Otis McLooper lets you loop in Ableton Live hands-free from your iPhone or iPad: record, overdub, launch clips, mix and change tape speed without walking back to the computer. Setup takes about 10 minutes.
A Mac with Ableton Live 12 (Intro, Standard or Suite).
An iPhone or iPad with iOS 17 or later.
The Mac and the phone on the same private Wi-Fi: home or studio Wi-Fi, or your iPhone's Personal Hotspot. Public and guest Wi-Fi (cafés, hotels, schools) stops devices reaching each other.
Download Otis McLooper for Mac (free, about 80 MB). Mac app version 2026.11.10 (202611101118).
Open the disk image and drag Otis McLooper into Applications, then open it from there. A reel icon appears in the menu bar at the top of your screen. That is the Mac side of McLooper: it has no window, and it puts the Ableton script where Live finds it. To start it every time you log in, choose Open at Login from its menu.
Open Live (quit and reopen it if it was already open). Go to Settings > Link, Tempo & MIDI and set a Control Surface to OtisMcLooper, with Input and Output set to None. The menu bar icon's menu should now say Ableton Live: connected.
During the beta, the app comes through Apple's TestFlight: install TestFlight from the App Store, then open your invite and tap Install. When the app asks to find devices on your local network, tap Allow. That is how it finds your Mac.
Open Otis McLooper on your phone and tap your Mac's name.
Pick a Target track (an armed audio track with an input) and a number of Bars.
Press PLAY, then RECORD. McLooper records exactly that many bars and loops them.
McLooper runs free on each Mac for 7 days, counted from the first time a phone connects. Then tap Unlock Otis McLooper in the app. One unlock covers up to 3 of your Macs, and anyone who connects to an unlocked Mac plays free. During the TestFlight beta, unlocking costs nothing.
The phone doesn't find the Mac: check that both are on the same Wi-Fi and that the menu bar menu says Remote is on. In the app, tap Change Mac at the bottom of the screen. On public or guest Wi-Fi, use your iPhone's Personal Hotspot instead.
The menu says Live is waiting: set the Control Surface in Live (step 2). If you just installed, quit and reopen Live.
Nothing records: make sure the Target track has an audio input and isn't frozen.
The phone says the computer is locked: the 7-day trial has ended. Tap Unlock (step 5).
Something else: choose Reinstall Ableton Script from the menu bar menu and restart Live.
Questions, bugs or ideas: otismacmusic@gmail.com. Privacy policy.