How to Control Ableton Live via Erae Touch

The Erae Touch already excels as an expressive MIDI controller — but you can push it further. With the Erae Touch Control Ableton Live Pack, you can control Ableton Live via Erae Touch preset buttons to switch sounds, arm tracks, and adjust parameters without touching your computer. This article walks you through each of the three included Max for Live devices and shows you exactly how to set them up.

What You Need

Before you start, make sure you have the following in place:

• Ableton Live 10, 11, or 12 with Max for Live (included in Suite, or available as an add-on for Standard)
• An Erae Touch 2 running the latest firmware
• The Erae Touch Control Ableton Live Pack

Step 1: Enable CC on Layout Change on the Erae Touch

First, you need to activate one setting on the Erae Touch itself. Open the Settings menu on the device and scroll down until you find CC on Layout Change. Switch it on. This tells the Erae Touch to send a MIDI CC message every time you change a preset, which is what the Max for Live devices listen for.

Once you enable this setting, head back to Ableton Live — everything else happens there.

How to Select Sounds via Erae Touch Presets

The first device in the pack is the Erae Touch Layout Change to Map Control device. Use it to map any Ableton parameter to the Erae Touch’s eight preset buttons and send a specific value whenever you select a preset.

A practical use case is controlling an Instrument Rack’s Chain Selector. Here is how to set it up:

1. Create an Instrument Rack on an audio or MIDI track and add a different instrument to each chain. Assign each chain to a distinct Chain Selector value — chain 1 to value 1, chain 2 to value 2, and so on.
2. Create a new MIDI track and load the Erae Touch Layout Change to Map Control device onto it.
3. Set the track’s MIDI From input to the Erae Touch and set the monitor to In.
4. On the device, click Map and then click the Chain Selector knob in the Instrument Rack. The device now controls that parameter.
5. Switch on the preset buttons you want to use (up to eight), and assign the target value for each one.

Now, each time you select a preset on the Erae Touch, the Chain Selector jumps to the corresponding value and switches to the right instrument. This is particularly useful during live performance when you need to change sounds instantly without stopping to click.

Note that this device works across a standard 0–127 range. For parameters that require finer resolution, use the high-res version of the device (more on that below).

How to Arm Ableton Tracks via Erae Touch Presets

The second device handles track selection and implicit arming. Ableton Live includes a secondary arming mode — implicit arming — that Ableton Push uses internally. When you select a track via implicit arming, Ableton arms that track without interfering with any manually armed tracks. This device exposes that same functionality for the Erae Touch.

Here is how to set it up:

1. Load the Erae Touch Implicit Arm device onto a MIDI track.
2. Set the track’s MIDI input to the Erae Touch and set the monitor to In.
3. Open the device’s track menu and click Refresh to load all available tracks in your Live set.
4. For each Erae Touch preset button, select the track you want to arm when that button activates.

For example, you can assign preset 1 to track 3 and preset 2 to track 5. When you hit preset 1 on the Erae Touch, Ableton selects and implicitly arms track 3. Hit preset 2, and it switches to track 5. The armed track lights up in a slightly different shade of red compared to a manually armed track — that is how you know implicit arming is active.

One important detail: implicit arming does only arm one track and when selecting a new track it auto-disarms the former track. It will not switch off automatically when you re-load an Ableton Live set and will always have the last ‘saved’ state of implicit arming. If you want to clear all implicit arming, hit the Implicit Arm Off button on the device. Additionally, you can activate the All Off on Set Load toggle, so implicit arming always resets to a clean state when you open your Live set.

This workflow suits live performance setups where you play different instruments on separate MIDI tracks and want to switch between them using a single button press on the Erae Touch.

How to Control Parameters with High-Resolution Precision

Some Ableton parameters use a finer scale than 0–127. A drive knob, for instance, may allow values like 9.3 or 0.004 — values the standard device cannot target precisely. For these cases, the pack includes a high-resolution version of the Layout Change to Map Control device.

The setup process works the same way:

1. Load the high-res device onto a MIDI track with the Erae Touch as the MIDI input.
2. Click Map and select the parameter you want to control.
3. Dial in the exact value you want for each preset button and hit S to save it. The device stores the precise internal value, not just the rounded display number.
4. Activate the preset button slots you need and you’re done.

As an example: map preset 1 to a Drive value of 9.3 and preset 2 to 0.4. Every time you switch between those presets on the Erae Touch, the parameter jumps to the stored value with full precision. Make sure to check out the full video tutorial below to get into the weeds.

Control Ableton Live via Erae Touch: Full Pack Summary

The Erae Touch Control Ableton Live Pack contains three Max for Live devices that give you complete control over Ableton Live via Erae Touch preset buttons:

• Erae Touch Layout Change to Map Control — maps any Ableton parameter (0–127) to preset buttons
• Erae Touch Implicit Arm — selects and implicitly arms MIDI tracks per preset
• Erae Touch Layout Change to Map Control (High-Res) — maps parameters with fine-grained precision beyond 128 steps

Together, these three devices turn the Erae Touch’s preset buttons into a powerful live performance controller for navigating sounds, managing tracks, and adjusting effects — all without touching your mouse.

You can find more Max for Live devices for live looping, advanced MIDI Control, live performance, missing functions for Ableton Live HERE!