Session View playing entire song instead of just one clip

[mgr]

I do not know if this is a bug, but after installing Live 10 Lite and loading the supplied demo song (which was a nightmare to find on the hard drive, BTW), I switched to Session View, clicked Play triangle on the first clip in the first track, but it started playing the whole song, not just that clip.
After searching forums I found a suggestion that I have to click Stop button on Master track to Stop All Clips. When I did this, all started to behave like expected.

Now, is this supposed to be intuitive ??? I hope it is a bug.

Note that NONE of the clips were selected to play, all Play triangles were greyed out on all clips, so I guess they were not supposed to play at all. Pressing the Stop All Clips did not change anything visually, yet it fixed the problem with all clips playing instead just one I clicked Play on.

I have to say I have worked with some DAWs before, like Cubase and Cakewalk, and could always find my way around, not even needing to read a manual, but this Live thing seems to be as counterintuitive as it gets, even reading the manual does not help much.

EDIT:

I have discovered that clicking Stop All Clips in Session View does change the Arrangement view, it greys out all tracks in Arrangement view, which is why they do not play when I try to play one clip alone. So I guess it is not a bug, but rather a feature.
I STRONGLY believe that it should be clearly written in the manual, in the Session View section, that if I play a clip, the whole arrangement will play as well. It took me about an hour of frustration to understand this.

[wearemindflux]

Hi, I believe it is in the manual, I would suggest taking some lessons or a course to better understand the software.

[mgr]

Hi, I believe it is in the manual, I would suggest taking some lessons or a course to better understand the software.

I do not believe it is in the manual. It only says click the triangle to play clip.
I am really trying to read the manual, but it does not take me anywhere.
It does bring some headache, though.
I am both IT guy and an amateur musician, with real world experience with DAWs,
so I would expect to understand at least the basic principles,
but this software is really strange.

So yes, I guess I need to take some lessons.
The problem is there are no lessons for the Lite version, so everything I was able to find so far has used things which my version does not have, for example a Clips library, which is empty in my Browser.

Another example of confusion, I have Drum Rack in both Instruments and Drums sections, but in the Instruments sections there are no sounds for it, yet there are sounds for other instruments. Does this make sense to anyone ???

This is really the first music software I ever used which I need a manual for, and the manual is not good at all...

[jestermgee]

If you are an IT guy (like me) you should recognise the manual is actually very well written and it states everything in there, including the answer to your question:

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.

Arrangement playback does not resume until you explicitly tell Live to resume by clicking the Back to Arrangement button, which appears in the Arrangement View and lights up to remind you that what you hear differs from the Arrangement.

https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/sessi ... and-scenes

Of course anything will be hard to learn at first. For someone not akin to networking, handing them a Cisco router then asking them to bridge 2 networks and segregate the IP ranges would seem confusing.

When you run into trouble it's never good to start blaming the tools. Live is not just a Linear DAW like most, it has the flexible creative aspect that draws many to it but it takes some time and effort to learn. Almosty all tutorials for Live apply to every version, of course the available devices will differ and the number of tracks available will differ but the core principals will be the same.

If you haven't started here you should:

https://www.ableton.com/en/live/learn-live/

[H20nly]

mgr, I'm an I.T. guy too...

I will admit that Live Session view confused the piss out of me when I first started using it. I was coming from Cubase SX3.

To this day, I still use Live mostly from Arrange view. I'm not suggesting you do the same... but I think i understand your frustration.

As far as the demo song goes... you shouldn't have had to dig for it.

Make sure you have Help View turned on, it would be in the Help menu on the Menu Bar.
With that turned on, you should be able to find the lessons there.

There is an "Info View". When that is open, you should see text pop into the window that tells you about GUI items that your mouse pointer is hovering over. It's a very helpful way to find out what something is called to use for reference as you search the .pdf manual.
It might also assist you with better syntax for internet searches or browsing YouTube, etc.

here's a link to what i'm speaking to
https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/first-steps/

personally, i hate .pdf manuals. i used to always order the boxed version of Live to get the paper manual, but they either stopped offering it or started charging extra when Live 9 came out. 8 was the last physical copy i was able to get my hands on.

anyway, good luck.

[fishmonkey]

the relationship between Session View and Arrange View didn't seem intuitive to me at first (and to be honest still doesn't, even though i get it now).

i'm sure that damn Back to Arrangement button has caused more than a few headaches for Live users over the years!

