Ableton Move Review: The Perfect Tool for DJs on the Go

The Drum Rack has its limitations, too. Pads must use the new Drum Sampler, instead of Simpler, and cannot have individual effects chains. Instead any effects need to work across the entire Drum Rack.

Your active choice is excellent. There are eight in total: verb, delay, saturator, redux, chorus-ensemble, phaser-flanger, Channel EQ and dynamics (combo EQ and compressor). Each track can have two effects, and there are two main effects

Communication is limited, but not excessive. There are 3.5-mm audio jacks inside and out and a USB-A port for connecting an external MIDI controller if you prefer a keyboard to pads, as well as a USB-C charging port that lets you use the Move as a controller and Live audio interface.

Perhaps most importantly, the Move connects to Wi-Fi, which is how you get software updates and manage sets, samples, and presets (Drift and Drum Rack currently). It also lets you back up sets to Ableton Cloud and sync tempo with instruments, DAWs and VSTs that support Ableton Sync.

Honorable Controller

While Ableton primarily features Move as a standalone device, it can also function as a MIDI controller. While it’s not as fully featured as Push, Move still has a ton of specific features that should make it attractive to anyone using that DAW. For one, mapping pads and encoders is all automatic in Ableton’s first-party plug-ins.

You can’t use it to fine-tune MIDI or browse presets, but basic recording, playback and clipping are all supported. As is Capture MIDI, which is great for when you forget to hit a record or you’re just chilling and finding something you like. This takes a bunch of notes you’ve played and drops them into a clip.