The mix stage runs on Pro Tools, your work lives in Ableton Live. Neither opens the other’s session — AAF is the common ground, and Live can’t write one.
File → Import → Session Data. Named tracks arrive with sample-accurate clips, fades, real crossfade transitions, clip gain, volume and pan automation, markers and a timecode track.Pro Tools doesn’t read .als, and Ableton Live
has no AAF export of its own. Without a converter the session usually
leaves as a pile of stems — which loses every edit, fade and
automation move the moment it arrives.
An AAF carries the edit, not just the audio. Print or freeze anything that lives in a plugin or instrument first: no exchange format carries those.
Instruments, plugin chains and sends don’t travel through AAF. Freeze/flatten or record them in Live. Warped clips: consolidate first (Cmd/Ctrl + J) — AAF Bridge flags any it finds.
In AAF Bridge choose Ableton → AAF / XML, deliver to AAF, and set the timeline frame rate for the timecode track (or “none” for a pure DAW-to-DAW hand-off).
Pro Tools rebuilds a stereo track only from one-file-per-channel media. With One track per channel on, every channel is written as its own mono WAV while the tracks themselves stay stereo — exactly the layout Pro Tools expects. Left off, stereo arrives as interleaved files, which Pro Tools does not recombine.
Collect media next to AAF writes one movable turnover folder — AAF plus audio. That is what survives a transfer to another building.
File → Import → Session Data, pick the AAF, then choose Copy from source media and match the session sample rate. Tracks arrive named and in order.
The plain-text report next to the AAF lists what was written and what the format could not carry — read it before the file leaves your machine.
Not in any AAF: MIDI, instruments, plugins, sends and bus routing.
Use File → Import → Session Data. It is the import path that reads the track structure and lets you choose how media is handled.
No — AAF is an audio-only exchange format, so nothing renders devices on the way out. Freeze/flatten or record those parts in Live first; the report lists what was exported.
Match the source material. AAF Bridge writes the real rate of your files; if the Pro Tools session runs at a different rate, Pro Tools will offer to convert on import — matching first avoids that step.
The free demo is the full app — it converts the first 120 seconds of any timeline, so you can check the result before spending anything. $49 one-time, no subscription, runs offline. macOS & Windows.
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