[wearemindflux]

Hi, I have written a course for Sub Bass, that only uses impulse, drum racks and simpler to make music.

Also, it uses the compressor, EQ 8, auto filter, reverb, and delays.

So I think with lite you can do 80-90% of the course. Would you like me to send a link?

[H20nly]

i'm sure that damn Back to Arrangement button has caused more than a few headaches for Live users over the years!

yep

Would you like me to send a link?

i would

[wearemindflux]

i'm sure that damn Back to Arrangement button has caused more than a few headaches for Live users over the years!

yep

Would you like me to send a link?

i would

Hey, here you go https://www.subbassdj.com/courses/onlin ... on-courses

[H20nly]

awe bummer... i thought you were offering up the lesson.

still, i'll check it out more. if nothing else, it seems like a well organized site.

[wearemindflux]

Ahh sorry, it's a full course.

[mgr]

If you are an IT guy (like me) you should recognise the manual is actually very well written and it states everything in there, including the answer to your question:

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.

Arrangement playback does not resume until you explicitly tell Live to resume by clicking the Back to Arrangement button, which appears in the Arrangement View and lights up to remind you that what you hear differs from the Arrangement.

https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/sessi ... and-scenes

Of course anything will be hard to learn at first. For someone not akin to networking, handing them a Cisco router then asking them to bridge 2 networks and segregate the IP ranges would seem confusing.

When you run into trouble it's never good to start blaming the tools. Live is not just a Linear DAW like most, it has the flexible creative aspect that draws many to it but it takes some time and effort to learn. Almosty all tutorials for Live apply to every version, of course the available devices will differ and the number of tracks available will differ but the core principals will be the same.

If you haven't started here you should:

https://www.ableton.com/en/live/learn-live/

Well, what you quote from the manual is exactly the opposite of what I have experienced.
When nothing is playing, and I click a clip play button in the session view, it also starts to play whatever there is in the arrangement view, in other words, the whole song. So I do not understand what they mean by mutually exclusive, it is exactly the opposite, isn't it ?

Anyway, I got it sorted already, but the manual did not help me single bit. It is NOT well written, just the opposite. And the software is not intuitive, unless you know it already

Another example of why the manual being NOT well written, are the numerous screenshots from the browser window, where they only show the right browser window, not bothering to show what is selected in the left window to get that view. For example here:
https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/manag ... midi-files

Because of this it took so much time just to understand how projects are saved, where do I find them, how do I create a new one... And once again, I have used many other DAW programs before with no problems, so I guess I am not retarded in any significant way.

Now that I understand the basic things, I find Live being functionally a good software, but it took me too much time to learn for my taste.

Currently a bigger problem for me is the Launchpad Pro I am using with Live, as it does not allow me to play standard keyboard instruments like piano at silent levels, as it sends unexpected note off events when playing sustained notes silently. This is really a pain which I was not expecting from an instrument advertised as being velocity sensitive, and haveing a "Pro" label in its name.

[fishmonkey]

If you are an IT guy (like me) you should recognise the manual is actually very well written and it states everything in there, including the answer to your question:

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.

Arrangement playback does not resume until you explicitly tell Live to resume by clicking the Back to Arrangement button, which appears in the Arrangement View and lights up to remind you that what you hear differs from the Arrangement.

https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/sessi ... and-scenes

Well, what you quote from the manual is exactly the opposite of what I have experienced.
When nothing is playing, and I click a clip play button in the session view, it also starts to play whatever there is in the arrangement view, in other words, the whole song. So I do not understand what they mean by mutually exclusive, it is exactly the opposite, isn't it ?
]

it's mutually exclusive within each track/channel. for example, the arrangement clips in track 1 cannot play at the same time as as session clips in track 1.

[doghouse]

The OP needs to understand how Arrangement mode works together with Session.

If you never touch the record button, you can spend the rest of your life launching clips in Session mode and the Arrangement will always be empty. Once something is recorded into the Arrangement, launching a clip in Session starts playback of the Arrangement as well as the clip. In other words playback is a global property.

If you have no clips loaded in Session, recording and playback only happens in Arrangement.

The clip stop button on the Master track stops both the Session and Arrangement playback as well as disabling Arrangement playback until the user chooses to reenable it.

[mgr]

The OP needs to understand how Arrangement mode works together with Session.
...

Thanks for this summary. I understand it now, but I had to learn it the hard way.