Ableton Live keyboard shortcuts.
Transport, track, and editing shortcuts that keep you in flow while you produce. Mac and Windows.
Transport is all about the Space bar
The heart of playback control lives under your thumb: Space starts and stops, and Shift + Space continues from where you last stopped instead of jumping back. F9 arms Arrangement recording, and Home snaps the insert marker back to the start of the Arrangement. These are identical on Mac and Windows, so the transport feels the same on either machine.
Move between views without the mouse
Tab flips between the Session and Arrangement views — the single most-used navigation key in Live — while Shift + Tab toggles the Detail view between the Clip and Device panes. ⌘/Ctrl + Alt + B shows or hides the Browser and ⌘/Ctrl + Alt + L shows or hides the Device view, so you can reclaim screen space the moment you need it.
Tracks, clips, and editing
The everyday workhorses round it out: ⌘/Ctrl + Shift + T inserts a MIDI track and ⌘/Ctrl + T an audio track, ⌘/Ctrl + D duplicates the selection, and ⌘/Ctrl + R renames it. When editing, ⌘/Ctrl + L loops the selection, ⌘/Ctrl + U quantizes, ⌘/Ctrl + J consolidates, and ⌘/Ctrl + E splits at the marker. Producers who also edit video may find the Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro cheatsheets handy too.