Ableton Forum

Like old drummachines, not something you'd have to use but something you could use if you wanted for those times that you want to move quickly and just type in a few steps to string some scenes together in whatever way you want and maybe convert then into a song if you wanted you know just like building a song on a drummachine.

starving student wrote:Like old drummachines, not something you'd have to use but something you could use if you wanted for those times that you want to move quickly and just type in a few steps to string some scenes together in whatever way you want and maybe convert then into a song if you wanted you know just like building a song on a drummachine.

I dont know about 8 but yes I wish for the same thing. The clip follow action in Live is the most disturbing invention to mankind. Anyone coming from mpc background that look at the clip follow action invention want to put gun in mouth for its over complexity. It would be great if in Max4L one could develop a unit in which it acts like a drum machine. Follow action all the way to right side of screen on scene launch where it belong. You push one button and it will automatically go down from scene to scene to scene 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 without insane time wasting follow action setup. To make it easy to use like drum machine, just have it default to the longest clip in each scene so all shorter ones loop and when it gets to end of longest clip in scene it jumps down to 2 then 3 then 4 and so on. This would make work flow fly like on drum machine.

arrange view?

I guess not... but isn't arrange view better than screwing with follow actions for an hour?

then again, you realize you can edit the follow actions of a whole bunch of clips at the same time right?

yes, yes, yes ! A Pattern/Song Editor (just like drum machines, or even the RS7000 / Motif) would take live to another level... Also a midi event editor for each audio clip (automation), midi clip (midi data, PC, etc) and track would bring Live to the nTH!

Johnisfaster wrote: then again, you realize you can edit the follow actions of a whole bunch of clips at the same time right?

What page in manual?

manual schmanual

just highlight a bunch of clips and change the follow actions

Chang wrote:

Johnisfaster wrote: then again, you realize you can edit the follow actions of a whole bunch of clips at the same time right?

What page in manual?

Click on a clip to open the clip properties window.
Highlight a whole bunch of the clips.
change the follow actions commands in the clip properties window and it will affect all of the clips that have been highlighted.

not the same thing at all though, i'm not talking about follow actions, i'm talking about word processing basicly, all you need is a strip on the right side of the screen that lets you write patt. 1-repeat 2 times
patt.2- repeat 5 times or better yet just a space on the right of each scene title that you can type a number that tells it how many times to repeat, this may sound like follow actions but it's more like follow with out the over complexity of the actions, this is old as hell drum machine tech from every drum machine ever made, the fact that it's old is not what draws me to it , it's the fact that Live has nothing so simple, the purpose is not to turn live into some algoriythmic always evolving write a song for you deal, it's for people who've been working on a song and they know it like the back of their hand so they just want to put the patterns or scenes together quicker than playing them in realtime and recording that in the arrangement view, they know what the intro verse chorus break ending segways are and want to try them out quickly or build songs with them quickley so they would probably input the way they want the songstructure to go into the editor and then enable record in the arrangement view and then go get some coffee while the thing plays out, or better yet don't even waste the time playing out
have the feature of just placing those parts in order over in the arrangement view automaticly after you hit the build button or something.

just highlight the clips and change the follow actions,
i dont see *overcomplexity*

really, i dont,

303

smartass303 wrote:just highlight the clips and change the follow actions,
i dont see *overcomplexity*

really, i dont,

303

agreed, strange thread, they'll work it out eventually.

Tone Deft wrote:

smartass303 wrote:just highlight the clips and change the follow actions,
i dont see *overcomplexity*

really, i dont,

303

agreed, strange thread, they'll work it out eventually.

missing the point completely just open the other eye

I'm in a mood today, can't wait for the weekend, or retirement.

any suggestions I'd have might be construed as workarounds compared to exactly what you want. as annoying as it is I'll add 'wait for max4Live' to the conversation.

I think it's a great idea, get back to the methods learned from old hardware, I think you could do it currently with Live but maybe not exactly how you want.

step sequencers are an easy and fun thing to make with max, there will be dozens of them a year from now.

I agree that its weird that no-one seems to have implemented this yet. (Not just Ableton but all of the DAW makers). I posted about this recently in another thread, about how Opcode Studio Vision was one program that seems to have done that right.

I too would love to see a step sequence (and step-audition/perform) feature for groups of clips at some point.

Of course its not really that much of a bother to record your arrangement in real time. (Though it would be one less thing to think about in a performance situation...)

Johnisfaster wrote:arrange view?

I guess not... but isn't arrange view better than screwing with follow actions for an hour?

then again, you realize you can edit the follow actions of a whole bunch of clips at the same time right?

use a midi track, with a clip in each scene, it's only purpose is to play a note
1 bar before you want to trigger the next scene (or whatever your global is set to)
you will need to use a different note in each clip going down the line.

then midi map those notes to the scene start buttons.

you may also need to turn on the internal midi bus on your mac (if you are a pc
get midiyoke)

then as that clip (or scene the clip is in) is playing it will hit that note, which will
trigger the next scene (or where ever you mapped that note to) and 1 bar later
(or your global) bling blang blong your scene is triggered automatically... which
will start the next midi clip, which will do the same thing... for the next scene..
etc etc.


i do this all the time.
sounds hard but it's really easy you only need to set it up once, and then you just make it your template.


the trick is to adjust the lengths of the midiclips to however long you want the
scene to go on for..

Digital performer has a song editor that works like you want. I don't think live needs this though. The follow actions are great.