Als Preview Download

Outside the app

Quick Look, Spotlight and Shortcuts

Als Preview works outside its own window too: press Space on a Live Set in Finder, find a project from Spotlight, or open one from a shortcut.

Quick Look in Finder

Select any .als file in Finder and press Space. Quick Look shows its arrangement: tracks, clips, notes and, if the plugin recorded the set or Als Preview rendered a preview of it, its Recording lane. It works for any set on your Mac, in your library or not.

  • To hear the recording, double-click the arrangement or click the play button at its top left. A single click moves the start marker. Space closes Quick Look, as always in Finder.
  • Zoom with a pinch or ⌘-scroll, fold groups, and press the automation button.
  • Each save plays only its own takes, so a backup sounds like it did back then.
  • It also plays the preview Als Preview rendered of the set, in blue, where nothing was recorded. Quick Look doesn’t render previews itself: Als Preview renders a set when it shows it, and the main sets of your recent projects in advance.
  • Audio clips have their waveforms, as in the app, in every set Als Preview has shown or rendered a preview of: Quick Look may not read your samples, so it draws the waveforms Als Preview made.
  • Comparing and dragging tracks into Live are only in the app.

Quick Look in Finder needs Als Preview to have been opened once. During the trial and after buying, it works; when the trial is over, it asks you to open Als Preview.

Quick Look in the app

In Als Preview, the eye button in the toolbar or ⌘Y opens Quick Look of the selected set. In the list, Space does the same when no preview is showing. Esc closes it.

Spotlight

Als Preview adds your projects to Spotlight after every library scan. Press ⌘Space and type a project’s name, or a tempo, key or plugin: each project is described like “Ableton Live project · 124 BPM · A Minor · 3:44 · Mixing”, with its plugins and track names as keywords.

Pick a result, and Als Preview opens with that project’s page.

Shortcuts

The Shortcuts app has an Als Preview action, Open Project. Pick the project (the list offers your 50 most recently saved ones), and the action opens it in Als Preview. Add it to a shortcut of your own, for example one you start with a keyboard shortcut.