why is Live overwriting my track?

[danny klim]

Hi, I’m trying to understand why Live is overwriting a track. Could you please help?

I have a recorded a grand piano part, then unarmed the grand piano track and am now trying to record a different track with different instrument (bells and Thinpad) in the mix to overlay on top of the piano. However, whenever I record with the Bells and thinpad instrument (or any other it seems), the grand piano track will be overwritten and erased. You can see the results in the screen shot below, it shows my project and the portion of the piano track that was overwritten when i recorded the bells and thinpad part.

Why is this happening and how can I record the second instrument without deleting the first?

Thanks, Dan


https://www.dropbox.com/s/sd5jwrf81xer5 ... 5.png?dl=0


(ps- both of these tracks are being played with the keystation 88, so i thought that might be a cause of the issue. but i tried playing the Bells and Thinpad track with the Push instead and it has the same effect)

[markwphoto]

Looks like you have midi arrangement overdub turn on. Turn off the + sign at the top next to the transport control.

[markwphoto]

Scratch the last post. I know what the issue is and I was able to recreate it. While you are in Arrangement mode and you have the track armed in Arrangement mode you are not recording exclusively in Arrangement mode!! You're actually recording your session clips to Arrangement mode + what every you are playing on your armed track. So what's happening is you recorded your Piano track. Next you armed you bells track and the piano gets erased as it plays. The reason is if you hit the tab key on you keyboard you'll see that the Piano track has no active playing clip in session mode. Therefore if the clip is blank it will erase what is already there. Again because you are not recording an active arrangement, you're recording session clips!!!

If you want to record in arrangement mode you need to click the back to Arrangement button in the top right next to the Set/Delete locator button, then play your midi keyboard.

When Arrangement mode is greyed out or ghosted it's only recording anything that is actively playing from Session clips.

[aderowbotham]

...

[aderowbotham]

you need to click the back to Arrangement button in the top right

Bingo, thanks for this., 11 years later this was a life saver!

[jonljacobi]

Man, Live is clever as all get out, but obvious?

[asarghmatey]

That's so stupid. It would make sense if the track was armed, but it should not do that for an unarmed track.

[asarghmatey]

Agreed, this is dumb, and it's pissing me off!!!

[asarghmatey]

Anyone know of an actual fix?

[jestermgee]

No one said anything was dumb or stupid, it makes sense when you know what you are doing.

Start with reading the manual and then do some beginner/basic tests to figure out how things work first.

Maybe try what was suggested above and if that doesn't work, without spitting your dummy across the room and calling everything dumb and stupid, post a screenshot of what you are looking at and what tracks are having this issue and maybe someone can help.

[mpderbec]

OK I keep coming back to this thread and trying to figure out why I can't get Ableton to NOT overwrite my audio track when I'm trying to re-record MIDI to the arrangement. I don't see how this isn't a bug--- why would Ableton ever touch a track in the arrangement view if it's not armed?

Short video illustrating the problem:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ho47c92zaruw ... o.mp4?dl=0

[pottering]

OK I keep coming back to this thread and trying to figure out why I can't get Ableton to NOT overwrite my audio track when I'm trying to re-record MIDI to the arrangement. I don't see how this isn't a bug--- why would Ableton ever touch a track in the arrangement view if it's not armed?

Short video illustrating the problem:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ho47c92zaruw ... o.mp4?dl=0

Those squares in the Clips Slots are Stop Buttons.

https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/sessi ... op-buttons

You can add and remove Clip Stop buttons from the grid using the Edit menu’s Add/Remove Stop Button command. This is useful for pre-configuring the scene launch behavior

https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/sessi ... rrangement

The Session clips and the Arrangement clips in one track are mutually exclusive: Only one can play at a time. When a Session clip is launched, Live stops playing back that track’s Arrangement in favor of the Session clip. Clicking a Clip Stop button causes the Arrangement playback to stop, which produces silence.