Ableton Link

Ableton Link keeps OnSong’s tempo and beat in step with Ableton Live and other Link-enabled apps and devices on the same Wi-Fi network. There’s nothing to pair and no cables: apps on the network find each other and join a shared session automatically. Once you’re in a session, everything in the OnSong^® app that follows the beat clock — the metronome, the drum machine, tempo-synced delays, arpeggios — is counting the same beat as everyone else in the room.

Turning It On

Ableton Link lives in Settings ▸ MIDI ▸ Ableton Link. The screen has three parts:

• Ableton Link — the switch itself, on Ableton’s own panel. It shows how many apps are in the session once you’re connected.
• Sync Mode — how OnSong’s tempo relates to everyone else’s. See below.
• Status — the current status of the connection such as Connected when there’s at least one peer, Searching… while Ableton Link is on but alone, and Off when it isn’t running.

You can also reach it from the AuxDock by toggle Beat Sync on any panel and the chip that appears offers Ableton Link… as a shortcut.

Sync Mode

Ableton Link itself is leaderless — there is no master, and any participant can change the shared tempo. Sync Mode is OnSong’s own policy about that:

• Both — shares the tempo in both directions. Changing tempo in the OnSong^® app changes it for everyone, and a change made elsewhere is adopted here. The default, and true peer-to-peer.
• Lead — pushes the OnSong^® app tempo to peers, and if a peer nudges the session, re-assert OnSong’s tempo and phase. Use it when the OnSong^® app is the definitive beat driving the band.
• Follow — never pushes the OnSong^® app’s tempo, instead accepting whatever the session is doing. Use this when someone else owns the tempo and OnSong is along for the ride.

The mode is remembered across disconnects, so a rig set to Follow stays that way next week.

What Changes While You’re Connected

• The shared timeline runs the clock. A Link session keeps OnSong’s beat clock alive even when nothing local is playing, which is why beat-sync LEDs pulse as soon as you connect.
• Tempo changes travel. In Both or Lead, changing OnSong’s tempo — by tapping it, loading a song with its own tempo, or a section’s {tempo:} — moves the whole session.
• In Follow, the song’s tempo is ignored in favour of the session’s. That’s the point of the mode, but it’s worth knowing if you open a chart and the metronome doesn’t play at the tempo written on it.

Requirements

• Every device has to be on the same Wi-Fi network, and the network has to allow devices to see each other. Guest networks and many venue networks block exactly that, which is the usual reason a session never finds a peer.
• No internet connection is needed — Link works on a local network with no router uplink at all, which makes an isolated travel router a reliable option for a stage.
• Link is peer-to-peer, so there’s no "host" device to start first. Any order works.

If Status sits on Searching… with another Link app clearly running, the network is nearly always the culprit rather than either app. Put both devices on the same access point — or an ad-hoc one you control — before troubleshooting anything else.