Display mm:ss in Arrangement View

[cundare]

When playing a track, how do you display the current time position in Arrangement View? I'm looking for conventional hh:mm:ss type format, not measures:beats.

This question has been asked many times on the forum, and the answer is always "It's at the bottom of the screen."

Uh, not my screen.

I've scoured the knowledge base and reference manual using as many possible search terms as I can think of. No dice.

I wonder if there's some counter-intuitive setting or mode that must be set in order to convince Live 11 to perform this very basic function. But that's just a SWAG. That's my suspicion after losing just as much productivity trying to figure out how to do something as simple as setting metronome volume. It's no wonder that when you request support from Ableton, you receive a reply stating that the company replies only to reports of bug fixes, and won't help with usability issues. Whoa! I'm beginning to think I spent a lot of money on the wrong program.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

[cundare]

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[[jur]]

the answer is always "It's at the bottom of the screen."

And that is true!
You need to right-click the bottom Arrangement ruler, and you'll see options.

[cundare]

Thanks, jur. I wouldn't have thought of that.

But even that doesn't work. I just get a pop-up with selections like "Time" (which was already checked), and various frame rates. Those selections just change the units on the timeline -- nothing to do, seemingly, with displaying the time of the current playback position.

Is this feature documented somewhere in the manual -- with an illustration?

I wish I could post a screen capture b/c maybe I'm looking at the wrong thing. Unfortunately, this forum's button for attaching a file is as inscrutable as the other functions I can't figure out. Clicking an "attach image" button just inserts a couple of HTML tags. Does a user have to write HTML code in order to embed an image into a forum posting, like we used to in the 1990s?

[cundare]

I've just been trying various ways to embed a screen capture to show jur what I'm seeing.

I think I've finally figured out what the forum software is looking for: embedding an image seems to require submitting it to to some third-party image-server application that then uploads it to the cloud & assigns it a URL. Then you embed the URL. Well, I used to subscribe to such a service back in the days of Windows Me, but haven't needed anything like that in 20-30 years. Another strike against Steinberg.

Is there any more conventional way to attach an image to a forum posting in Windows?

At this point, I'm wasting more & more time falling down rabbit hole after rabbit hole. I'm wondering: Will Ableton even be worth the trouble when I'm finally done crashing this car blindfolded?

[H20nly]

For your original question… I use a loop bracket in Arrange view. Loop the tracks, then click the loop bracket to select them all (like you do for an Export). Once you move your mouse pointer off the loop bracket, the start/end bars and duration will display at the bottom left of the screen.

For the imbedded image question… you have to use a hosting service that you can link to. My guess is that Ableton doesn’t want Terabytes of images on its servers. Some years ago there was an APC40 thread, hundreds of pages long, with it photoshopped any and everywhere - that and others like it would have cost them a small fortune in hard drives to host. No sense in running up the price of Live any further

[cundare]

>For your original question… I use a loop bracket in Arrange view. Loop the tracks, then click the loop bracket to select them all (like you do for an Export). Once you move your mouse pointer off the loop bracket, the start/end bars and duration will display at the bottom left of the screen.

Thanks for the reply, but that's not what I was asking for. I'm looking for a time-display that shows current cursor/playback position, *identical* to the measure-beat display at the top of the Arrangement View screen, but formatted in hh:mm:ss, rather than mm:bb. This is an essential tool and is easily visible in every other music-creation application I've used, going back to the original Cakewalk & Finale apps. (Yes, I'm that old and that experienced.) In many cases, a user simply double-clicks the mm:bb display to toggle to hh:mm:ss. Why would that be hard to do here?

I appreciate you taking the time to respond, but I'm getting more & more disgusted by the fact that this question has even had to be asked on this forum so many times? And why isn't it even mentioned in the mostly useless 860+ page reference manual?

Answer: Ableton seems to have been written by, and is now supported by, people who don't really know what they're doing.

Sorry to rant, but I didn't walk in with this attitude. Compared to many other music applications, Ableton is a nightmare to learn. After watching an excellent 12-hour "Intro to Ableton" YouTube tutorial, I still don';t know why the most basic functions, like setting metronome volume or display time positions, are so hard to ID.

