Exploring Tempo Follower in Live 11

The Tempo Follower feature dropped with Live 11 and opened up some new ways in which we can sync Live’s tempo with an external source. This feature is particularly useful if you are, for example, working with a drummer or have a rhythmical sound source that you want to sync your Live session tempo with.

You may have already tried or heard of syncing Live via MIDI or Ableton Link (if not, then this will be covered in Chapter 15), but this feature is slightly different, as, in this case, we are using an audio feed to sync Live’s tempo with.

I already mentioned how to set up Live to “follow” a drummer that you might play with, but we can also use this feature to sync Live with a DJ performance.

Sounds exciting! Let’s have a look at how we can set this up!

1. To set the incoming audio input source that you wish Live’s tempo to follow, navigate to Preferences | Link, Tempo, MIDI.
2. In the Tempo...