Connecting Miles to your DAW
Miles follows your set through a small read-only bridge. Today that DAW is Ableton Live: install the bridge, pick it in Live, read the status line.
Why there is a bridge
Miles can hear the DAW that is playing and, with the eye on, look at its window. To know what is inside your set, the tracks, the devices and the notes, it needs a small bridge inside the DAW itself.
Ableton Live is the DAW Miles supports today, and its bridge is a Remote Script called NolvraMILES. More DAWs are coming. The bridge only reads: it never moves, adds or deletes anything in your set.
Ableton Live
Install the bridge
On a Mac, the line at the top of the Miles panel reads Ableton Live is not connected until the bridge is in place. Click that line. Miles copies NolvraMILES into the Remote Scripts folder of your Ableton User Library and answers: Installed. In Live, open Settings > Link/MIDI and select 'NolvraMILES'. If you moved your User Library, Miles finds it through Live's own settings. On Windows the installer has already done this step for you.
Select it in Live
If Live was open while the bridge went in, close it and open it again. Then open Live's Settings, go to Link/MIDI and pick NolvraMILES as a Control Surface. One copy of the bridge serves every Live version on the computer.
Read the status line
With Live open and NolvraMILES selected, the status line at the top of the panel reads Ableton Live connected, with a blue dot. From then on Miles follows your set while you work.
What the status line says
- Ableton Live connected: the bridge is talking and Miles is following your set.
- Ableton Live is not sending, the bridge is installed: the bridge is in place but Live is not sending anything. Open Live, then check that NolvraMILES is still selected under Link/MIDI.
- Ableton Live is not connected: the bridge is not installed yet. Click the line to install it.
- Bridge updated, reselect NolvraMILES in Live Settings: Miles brought its bridge up to date and Live is still running the old one. Select NolvraMILES again under Link/MIDI.
Updates look after themselves
Every time Miles starts, it compares its own copy of the bridge with the one in your User Library and replaces it when it is out of date. The only thing left for you is the reselect in Live that the status line asks for.
What the bridge tells Miles
- Every track, returns and master included, with its chain of devices, down inside Racks and Drum Rack pads.
- The names of plugin settings with their positions, without units.
- The name of the loaded preset, where Live shares it.
- Which tracks are frozen.
- The notes of one clip: the clip open in Detail view, or else the Session slot you have highlighted.
Still stuck?
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