Ableton Forum

I'm used to dragging automation points around accurately since....live 7. In live 10 (on mac) I click on an automation point and try and drag it but nothing happens- it fights the mouse...I keep moving the mouse....then all of a sudden the point moves too far! It's a massive problem (for me at least)...I can't edit accurately at all.

Support told me to switch to pen tablet mode - which fixes the problem somewhat, but then you're in the wrong mode for your screen and scrolling doesnt work

Anyone else experiencing this?

Did you try deactivating the "snap automation to grid" (maybe not the exact name but you get they idea)? It's in the Options menu.

Can you not also just hold ALT to enable "free move" modifier and prevent snapping while dragging? That's what I do anyway.

Thanks for the replies - to clarify- it’s not actually ‘snapping ‘ that’s bugging me - it’s like the point doesn’t move or respond to my mouse moving, unlike all other controls in ableton . I grab the point and move the mouse but the point stays stuck until it suddenly releases- by comparison, any other fine control on a vst or even the volume fader in live doesn’t behave like this; my mouse is great for fine detail control. It’s behaviour I never encountered before live 10 and I’ve used live 7hrs a day for the last 10 years at least! (Which is why it’s so frustrating). I’ve tried taking a screen grab video to show support but i’d need a camera on my mouse to show the lag properly.

But if you hold ALT first then start dragging your point is it ok? If so then it is the snap feature which tends to keep it locked to a point until you move far enough from it and also will be affected by the grid resolution so if either ALT or disabling grid fixes the issue its the snapping, otherwise i'm not sure

Solved ... for me at least: Thank you for this thread!!

I had the same problem, and it definitely didn't help to hold alt, shift, command or any other modifiers before trying to drag the automation point, so I don't think it was related to snap - at all.

I did switch to pen tablet mode and that solved it for me. I did not have any problems with scrolling after switching to pen tablet mode, but I feel for the original poster, because the original problem was indeed infuriating.

Yea absolutely infuriating. Without pen tablet mode enabled, clicking and slowly dragging an automation point will produce jumpy changes. This occurs with both vertical changes and horizontal changes even with "Snap Automation to Grid" setting off. Glad I found this thread after some searching. Who knows why the default behavior is so awful to start with. Also on Mac btw, don't know if this affects Windows users. Live v11.2.10

In my case, it affects all versions of Live in all versions of Windows, on different computers, and with different mice.
When I switched from Windows to Mac, I was hopeful that this problem would go away, but it turned out not to be OS related either.
Reported multiple times by me and others, but still no change in this behavior.
It should be as buttery smooth as when pen tablet mode is on. I have no idea why it isn't in normal mouse mode.

I'm wondering which type of mouse you're using.
I've never experienced this issue in almost 20 years using Live. I've always only used mac trackpads, though.

Well, I just tried with my cheap 3€ wired emergency mouse, and no problem.
Are you using some kind of mouse manager/controller/toolbox/whatever-these-are-called application?

[jur] wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 09, 2023 10:19 pm

I'm wondering which type of mouse you're using.
I've never experienced this issue in almost 20 years using Live. I've always only used mac trackpads, though.

My mice are from Logitech. I used a variety of models over the years. I also tested a couple of other brands as well, wired and wireless, with and without additional drivers. All had the exact same issue.

By the way, it's not only automation but also MPE, so envelopes in general. No issue with any other part of Live.

Edit: Removed the line where I said I didn't have problems with the mouse pad on my laptop. I found an old video and some notes that tell me otherwise.

I experience this without any fancy mouse software, using a wired gaming mouse. You've tried it with Pen Tablet mode turned off and it works fine, jur?

It happens mostly at lower mouse speeds.
Add some breakpoints and move the middle one slowly upwards to the top, from the top downwards, or back and forth.

In this video, I apply the same force to move the mouse. You can see that it at times hardly moves and, at other moments jumps. And sometimes no problems at all.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lrrxtk69yjgw0 ... 0.mp4?dl=0

turok2step wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 09, 2023 10:44 pm

I experience this without any fancy mouse software, using a wired gaming mouse. You've tried it with Pen Tablet mode turned off and it works fine, jur?

I don't use the Pen Tablet mode, but I tried it on and off and see no difference with both trackpad and cheap mouse.

This drives me crazy. It is not hardware or OS released. I tried it on Mac and PC with different mouses.
The pen mode solves that problem but when holding alt / option to adjust the Q of a directly selected filter in EQ 8, the movements are way too fast and unpredictable, so it is a tradeoff against another problem.
I hope Ableton will address this, even if it is the intended behavior and meant supportive as movement stabilization, to lock at certain values or to prevent unintended changes, an option where breakpoint movements are possible without any threshold or other underlying changes to the actual cursor movements would be nice because the pen mode breaks other things.