Session or Arrangement

[toonableton]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to ableton and the whole session view thing. So i wondered, if you want to make for example a hip hop beat with a lot of variation in instrumentals as in drums (like flying lotus or something similar). Would it be better to use the session view with a lot of different clips or arrangement view and just lay it out over the time line?

Thanks a lot
Regards,
Toon

[ImNotDedYet]

I think it's different for everyone, but I personally love the Session view and find it's what differentiates Live from other DAWs. I like to create a number of different clips per track, particularly for drums, then arrange into scenes that I know everything will work together, then use Push or just Session view to jam out different patterns and record into Arrangement view.

And I've got a buddy who exclusively uses Arrangement View and doesn't know how to use Session View.

Moral of the story...do whatever works best for you and your creativity.

[Da hand]

The simplified version: If you want to make a song to render as a stereo file in the end, do it in arrangement view. If you want to prepare to perform the music live, use session view.

[login]

The simplified version: If you want to make a song to render as a stereo file in the end, do it in arrangement view. If you want to prepare to perform the music live, use session view.

No, sessions view is also for normal composition, it's dessigned to avoid arranging only in a linear or timeline structure.

[pinkpaint]

I am an ableton wizard in everything but session view. I find the old school linear approach best. However, I could see the appeal if one was just starting out to arrangement view. But as above users have suggested do whatever makes you feel the most comfortable, both methods are used to create professional songs by industry musicians.

[Da hand]

The simplified version: If you want to make a song to render as a stereo file in the end, do it in arrangement view. If you want to prepare to perform the music live, use session view.

No, sessions view is also for normal composition, it's dessigned to avoid arranging only in a linear or timeline structure.

Hence why I wrote "simplified version". And I believe your version is simplified as well. It is true what you say to an extent and perfectly valid. Although I find that for my purposes I can do that also in arrangement view quite easily as well - I make sections that I can loop, stack up things vertically, mute/add and jump easily from one section to the other in arrangement view. For most songs that I want to produce as a finished rendered work, it avoids me having to transfer things to arrangement after messing with them in session view.... because either way you start...in the end though... if you want to make a song for render, you will end up in arrangement view with a composition that exists on a timeline.

[pencilrocket]

Forcing yourself to compose in linearly is good habit. It improves your skill to imagine complete picture of your composing and also of your mix because music is always linear in time domain even in live situation.

In normal composition, session view serves as the container of song components (idea).

[Matt_Quinn]

Since 9.1 - both. Session on one monitor, Arrangement on the other.

[timday]

I tend to write in arrange but perform in session but then I'm getting on a bit and was well used to traditional DAWs before starting with Ableton. I've seen people compose very successfully in session, especially if you get to grips with Push (and if you can't afford a Push, get a Launchpad and the Launchpad 95 script.....).

Whatever works best for you I guess.

I do find composing and editing in arrange much easier than other DAWs though. Little touches like being able to grab and drag chunks of MIDI/audio without having to separate first, adaptive grid, drag zooming etc. Ease of things like inserting and deleting time is much better than in say Pro Tools. There are disadvantages like no layered MIDI editing but I think the advantages outweigh them. Which is why I use Ableton rather than Logic or PT for most of my work I guess.

[Airyck]

I stay away from Arrangement view for as long as possible because Arrangement view turns into "copy/paste/drag/drop/click*click*click*click*click*/manufacture music mode.

I end up in arrangement once I've performed the "arrangement" in session view and recorded that into arrangement.

Here I just posted this method of mine in a tips and tricks thread

To quote myself

Push seems to help me a lot and it's funny; I find it works better for me if I stay away from arrangement view for as long as possible.

A basic idea of how I get through making a track quickly with Push and Ableton Live in session view:

Create a drum rack and start building a nice drum loop in session view. Make at least 8 variations of that drum loop in session view clips. I can add more sounds or completely make it from scratch using the same sounds, either way I just make 8 variations that are "related".

I make a bass sound, do the same thing, record a bunch of different basslines. The important thing is that I make myself do at least 8 variations or more if it's going well (do this for every sound you add, drums as a whole obviously). Maybe do some automation on the clips, whatever, just get a bunch of different basslines made that kind of go with some of the drums.

Do something similar for a Lead sound or maybe a Pad sound. At this point I'm not really making a song just stocking up on ideas and variations of those ideas. The sounds can be changed later or kept. If you just record a bunch of random playing you can then loop smaller sections and move the loop around until you find a nice little motif or section that sounds good. Once you find a good loop section you can adjust the start point of the clip too.

