What's the deal with the "sticky" velocity and automation adjustments in Live?

[Jockste]

Hi! I am pretty new to Ableton Live and try to learn and get used to the interface.

If I select a velocity value on a midi track in the Velocity Editor and drag it upwards or downwards, it moves smoothly as long as I move the mouse rather fast, but If I slow down the movement and try to do more subtle changes, it kind of gets stuck and I have to move the mouse pretty aggressively to get it "unstuck". It feels like it kind of snaps to the vertical placement of other surrounding notes' velocities in the clip, or like there is some sort of acceleration going on in the movement of velocity values.

The same thing happens when I move automation points vertically in Automation Mode.

What's the deal with this behavior? Is there i some way to turn off these "sticky" movements for velocity and automation values?

[Rivanni]

Many Ableton users, including myself, have been experiencing this annoying problem for years (6+ in my case) without a fix.

Here is a topic on the subject.
viewtopic.php?t=236265&hilit=mouse#p1764361

[Jockste]

Many Ableton users, including myself, have been experiencing this annoying problem for years (6+ in my case) without a fix.

Here is a topic on the subject.
viewtopic.php?t=236265&hilit=mouse#p1764361

Thanks Rivanni for the reply and link!

Switching to Pen Mode, which is suggested in the discussion did indeed fix the problem. So far I don't notice any problems with scrolling, but, as someone mentioned, I get some weird behaviour if I hold the opt key and change the Q value in an EQ Eight. However, if this is the only problem, it sure is a lot less annoying than the sticky velocity/automation, which I think is absolutely horrible. Do you know of any other issues with Pen Mode?

[Rivanni]

Do you know of any other issues with Pen Mode?

The main drawback that makes this mode unusable for me is that on a click+drag action, the mouse cursor ends up where you release the mouse button. The mouse cursor is always visible during this action, but that is not a dealbreaker.
Normally, the mouse cursor stays in the same place, and the cursor is hidden while dragging.

[Jockste]

Oh I see. Could you give an example of such a click+drag action, so I can try and see if it bothers me too?

[Jockste]

I found out what types of actions you were referring to - turning a Pan or Send knob, for instance. I am a long time Logic Pro user, where this is the default beaviour, so it's not really an issue for me. So I guess the Pen Tablet Mode will work fine (fingers crossed no other annoyances will pop up later ).

Thanks for the help!

[Rivanni]

Another side effect is that holding the Shift key for fine increments is not working anymore.

[mikepaq]

As others have said this has been an issue for years and over multiple versions, I have reached out to them a couple times directly and they always address that its a problem but they don't appear to have a plan to fix it. Honestly if they released Ableton 13 and the only change was they fixed this problem it would be the greatest update in the history of Ableton.