>For the imbedded image question… you have to use a hosting service that you can link to. My guess is that Ableton doesn’t want Terabytes of images on its servers. Some years ago there was an APC40 thread, hundreds of pages long, with it photoshopped any and everywhere - that and others like it would have cost them a small fortune in hard drives to host. No sense in running up the price of Live any further

Well, the motivation you speculate is pretty obvious, but I have to respectfully disagree with your attempt to justify it. Storage does not cost "a small fortune" when a 15TB (external!) Western Digital HDD runs something like $200, not on sale, on Amazon. Requiring users to subscribe to a hosting service in 2023 is unacceptable. Period. I can't understand why users are making excuses for Steinberg when the company so obviously couldn't care less about its users. See also the threads about changing the default Warp setting to "disabled." I'm sure that amost every new Ableton user runs into crazy problems because imported clips start warping themselves without any indication that this is happening -- much less why. But when users have asked Ableton to disable this potentially confusing, advanced feature by default, all they're told is "no." Come on!

Overall, I rank Steinberg as one of the worst music-software companies I've ever had to work with. The documentation is terrible, just terrible. The interface is quirky, poorly documented, and sometimes bizarrely counter-intuitive. Support, in a word, sucks. Ableton reps won't even answer a question they deem a "usability" issue -- only "bug fixes." I'm so close to writing off my Suite purchase price and dumping this product, but I simply can't meet my deadlines if I have to restart from scratch with a completely new program.

Do you consider this a reasonable reaction? The fact that I can't get an answer to the simplest of questions -- not from the manual, not from the company's support operation, not even from well-meaning fellow users on this forum -- speaks more profoundly than I ever could. In fact, the fact that I even have to ask a question like this, and can't even upload a screen capture without first signing up to a hosting service! -- is appalling.

I realize that the music-software industry is notorious for its UI-challenged developers, here's a comparison that debunks that as an excuse: I also use Dorico to export through-composed scores into Ableton for mastering. Like any robust music application, Dorico is enormously complex, and occasionally idiosyncratic. But when I have a problem, I can search the manual and usually find an answer. When there's a particularly nuanced problem, posting a query on the Dorico forum elicits responses within minutes. The fastest responders are Dorico support people, who are willing to spend a lot of time addressing the more nuanced issues, even when those issues have to do with interfacing to third-party applications. If necessary, Dorico support will even arrange an international Zoom call, with remote control, to investigate further. No fee for any of this.

It's not a matter of budgeting or "raising the price" of Ableton. Dorico is a small start-up, and I'd be amazed if Steinberg doesn't have far more resources to devote to support than Dorico does. The difference, I think, is that Dorico respects its users and wants them to have a positive experience with its software. The impression I get here is that Steinberg couldn't care less about its users unless it thinks that one of them is might be pirating its products. If Steinberg spent as much energy on support as it does on creating insanely convoluted piracy-mitigating installation & activation procedures, I wouldn't be so negative at this point.

I was originally so gung-ho on Ableton, given its unique capabilities, like Max. But I've found that the best way to circumvent some silly, arbitrary UI failing is to actually post my question on the Dorico forum -- where other Ableton/Dorico users and even Dorico support people -- will do their best to solve the problem.

That's pretty f**ing sad.

And I still don't know how to display time position in Arrangement View. Nothing is visible at the bottom of the screen. All I'm looking for is a screen shot and a few words about how to get to the screen in the image. From someone who is subscribed to a hosting service in 2023.

PS to H2Only: No, I'm not ranting at you, and I honestly do appreciate your taking the time to respond to my question. Thank you! It's just that, at this point, I'm on a deadline to mix & master a complex piece of music -- something that should be pretty straightforward in any DAW -- and I've just wasted nearly two days of my short-supply time trying to solve completely unnecessary problems. So I'm really stressed out over the whole thing.

[Tarekith]

The mm:ss are always shown at the bottom of the arrange view, I drew an arrow for you since you seem to be having issues finding it.

[cundare]

Thanks for the screenshot, but now I feel even more stupid. I don't see any time display on your screen. What am I missing?

Could you possibly be referring to the timeline? If so, that's something completely different. If I click a location on a track, or if I'm playing a composition, a timeline is no substitute for an instantaneous display of the current time position.

Again, what I'm looking for is a very basic function that is an obvious component of the UIs of almost all music applications. In the case of a program like Ableton, the most intuitive way to implement such a function would be a one-click way to toggle the existing display between its measures:beats format (shown as 1:1:1 at the top of your image) and a standard hh:mm:ss format. In other programs, this can be done with a simple double-click in the display box. I was surprised when that didn't work, and after the frustration of being unable to find an answer in the reference manual and knowledgebase, finally posted here in desperation.

