Introduction: Using a Wacom Tablet in Ableton Live Running on OSX

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When your shiny new Wacom pen behaves erratic under Ableton Live running on OSX, there’s something you can do about it! The typical behaviour is that of knobs and sliders going all to one extreme the second you touch them with your pen device.

Open the OSX Terminal and navigate to:

/Users/[your user name]/Library/Preferences/Ableton/[your current Live version]

In my case, right now that is:

/Users/henszimmerman/Library/Preferences/Ableton/Live 9.1.7

Don’t be surprised if you see many versions in that directory. Ableton Live is updated regularly. Now you can make a text file called Options.txt and add a single line to it:

-AbsoluteMouseMode

So now you have a file like this, but with your user name:

/Users/henszimmerman/Library/Preferences/Ableton/Live 9.1.7/Options.txt

An easy way to make such a text file is by using the Terminal (it's in the Utilities under Applications, or Command Shift U). Navigate to your Ableton Live directory using the cd command. To see what's in the current directory, type ls. To create a new file called Options.txt, type:

nano Options.txt

Good luck and happy Ableton Live'ing!