or, and leaving out.
  • Back and Forward go through the places you picked in the sidebar, like in Finder, with ⌘[, ⌘], the toolbar arrows or the side buttons of your mouse. See Back and Forward.
  • More drag and drop in the sidebar: drag in views from All Views and collections from All Collections, move whole sections, drop projects onto All Collections to make a new collection, and drop folders from Finder onto Locations to add them to the library. See Arranging the sidebar.
  • Allow Access for missing samples asks for each folder it needs in turn.

Getting started

  • What’s New opens once after the update, with a short tour of what changed. It’s in the Help menu too.
  • The welcome has a page about previews, with a switch for better previews, and its tour stops at Back and Forward and the Recording lane. See The welcome.

Version 2.0

Released 17 October 2026. Als Preview became a full library for your Ableton projects, free to download with a 14-day trial and a one-time Lifetime purchase. Bought Als Preview before? You keep everything, no purchase needed.

User Guide for version 2.0

  • Search every set by name, track, plugin or sample, with filters for tempo, key and more, and save searches as views in the sidebar. See Search and filters.
  • Hear your sets: the Als Preview plugin records the Main channel as you play in Live, and Als Preview renders an approximate preview of the sets it never heard.
  • Compare a set with an earlier save or any other set: new and deleted tracks, moved clips, edited notes and changed automation, down to a single parameter. See Comparing saves.
  • Automation lanes in the arrangement, shown with A like in Live.
  • Version history of every save, Save As copy and Live backup, and a Timeline of all your projects. See Versions and history.
  • Momentum: rings for what you made, shaped and finished, against goals you choose.
  • Time tracking per set and project, in every set with the Remote Script.
  • Your own statuses, favorites, collections, notes and Detected Key. See Status, views and collections.
  • Missing samples and plug-ins, found before Live asks for them.
  • Exports found and matched to their set.
  • Quick Look now shows MIDI notes and plays the recording or the approximate preview.

Version 1.3

Released 6 January 2025. A new icon and a redesigned app window. Als Preview 1.3 previews a Live Set’s arrangement in Finder with Quick Look, without opening Live.