Ableton please give us back our waveform zoom

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.

Does this need to be addressed?

Poll ended at Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:27 am

No, the new way sounds cool.
14
18%
Yes, Being able to quickly navigate waveforms is important to me.
51
65%
Dont care, get out more.
14
18%
 
Total votes: 79

jlgrimes
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Re: Ableton please give us back our waveform zoom

Post by jlgrimes » Fri Jan 23, 2009 3:13 pm

condra wrote:
Tarekith wrote:No more zoom in the upper half of the waveform. That was like Live's "thing" to me, the one thing that made it so quick to use compared to other apps.......

Especially for Djs that need to warp with precision, it made it very quick to zoom in and out while dropping markers. ......

I'd rather see a preference option for toggling upper waveform for selection or zooming (with the ooposite one possible via shift) versus just dropping zooming altogther.
This seems crazy to me. One of my favourite features of Live has always been the quick and intuitive zooming in the waveform view, with a generously large area to "grab onto" with ones mouse.

What are peoples thoughts on this?
I voted that I like the old way but to be honest, I haven't tried the new way.

My concern was that there was nothing wrong with the old way though. I thought the old way was one of the best zoom features on any program I used from Sonar to Sound Forge.

Only way the new way could be better (I think), is if they focused on having users create their own zooming shortcuts +, - is counter intuitive since you have to press SHIFT +. A one key binding would work better.

That said I found nothing wrong with the mouse way of zooming since it also solved the problem of also centering your location which many other programs fail to address

drumrak
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Post by drumrak » Fri Jan 23, 2009 7:04 pm

yeah, i hate the new way of scrolling. it def. puts a kink in my "workflow" for sure. its really easy to miss and then just play the clip instead

trevorc
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Post by trevorc » Sun Jan 25, 2009 12:46 pm

Tarekith wrote:It's just harder to hit that smaller area now, especially if you're live using a trackpad. I would often zoom in really quick on a waveform to change a loop point, or manually trigger a clip somewhere else. Now I have to hit a MUCH smaller area to do that, especially considering you could have the waveform area expanded before too. I agree,it's a small change, but it makes a huge difference to how you zoom and navigate within a clip. PLease let us select how we want this controlled in the prefs ala:


Image

Sorry so sloppy, you get the idea.
totally on board with this idea, zoom should be as easy as possible to access in my view, so a preference setting would be a great way of accommodating both old and new methods.

Jekblad
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Post by Jekblad » Sun Jan 25, 2009 8:00 pm

did someone say the "edit" button is gone?

what replaces that?
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drush
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Post by drush » Sun Jan 25, 2009 8:09 pm

maybe i'm being retarded but can someone (further) explain this 'upper/lower' thing?

in general it sounds like the change sucks.. because i really love the current zoom feature for warping. but i guess i don't understand the change.

Tarekith
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Post by Tarekith » Sun Jan 25, 2009 8:31 pm

In Clip view, where you can see the waveform of your audio clips, it's always been that clicking in the bottom half of the waveform cause the clip to play where you click, and clicking and draggig in the upper half of the waveform was how you zoomed in and out, and moved the audio back and forth.

In Live 8, clicking in the top half of the waveform now lets you select portions of the waveform. To zoom, you need to click and drag in the small area above the clip loop brace. It's the same as zoom in the arrange page, so I can see how this makes thing smore unified. But it really slows down the warping process too IMO.
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drush
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Post by drush » Sun Jan 25, 2009 8:44 pm

oh, duh. thanks.

and yeah, that sounds like not something i love. for sure being able to zoom around there as it is today (with that much real estate to click in) is something i'd be upset about not having

shatzer
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Post by shatzer » Sun Jan 25, 2009 10:05 pm

No, I haven't tried the new way, but just hearing about it pisses me off. I love the way it zooms now (old way). The workflow is great.
Damn it. The only reason I want 8 is the group tracks. If the zooming does truly suck when i try it out i'm sticking with 7.

Hervé
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Post by Hervé » Sun Jan 25, 2009 10:22 pm

mmmh, beta testing now, it's just a matter of adjusting your old habit. it work the same way, just one centimeter upper. I'm actually allready getting used to it, naturally, like if i where on V7.

dphouse84
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Post by dphouse84 » Tue Jan 27, 2009 4:04 pm

booo!
Stuff I actually use.
sound card, speakers, mic, MBP, Mighty Mouse, Ableton, Reason, iPad, iPhone,Touchable, Rebirth, & other apps.
Pair of Technics 1200's, and a Pioneer Mixer

jimmynitcher
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Post by jimmynitcher » Tue Feb 03, 2009 10:01 pm

I really can't see what the fuss is about, the change is so easy to get used to - in fact its as easy as starting a panic amongst people who have no idea what you are on about - a very cheap way of drumming up support.

Not only is the zooming in a 'consistent' place but you can now select a part of the waveform and ctrl click to crop/loop etc which in my view (and a lot of others I suspect) is way better. If you put the zooming back where it was you would have to sacrifice that - believe me when you try it you won't want the old way.

chevthewizard
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Post by chevthewizard » Tue Feb 03, 2009 10:45 pm

I think it would be better if the needledrop / scrub thingie was in the top little part and zoom and select had top/bottom. I can really see the benefits of the new select thing. Configuring loops on-the-fly can be a nightmare and this should go some way to improving that.

However I really think Tarekith's solution in the preferences is the way to go, having the option is not hurting anyone. - Only you need to add another row for the upper bit so everything is configurable!!
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Tarekith
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Post by Tarekith » Tue Feb 03, 2009 11:11 pm

jimmynitcher wrote:I really can't see what the fuss is about, the change is so easy to get used to - in fact its as easy as starting a panic amongst people who have no idea what you are on about - a very cheap way of drumming up support.

Not only is the zooming in a 'consistent' place but you can now select a part of the waveform and ctrl click to crop/loop etc which in my view (and a lot of others I suspect) is way better. If you put the zooming back where it was you would have to sacrifice that - believe me when you try it you won't want the old way.

If I was just using Live in the studio, I'd totally agree. But when you're using it live, it's a differetn story trying to hit that smaller area. Especially because if you're a little off, it's easy to accidentally start playback somewhere else now.
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djsynchro
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Post by djsynchro » Wed Feb 04, 2009 2:50 am

It's fine and there is an insert marker now! All change takes getting used to, Im still not used to the new warping system though someone who i new to Live would find it way more intuitive.

benjaminFlack
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Post by benjaminFlack » Wed Feb 04, 2009 3:18 am

Tarekith wrote:It's just harder to hit that smaller area now, especially if you're live using a trackpad. I would often zoom in really quick on a waveform to change a loop point, or manually trigger a clip somewhere else. Now I have to hit a MUCH smaller area to do that, especially considering you could have the waveform area expanded before too. I agree,it's a small change, but it makes a huge difference to how you zoom and navigate within a clip. PLease let us select how we want this controlled in the prefs ala:


Image

Sorry so sloppy, you get the idea.
+1
we are all bound to do what we want most.

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