What's with the horrible secondary loop length arrows?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Post Reply
alexjholland
Posts: 300
Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2009 12:22 am
Location: Cambridge, UK
Contact:

What's with the horrible secondary loop length arrows?

Post by alexjholland » Fri Aug 03, 2018 12:26 pm

What's with the secondary, lower set of loop triangles when setting loop length?

In 10 years of using Ableton, they have done nothing but irritate me.

When I'm programming an 8 bar loop I will use the main arrows to select 2 or 4 bars at a time to work on.

The secondary set of arrows underneath seem to do nothing except occasionally end in the wrong place, launching my loop from part way.

What the hell are they meant to do? Why do they exist? I obviously don't miss them.

Stromkraft
Posts: 7033
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: What's with the horrible secondary loop length arrows?

Post by Stromkraft » Fri Aug 03, 2018 12:58 pm

alexjholland wrote:What's with the secondary, lower set of loop triangles when setting loop length?

In 10 years of using Ableton, they have done nothing but irritate me.

When I'm programming an 8 bar loop I will use the main arrows to select 2 or 4 bars at a time to work on.

The secondary set of arrows underneath seem to do nothing except occasionally end in the wrong place, launching my loop from part way.

What the hell are they meant to do? Why do they exist? I obviously don't miss them.
That's the start and end markers. The latter is relevant for unlooped clips, which can become true for any clip in Session when you turn off loop from your controller.

If you use the left arrow to show the Info View you'll get an explanation over what the element your mousing over at the moment is.

I'd say it very easy no to touch the lower arrows unless one needs to. I think where you might have these move is when you move about a clip on the Arrangement timeline.
Make some music!

alexjholland
Posts: 300
Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2009 12:22 am
Location: Cambridge, UK
Contact:

Re: What's with the horrible secondary loop length arrows?

Post by alexjholland » Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:01 pm

Stromkraft wrote:
alexjholland wrote:What's with the secondary, lower set of loop triangles when setting loop length?

In 10 years of using Ableton, they have done nothing but irritate me.

When I'm programming an 8 bar loop I will use the main arrows to select 2 or 4 bars at a time to work on.

The secondary set of arrows underneath seem to do nothing except occasionally end in the wrong place, launching my loop from part way.

What the hell are they meant to do? Why do they exist? I obviously don't miss them.
That's the start and end markers. The latter is relevant for unlooped clips, which can become true for any clip in Session when you turn off loop from your controller.

If you use the left arrow to show the Info View you'll get an explanation over what the element your mousing over at the moment is.

I'd say it very easy no to touch the lower arrows unless one needs to. I think where you might have these move is when you move about a clip on the Arrangement timeline.
I ALWAYS want my loop to start from the beginning.

If I didn't, it wouldn't be the start of the loop.

Where can I turn this stupid, pointless feature off?

alexjholland
Posts: 300
Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2009 12:22 am
Location: Cambridge, UK
Contact:

Re: What's with the horrible secondary loop length arrows?

Post by alexjholland » Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:01 pm

And yes, I think it might be arrangement where they bother me more.

pottering
Posts: 1956
Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2014 4:41 am

Re: What's with the horrible secondary loop length arrows?

Post by pottering » Fri Aug 03, 2018 8:01 pm

alexjholland wrote:
Stromkraft wrote:
alexjholland wrote:What's with the secondary, lower set of loop triangles when setting loop length?

In 10 years of using Ableton, they have done nothing but irritate me.

When I'm programming an 8 bar loop I will use the main arrows to select 2 or 4 bars at a time to work on.

The secondary set of arrows underneath seem to do nothing except occasionally end in the wrong place, launching my loop from part way.

What the hell are they meant to do? Why do they exist? I obviously don't miss them.
That's the start and end markers. The latter is relevant for unlooped clips, which can become true for any clip in Session when you turn off loop from your controller.

If you use the left arrow to show the Info View you'll get an explanation over what the element your mousing over at the moment is.

I'd say it very easy no to touch the lower arrows unless one needs to. I think where you might have these move is when you move about a clip on the Arrangement timeline.
I ALWAYS want my loop to start from the beginning.

If I didn't, it wouldn't be the start of the loop.

Where can I turn this stupid, pointless feature off?
When the Clip is set to Loop ON, the Start Marker moves with Loop Braces, and the End Marker doesn't matter.

So just edit the loop with Loop On...

It is pretty reasonable of Live to presume a Clip being edited with Loop OFF is not meant to be a loop...

The Start/End Markers are not "pointless", nor "stupid".

For example, you can set a Clip to have an attack phase/intro and loop only the seamless loop after that. Or you can put the Start Marker in the middle, when you want a loop to start after a certain part but still have that part in subsequent loops.

It exists for similar reasons you can unlink the Envelopes.
♥♥♥

Stromkraft
Posts: 7033
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: What's with the horrible secondary loop length arrows?

Post by Stromkraft » Fri Aug 03, 2018 8:47 pm

alexj wrote:
I ALWAYS want my loop to start from the beginning.
Let's define "the beginning" as -6 bars. Now, you say you want the loop on -6, do you? But I want it on 1.

And I don't want my final 6 bars to be played in the loop, but only when I leave it to play out and not loop again. This could be in 20 bars on 240 or whenever I want. You want more limitations. Ableton wanted less.

If you don't need it, just leave it.
Make some music!

H20nly
Posts: 16113
Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:15 pm
Location: The Wild West

Re: What's with the horrible secondary loop length arrows?

Post by H20nly » Fri Aug 03, 2018 11:50 pm

i have to agree that their behavior can be annoying in Arrange view. i occasionally accidentally move one and they can get tedious if you're off grid.

Stromkraft
Posts: 7033
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: What's with the horrible secondary loop length arrows?

Post by Stromkraft » Sat Aug 04, 2018 8:25 am

H20nly wrote:i have to agree that their behavior can be annoying in Arrange view. i occasionally accidentally move one and they can get tedious if you're off grid.

You're touching on one of the oversights Ableton have left within the Editor and timeline and that is the lack of using the grid momentarily in an intuitive way when grid is off. A typical situation would be when editing some notes with grid off and then you need a quick adjustment of one of a markers/brace and, as you may be zoomed out or something so it may be hard to see where it ends up, so you naturally want it to snap to the grid in order to keep a regular loop length, instead of 4.1.3 or something.

A way to get snap to work with grid off is to start moving and then press Ctrl (Windows) or Cmd (Mac). Don't hold this modifier key down before moving if this is not about start of the clip as this will place the start marker at the clip position.

This area seems underdeveloped and somewhat non-intuitive unfortunately.

I could not play quite a few clips without the start and end markers. I can't imagine a way that wouldn't render their absence more irritating for other users. It's not that hard to just ignore these.

I think the behavior with the start marker when moving a clip on the timeline while playing back has changed in Live 10. Or I forgot how make Live move the start marker when moving a clip to off positions on the timeline.
Make some music!

H20nly
Posts: 16113
Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:15 pm
Location: The Wild West

Re: What's with the horrible secondary loop length arrows?

Post by H20nly » Mon Aug 06, 2018 11:51 pm

for me it usually is a vocals or a bass line take. both of which can bleed off beat causing there to be some necessary overlap.

maybe this is why there is not comping in Live... since we are forced to make these off grid changes... if they want to [finally] implement comping, they would be forced to fix both issues for comping to work. That's just too much at one time :P

Post Reply