Clip sections

[fall]

I'm not sure how frequently Ableton reads these suggestions, but I do hope they take this one seriously because I think it's something that would improve Live a lot. I'm actually hoping to see this in Live 6 if possible, and think it would be a big selling point, encouraging people to upgrade.

I'm talking about something I would call "sections", but that's not important. It's similar to cue points (which would be nice as well), but they have a start and end point, along with a name. All sections would be stored in the asd files.

Sections would be used to indicate different parts of the song (chorus, verse, breaks, etc). I know a lot of DJ's cut up songs into different parts so they can use them to mix, but with the power of sections, this wouldn't be necesarry anymore. You could define the different sections, and use this as a visible guide when mixing, or you could set a clips's loop points to a section with one click.

In the Clip View, there would be a new Show/Hide button for these sections, so it doesn't clutter the current Sample Display. It allows you to add and edit different sessions, much like the loop section that is already there, but it would also be handy if you can name them. I'm thinking sections should be allowed to overlap, but that's up to Ableton, off course.

It would also be neat if sections were accescible by midi, but I'm not sure how that could be implemented.

From the file browser, songs could be expanded, so you see the different sections (like the effects where you can expand to see the presets), allowing you to drag a section into a track. It would probably still load the entire song, but with the loop points set to the selected section, allowing you to quickly add different parts of the song so you can mix freely.

One last thing that I would like, is that the sections indicators are also visible in the arrangement view when you have the track unfolded, possibly with an option to hide the sections). That way, you can easily align tracks correctly when you are dj'ing in arrangement view - I know some people do this.

Anyway, I know this post is rather long, but I do hope someone at Ableton reads this and takes it into consideration. It's the one thing that's still missing to make Ableton the ultimate DJ tool.

[dCross]

Are you familiar with Live's ability to save entire groups of clips as a single miniature Live set?

You could conceivably duplicate your song clip many times, and make each duplicate into a unique loop, cue point, etc.

Shift-click them all, and drag them into your library, and you'll have a single reference to all your work that can later be dragged in during your DJ set.

[fall]

I don't use Live all that much, I just play with it once in a while (doint a live set soon though). I did know you could save multiple clips, but I never thought of using them like this. So yeah this would kind of do the trick, but it's a bit of a work-around. I would still like the sections I suggested.

But I'll try your suggestion and see if that works for me. Thanks!

[dr.wackler]

Sounds like you should make yourself familiar with what can be done with locators, play from locators according to the global quantize value, assign locators to commands (MIDI and/or key), set loops between locators, set locators on the fly, and all that stuff.

[dCross]

Sounds like you should make yourself familiar with what can be done with locators, play from locators according to the global quantize value, assign locators to commands (MIDI and/or key), set loops between locators, set locators on the fly, and all that stuff.

locators are great, but they only exist in arrange view. He's basically asking for locators inside a Session view clip.

[fall]

That's not what I'm looking for - locators are only for the arrangement view. I'd like to have (pairs of) locators stored in the clips. I don't really see how playing from a locator in the arrangement view can help with dj'ing. Say I want to add a song, but start it's playback on the chorus right after the verse in another track. I don't think these locators can help me do that. Clip locators would, because I would clearly see where the chorus starts, etc. Or am I missing something?

[Angstrom]

I have seen a few people ask for locators in the clip view before, DJS / performers and DAW people - and I have read that the Abletonians keep a big excell spreadsheet of all the requests made, so I guess it stands a chance of inclusion one day!

it would never make L6 though, they are done with feature additions now - it's nearlt time for release.

[dCross]

I am not tied into the development side of things, but I do wonder one thing with regard to this specific feature request:

What's so bad about the workaround (clip duplication)?

The whole Clip concept is based on references, right? (ie: a clip is simply telling Live how to play a file, not manipulating the file)

So this feature request is basically asking for a reference to a reference: additional pointers attached to a file which is essentially already one big pointer. I don't know why an additional layer of complexity should be added to Live if the workaround... works?

I dunno, you tell me - is there anything a Clip reference could do that duplication couldn't?


The funniest thing is that a few months ago (before I learned the workaround), this was one of my most requested features .

[Angstrom]

personaly I'm not that bothered, but I aminterested in a related item which would be much more use to me.

Metaclips

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27826&

[dr.wackler]

locators are great, but they only exist in arrange view. He's basically asking for locators inside a Session view clip.

Oh. I guess I misinterpreted what he was refering to as "song".
However, maybe I spent too much time learning to 'read' waveforms, so I know where to click in a clip with the speaker tool to jump to the right section. And if I want to have sections seperated, I just make a copy of the clip - like you said in your other post.
The "Metaclips" OTOH would be very useful for me.

[fall]

I am not tied into the development side of things, but I do wonder one thing with regard to this specific feature request:

What's so bad about the workaround (clip duplication)?

The whole Clip concept is based on references, right? (ie: a clip is simply telling Live how to play a file, not manipulating the file)

So this feature request is basically asking for a reference to a reference: additional pointers attached to a file which is essentially already one big pointer. I don't know why an additional layer of complexity should be added to Live if the workaround... works?

I dunno, you tell me - is there anything a Clip reference could do that duplication couldn't?


The funniest thing is that a few months ago (before I learned the workaround), this was one of my most requested features .

Well, I just spent some time experimenting with this "workaround", and it actually covers it quite well, so I stand corrected.
However, mark points would still be handy in some cases where you don't want to have a lot of different clips, but just want to click the waveform to jump to the correct spot, or align correctly in arrangement mode. I know, this last thing could be solved by multiple clips too, but it would still be handy.

However, maybe I spent too much time learning to 'read' waveforms, so I know where to click in a clip with the speaker tool to jump to the right section.

I can read waveforms too, but there are cases where it's not so easy, for instance where the bar before a chorus is also louder, etc.

[orge]

Whilst the workaround using extra clips is a helpful alternative, I don't think it has the convenience of being able to mark up cue points/sections in every instance of a track.

Firstly, it would reduce the need to preprepare clips for use in a set - you could actually drop markers whilst the track is playing (just the the same way you create loop points). These would then be saved with the asd file and loaded up when you create a new clip. Of course, the markers should be as visual as possible, with possibility of adding text and/or coloured labels.

Secondly, it reduces on screen clutter and gives me less clips to keep track of - If I want to loop a section of a clip, I just duplicate that clip instead of having to locate a particular instance.

Finally, when picking music to play in live, I'm often pulling it from an external music library, so it's more button clicks to find and select the als file.

Marking sections of music is possibly not as important, as the set/end controls are fairly friendly for creating loops on the fly - you could easily place cue markers to denote the end of a loop section if this was really an issue. Often the duration of the loop is obvious and you would just type the number into the loop control once the set point has been placed. It's important that the simplicity of the sample viewer is not compromised by adding this feature, so I am conscious that marking sections up may not be as sympathetic in this respect - Keeping track of multiple loop points, in a single clip, may have similar problems.

This may all seem like nit-picking, but having this information every time you pull in the track, would improve Live's ability to spontaneously import/warp/mark/mix music, and this is the main objective for dj use. Ideally, it would be great if you could play out tunes with as little pre-prep as possible - you can warp mark pretty fast once you've put in the hours!!

Having only used Ableton for a short period of time, I can honestly say that it's already great as a "pick up and go" tool. However, I think it's touches like this that will add to the user experience and making it even better.

Keep up the great work!!

J

[longjohns]

To me, this concept ties in real nice-like with the bigger picture of making warp markers launchable, mappable, etc.