docs/personalizing/Personas & instructions

personas:
pick who shows up.

Some nights you want the work done. Some nights you want to understand why. A persona sets which of those you get, per chat. Custom instructions layer your own standing rules on top of either one.

01 /The two personas

A persona changes how tonee talks to you and how quickly it reaches for your set. It changes nothing about what it's capable of: both can do everything on the commands pages.

STUDIO ASSISTANT

Hands-on producer

The default. You describe the change, it makes the change, it tells you what it did. No teaching unless you ask for it.

LEARNING ABLETON

Patient tutor

Explains the concept and the steps in Live first, then asks whether you want to try it yourself or have it done for you.

Not the same as a permission mode: a persona is about explanation and pacing; modes are about what runs without a prompt. They're independent, and both are set from the same ⋯ menu.

02 /How Learning Ableton behaves

Ask for a change and it doesn't make it yet. First it explains what the change is and where the control lives in Live, then it asks one question: do you want to try it, or shall it do it?

"You do it"

It makes the change, then explains what it did, so you still come away knowing.

"I'll try"

It coaches you one step at a time and stops touching your set. It stays out of the way across the following messages while you work.

Handing back

Coaching only ends when you say so plainly: "you take over", "just do it for me". A "yeah" or "done" mid-coaching means you did the step, not that it should step in.

Questions

Asking how something looks, or how something works, is just answered. It doesn't bolt an offer onto a question with nothing to do.

Reads

Reading your set is never gated behind an offer. It looks, it tells you what it sees.

A vague yes doesn't count: "ok" or "maybe" after an offer won't get your set changed. tonee asks again rather than guessing which half of the question you answered.

03 /Switching

For this chat

The ⋯ menu beside the message box → Persona. Applies from your next message; the chat keeps it from then on.

For every new chat

Settings → Behavior → Default Persona. Chats you already have are unaffected.

Switching mid-chat is fine and doesn't reset anything: the conversation carries on, in the new voice, from wherever it was.

04 /Custom instructions

A free-text box in Settings → Behavior whose contents go out with every message you ever send, in every chat, under every persona. Unlike memory, nothing decides whether they're relevant. They're always there.

Music style: "I'm making lo-fi hip hop. Keep it simple and crunchy."

Workflow: "Always show me the plan and ask for confirmation before making changes."

Conventions: "Name tracks in caps. Keep sends conservative: under -6 dB unless I say otherwise."

Tone: "Short answers. Skip the explanation unless I ask why."

Keep them short

They ride along with every message. A page of rules dilutes the ones that matter and crowds out your actual question.

Write rules, not tasks

"Keep sends under -6 dB" is an instruction. "Turn the send down on VOX LEAD" is a message you should just send.

05 /When they disagree

Four things shape a reply at once, and they don't all carry the same weight. From strongest to weakest:

The permission mode

Read by the app, not the model. No instruction, persona or memory can talk it into skipping a prompt.

What you just said

The message in front of it wins over any standing preference.

Your custom instructions

Override the persona. Tell Learning Ableton "just do everything and explain as you go" and it will.

The persona and memory

The background shape of the conversation: how much it teaches, what it knows you like.

The gap between the top row and the rest is the important one. Everything below it is guidance a language model is following, and like any AI it can be talked around or simply get it wrong. The permission gate isn't. It's the app comparing what's about to happen against the setting you chose.

← Memory Next · Live session panel →

personas:pick who shows up.