Launch clips in session view in sync w/ arrangement position

[Aftermathematic]

My Ableton is slaving to Midi timecode, and I'm wondering if it is possible to have ALL clips (in session view) in a scene start at the current arrengement position instead of the beginning of the clip ?

I've tried quite a few things already, including legato mode, but nothing seems to glue the clip position to the actual arrangement position...

Is this possible ?

[Aftermathematic]

Anyone have an idea on how to do is? I'm at wits' end here...

[Da hand]

I am not sure I fully understand the logic in the question. For example, what would an 8 bar-long clip's position in the session view be expected to be relative to say bar 33 or 37 in the arrangement view, without using the clip's trigger starting point as a reference?

[Aftermathematic]

My clips in session view are all complete songs.
Every scene has 2 columns, the first one being an audio-track, the second one is a midi track.

I DJ my songs on a Pioneer CDJ2000, which generates midi timecode (via software) to which Ableton is slaving to.
When I play a song on the CDJ2000, the scene containing the same song in Ableton starts playing. The midi clip in the scene contains light-cue's that go to a USB-to-DMX box to trigger my lights.

So it is mandatory that the clips in Session view run in perfect sync with the song playing on the CDJ2000.

It works in Arrangement view, however I'd like to move all my clips into Session view...

[Da hand]

Ok so I am starting to understand, thank you for the explanation! And interesting setup

A couple questions:

Each time the Pioneer deck loads a new track, does it bring the Ableton Live arrangement view play-head back to the beginning of the arrangement view? as in measure 1 or time 0?

On the Pioneer deck, do you always start playing your tracks from the very beginning? or do you have cue points that you use to jump to a section further up the track? And if so, does Ableton Live follow this movement/jump in the arrangement view?

[Aftermathematic]

Hi there,

The playhead in Ableton is synced to the position of the master deck on the CDJ2000. So once the the master deck changes from deck A to deck B (usually when track A ends and track B has started playing), the playhead gets its new position.
So the position of the master deck and the playhead need to be perfectly synced.

I don't always start my songs from the very beginning.

Basically my problem is that I have already achieved that the playhead in Ableton is in sync with my CDJ2000, however the clips in my session view aren't in sync with the playhead when launched...

[Aftermathematic]

Any idea how to get this to work ?

[S4racen]

What DVS System are you using?? Are you using Link?

I'm pretty sure what you're asking for is impossible, there won't be a solution bar timing it right and launching the clips when you need them to be launched.

Cheers
D

[Aftermathematic]

No DVS system.

I use some software called Beat Link Trigger which translates the activity on the CDJ players to Midi Timecode. This already works perfect.

I find it hard to believe that this is near impossible in Session view, since in Arrangement view it's super easy...
I was hoping that Legato mode would be the way to go, but it appears not to be ideal...

Any thoughts?

[Stromkraft]

Any thoughts?

Session and Arrangement are today quite separate. Maybe they shouldn't be.

It's possible to control clip play back with Max For Live devices. I'm not aware of a device that does what you suggest, i e takes each clip length and divide this to sync to the transport and take its queue from there as well.

An answer to the obvious question remains, i e how to make the free running Session clips to slave to the arrangement, that is arbitrary as clip start could happen at any point. What should happen when you remove and add time in Arrangement?

Are all session clip supposed to be treated as if they began running on 1.1.1? Is this useful for other scenarios?

[Da hand]

I find it hard to believe that this is near impossible in Session view, since in Arrangement view it's super easy...

As Stromkraft explained, the session view and arrangement view are quite separate. Which is a good thing. They are meant to do different things.

The Arrangement View is for placing things in the time line and for syncing things up absolutely time-wise with other software/hardware. The Session View is meant to be more free. While the Session View uses the Arrangement View's global positioning system and tempo sync as a grid, where exactly the clips and scenes in Session View are triggered is meant to be independent of the absolute position of the Arrangement view.

Therefore, while what you describe will work in the Arrangement View, as far as I know, natively it's not something that is supported in Session View. But I am trying to think of a work-around - and that is why I am asking all the questions.

So some questions

How are you currently switching between tracks in the Arrangement View when you switch tracks on the CDJ? What I mean is... you have a track playing in Live and following the one on the CDJ, cool. But then when you switch tracks on the CDJ, what are you currently doing to switch tracks (or switch between MIDI clips) in Live's Arrangement View? Or maybe you didn't get that far yet and that is that the reason why you would like to go with Session View, to have a different Scene per new track loaded?

I ask this to know why you want to use the Session View specifically and not stay in the Arrangement View since it's already working for you? If you stay in the Arrangement View, you could also just create a separate MIDI track in the Arrangement View for every new MIDI clip you need and solo/activate it when you need it - the same way you would create a separate scene in Session View.

[Aftermathematic]

How I switch between tracks is fairly easy. By default all my tracks (in arrangement view) are deactivated. When a track on the master deck of the CDJ is started, a midi note is triggered to activate the track. When the track stops, the same note is sent again to deactivate the track again.
I want to switch to Session view, so I can map a midi note to the scene launch button of the track, and another midi note to the "stop all tracks" button.
Session view gives me a much clearer overview of my tracks, and also the ability to midi map a scroll button, so I can scroll through tracks manually. In many ways it's much easier to handle my setup than in arrangement view.

[Kevin Hamler]

How I switch between tracks is fairly easy. By default all my tracks (in arrangement view) are deactivated. When a track on the master deck of the CDJ is started, a midi note is triggered to activate the track. When the track stops, the same note is sent again to deactivate the track again.
I want to switch to Session view, so I can map a midi note to the scene launch button of the track, and another midi note to the "stop all tracks" button.
Session view gives me a much clearer overview of my tracks, and also the ability to midi map a scroll button, so I can scroll through tracks manually. In many ways it's much easier to handle my setup than in arrangement view.

Can I ask which MIDI>DMX converter you're using?