I have tons of clips ready to go on the grid. I usually will drag those clips into a folder in the user library called "initial clips".

Then I go through and apply EQ and Compression to the individual sounds, not to make them fit but to make them sound as good as possible on their own. I may also add some reverb or delay at this point, just as individual sounds.

I save all of those tracks and clips in another folder called "individual mixed".

Then if I'm sick of this part I'll move on to the arranging, otherwise I might try doing some automations or adding extra fx and export frozen audio clips to use as more variations.

Next I start playing random clips together in session view, if I find a combination I like I select a scene at the bottom of session view and create a new scene. I keep doing this randomly and eventually I start to hear ways I want to start the arrangement or have a section move from one thing to another. I keep lining up scenes and creating parts that drop in and out or whatever happens to happen.

Once I have enough combinations of scenes somewhat arranged in session view I activate arrangement record and start play through scene by scene letting them play for however long I feel.

Then at that point I have a rough arrangement all ready to go that sounds really good. I find all the little fine tuning stuff is very tedious and boring, it's something that is work and I hate doing it so I try to get as much done as possible without having to do that tedious mousing about. At that point I'll finally move to arrangement view and start doing fine tuning and more transitional and automation stuff. The song is really almost finished at this point and I'm happy because I had fun doing it instead of meticulously arranging and pasting and manufacturing the song; I actually performed everything up to this point and to me... that's Awesome!

This cool thing about this method is that you can really start and stop a lot. You can sit down and say "okay, I'm going to write the drum loop and 8 variations minimum in this sitting". When you're done you can quit and do the dishes, or go to work and when you come back you can say "okay, now I'm going to write a bass sound and at least 8 variations" and stop when you're done or continue. You're really breaking things up into little goals that are easy to achieve and it keeps things structured to the point that you don't get lost and you actually finish your work. It honestly helps you to always move forward to the next step and in doing so you actually finish tracks and come up with inspiration by just jamming out.

Of course this can all be done without Push but I just like using the Push to do it.

Also this is a new thing I'm doing, I've almost got a new track finished since starting to work this way. I've only worked on the track over the course of a couple of days too. At this rate I could probably finish a track every week or even less which I never thought would be possible for me.

Since I'm dragging whole tracks with clips into folders I don't even save a project until I have recorded the arrangement and at that point the song is almost done so I can give it a better name than "Thursday"

[S4racen]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFxorUzg5sM

Why choose when you can have both!

Cheers
D

[toonableton]

Thanks for all the different suggestions guys!
I think I'll just try out some stuff and see what works best for me!

[Airyck]

Thanks for all the different suggestions guys!
I think I'll just try out some stuff and see what works best for me!

That's the best idea I've heard all day

[mikedrop]

I stay away from Arrangement view for as long as possible because Arrangement view turns into "copy/paste/drag/drop/click*click*click*click*click*/manufacture music mode.

I end up in arrangement once I've performed the "arrangement" in session view and recorded that into arrangement.

I have recently started working exactly like this and I like it best. I used to go into Arrangement view as soon as I had a basic loop going, but then I ended up with one of two things:

- An endlessly repetitive 5-minute song because i pasted the loop to the whole timeline
or
- An 8-bar loop followed by lots of blank space

...and then I get stuck.

So instead I stay in Session view, keep adding parts, trying them out with other parts, and assembling them into scenes. After i have some scenes I like I expand them and make each scene 8 bars long. Then I drag them around and play/stop/switch until I like the order of the scenes. At this point I have an entire arrangement done, but still in Session view.

Once this is big enough to last the length of a song, I record it into arrangement mode (really easy if you just set the global quantize to "8 bars", then you just click each scene and it plays automatically after the last one ends.)

Then I delete the Session view clips and work in Arrangement mode from then on. At this point I'm working on transitions, fills, and tweaking the various sounds and sections, but I never get stuck...

Everyone is different but this works for me.

[Airyck]

Another idea you could consider. Once you've recorded into Arrangement you could then move everything from the arrangement back into session view and do your transitions and FX sounds in session. The only time you'd need to be in arrangement is when you record the initial arrangement, and then again to export the final stereo .wav file.

This makes it so you can loop each "section" by playing a scene and also gets you setup to be able to perform the song live since you're always in session mode already (it's a win win situation).