If merely watching a cursor scroll by on a timeline -- and having to constantly adjust zoom levels or scroll around the score during playback in order to always view the timeline at the right position & at a legible resolution -- were sufficient, then why include even the measures:beats display? Users need to be able to quickly jump to a specific time (e.g., by typing mm:ss into a time-display box) instead of having to zoom out, scroll to another part of the score, zoom back in and repeat until you've found the exact location? .

What I'm starting to gather from the knowlegable people who have been trying to help is that Ableton does not support this very, very basic function. In fact, people who are apparently the most familiar with the program don't even seem to understand what I'm referring to.

[Rivanni]

Upload an image of what you want to this site:
https://postimages.org/
Paste the link that is created after the upload here on the forum.

[Tarekith]

What I'm starting to gather from the knowlegable people who have been trying to help is that Ableton does not support this very, very basic function. In fact, people who are apparently the most familiar with the program don't even seem to understand what I'm referring to.

You have people here trying to tell you what you want is not there in Live, and this is how we get around it. For most of us, it works fine. What seems basic for one person, can be completely unnecessary for another. You’ll find a lot of that in Live, it cleans up the interface in some areas, but you can usually find a workaround if you want to use the app that much.

I bet there’s a M4L solution to your problem someone has already created, but I’ve never had to find out myself.

[[jur]]

I bet there’s a M4L solution to your problem someone has already created, but I’ve never had to find out myself.

Yep, that's the way to go, if you have M4L. Such device exists but I can't remember any name from the top of my head, you should find them easily on maxforlive.com

[H20nly]

Damn dude.

I provided a different way to see mm:ss from a different area than what is in pic that was shared by another poster. Not sure what more you’re looking for but that’s how I get minutes and seconds, from the lower left corner ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I make music in beats and bars, not minutes and seconds anyway…

Regarding hard drives… I referenced a thread from over a decade ago. Good luck finding the prices you’re on about then… either way, why should Ableton host the images? They’re an audio software company, not Facebook.
Sorry I addressed it at all.

Still wondering what Steinburg has to do with any of this. Not asking though.

I got my Ableton 12 questions answered and my pre-order is in. Done here.

Good luck

[cundare]

Tarekith:
- You're the first to tell me straight that what I'm looking for is absolutely *not* offered by Ableton. Thanks for that, but I disagree about any responses in this thread effectively "telling me how to get around it." A timeline is no substitute for a real-time display. Think about it: If a timeline did the job (and remember that AL's timeline can be configured with measure/beat units), why would anybody ever bother with a measures:beats real-time display? Why not simply allow the time display to toggle between the same units as the timeline??
- Hey, even more thanks (to you & jur) for the Max recommendation. That may be my best (and only) option, since, despite numerous requests in this forum, Ableton has never seen fit to add this simple, often-requested, feature. And, presumably, is unlikely to do so any time soon. So maybe it's time to finally start digging into what I expect to be a very cool resource. As a software designer myself, I was a beta tester for Intelligent Music decades ago when it was selling David Zicarelli's classic M interactive-performance appliation (David's partner Joel Chadabe was a mentor of mine when I was in college). David is a brilliant, creative guy & I have the greatest respect for his designs. I expect M4L to be a blast.

H2Only:
- No, no, you didn't provide a way to show current mm:ss position, and I explained why. Please reread if you care. If you don't, well, you're the one who brought it up.
- Anyone who asks why Ableton should permit screenshots to be uploaded to its support forum probably won't be satisfied with any reasonable answer. But regarding your comments about you defending Ableton's failure to plug this hole with a reference to "decade-old" disk prices, and then mocking my observation that those prices have no relevance today -- well, I think Ralph Waldo Emerson said it all long ago. See https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/353571 ... nds-adored .
- But seriously, though, look, I really do appreciate the fact that you were a decent enough guy to at least try to help. And I understand that your requirements are different enough from mine to make Ableton a better fit for you. But at this point, neither of us is getting anything from this conversation and I'm signing off before it spins into a heated exchange that will be tiresome for everybody. I wish you the best with Ableton 12 and now that I have another option to explore (M4L), I'll continue to try to fight to make Ableton 11 work for me. Even if I don't think too much of the company, its designers, or especially its support, I'm not giving up yet.

Thanks again, Tarekith & jur. I'll take your advice & if I can enhance the Ableton interface with Max, I'll post the code here for users who have raised this same issue in the past. Too bad I have to do Ableton's job for it, but end, means, justification, you know.

[Tarekith]

We don't allow image hosting currently because way back when we did attempt it people were uploading NSFW images and other things that Ableton does not want associated with the forum (much less be liable for hosting). It's something we are going to relook at in the near future (hopefully) now that we have some of the most amazing moderators on the internet here. /s