After releasing RC Surface, a friend of mine reached out during rehearsals for his band's upcoming shows. They needed a reliable setlist manager and lyric prompter on stage, but commercial software options on the market were way too expensive for an independent rehearsal setup.
So I decided to build a custom solution for them: Ableton RC Setlist.
The Technical Challenge
Ableton Live 12's Extensions SDK wasn't really designed for full remote stage control or web-based prompter management out of the box. To get around those limitations, I brought in the Web MIDI API alongside local WebSockets to handle hardware integration, timing, state synchronization, and browser-side feedback where the SDK fell short.
Even though pulling in extra web libraries added more architectural complexity to the project, it didn't compromise performance or stability at all. In fact, it kept the system lightweight enough to run smoothly on any old phone or tablet browser connected to the local Wi-Fi.
How it works on stage
- You tag Arrangement locators with simple inline commands like
[loop 2x],[bpm 120],[click off], or[stop]. - The extension serves a clean browser interface over the local network via WebSocket.
- Musicians get synchronized
.lrclyrics, a dark stage mode, and guarded transport controls (preventing accidental track jumps mid-performance).
We've already battle-tested it in real rehearsals and live band performances, and it worked great. It's also been awesome seeing early interest from the community on the Ableton Discord.
Open Source
The project is free and source-available (PolyForm Noncommercial):
- Landing & Documentation: ntworm.github.io/rc-setlist
- GitHub Repository: github.com/ntworm/rc-setlist
Happy to answer any questions about the WebSockets setup, locator parsing, or Live 12 SDK integration!
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