Ableton Forum

Why I don't get it???

I've been waiting for Live 4 as my big rescue, but it seems unfortunately in vain...

Why can't we control the playback head with "markers" in arrange-view or why can't we have follow actions per scene in session-view? I swear to god, I would instantly order Live from my dealer if I had one of these options. And I wonder why seemingly nobody also misses this!

Just imagine the following situation: You're playing live with a band on stage, and part of the arrangement comes from your laptop, like backing vocals, percussion or whatever. Now, in the middle of the song, you're forced to play the part you just played (for example the refrain) once more, because the singer fell of the stage or something else happened, that just disturbed the original arrangement of the song. So if you are an instrumentalist, you have to play your intrument and cannot deal with a mini-overview of your song, modifierkeys and a mouse! You just want to hit a key or a midicontroler on the floor, and the playback jumps back to the marker you once defined, say at the biginning of each musical section of the song and voilá, the refrain starts once again. It could be that easy!

Or, in scene-view, where you have total control of all of your scenes and musical parts of the song, in Live 4 you still don't have any arrangement features. At least none, that don't suck! Why we can't have a follow-action per scene? Why can't we just tell "scene 1" to play 8 bars and "scene 2" for 16 bars? Once again, it could be so easy! Ok, you are right, you can do this, by assinging all of your clips in scene-view the same follow-action. But to me, this seems like a lot of unnecessary work that you should expect your software doing that for you. That's what computers are for: making things easier! And by the way, the above method is confusing too. Once you started the first scene with all of your clips having the same follow-actions, they do play as desired, but the scene-highlight of the currently playing scene doesn't follow, which makes it harder to use as it could be!

Please. folks at ableton: In a live-situation on stage, being an instrumentalist and NOT a DJ or an electronic-music-evangelist, you have to concentrate on your music, on the band, on the audience and so many other things, but NOT on your computer. You should be able to get the playback-position of your song at a glance and control your arrangement with very few keystrokes. This should not be too hard. And please don't tell me, that's not what Live is intended for. We're in the middle of 2004 and I think it should be possible to use a laptop as a playback-source on stage together with other musicians. Am I just demanding too much or am I too dumb to understand the application?

And BTW: the rest of the app is just excellent... Thanks for your good work!

And thanks for proving me wrong and telling me the solution.

Werner.

<angry rant>
first of all...i will say it, that's not what live was intended for. you can't expect something to perform well for a task it wasn't intended for. if all you need is a playback machine, then itunes should suit you fine. live is billed as a sequencing 'instrument', which means you are often required to do stuff to it, for it to do stuff back. i can't think of any other instrument that is expected to just play itself onstage unless the performer decides to intervene.

and what's this crap suggesting that electronic musicians don't concentrate on their music? jesus, shit like this irritates the hell outta me.
</angry rant>

<helpfull tip>
you can assign midi triggers to scenes in the session view. which means that when your drunken singer falls off stage, you only need to hit one button to retrigger your refrain or whatever you need, as long as you've set up your session view to do so. it sounds like you're trying to use the arrangement view for live playback, which is not the way to do it. set everything up in the session view. you can then assign your different parts to midi triggers and/or assign the scene up, scene down and scene fire keys to midi triggers and your all set (the scene highlight will follow them this way). you can even turn on the follow scene option in the preferences so you only need to hit one button to fire the next scene. midi foot controllers work wonders for this type of thing. it doesn't get much easier than one button.
</helpfull tip>

k

sorry k,

I wasn't saying at all that electronic musicians would not concentrate on their music. Of course they do! The do so by playing their instrument, the computer, synthesizer or whatever. However I am a pianist/keyboarder, who's looking for - and there you're right - an intelligent playback machine, what iTunes for example cannot be. All I'm trying to say is, that I don't consider Live 4 as my instrument on stage and so I want to deal with it on stage only when necessary. And thanks for your helpful tip but I found this out long ago - I'm not THAT dumb.

Have a nicer day.

W.

Hello - I hope all is well :)

I am keyboard player using a midi controller with Live as my main performance interface/VST host and only use the laptop as a visual monitor (in session view). I have complete control of musical structures (least I think I do) and only have to touch my laptop if I want to introduce a new clip altogether. But I had to invest some time reading some manuals and coming up with a config scheme/template with track routings & groupings etc. Follow actions at the scene level is a cool idea.

I am like you (I think) in that I want to make music and not be huddled over a laptop - I am able to do this in Live 4 but it is a bit complex. I have to stay straighter at my gigs than I used to.

My main performance MIDI controller gear: m-audio keystation 88, eyeris infrared controller.

I don't really get it when people use Live in the arrangement view. For me the innovative and useful part of Live is it's session view. How can you go wrong in a live situation when all you need to do is click on a scene and call up the verse/chorus/bridge/sequence you need? I'm using Live so that I can jam multiple loops on the fly in a Live situation. This works seamlessly and is the whole raison det of Live IMO. Live is a DJ tool in a live situation - once you master your decks/Live you can improvise to your hearts content. The last thing I want in a live setting is to be fixed into a linear straight jacket. That why I think Live is revolutionary because it breaks out of the traditional linear song construction that almost every host adheres to. I think it's a case of changing the mindset of how music is controlled in a live situation rather than any short comings of Live 4. Long live the session view! Down with the arrangement view!

no offense meant on the angry rant, but i'm not sure what your looking for. you can set up live to change scenes with one button. if your looking for it to be easier than that, i guess live isn't what you need.

k

Please stop calling Live a DJ tool... its a farkin' instrument in its own right!

Amberience wrote:Please stop calling Live a DJ tool... its a farkin' instrument in its own right!

It is a DJ tool and an instrument and a whole lot more. It settles into a lot of different niches for the live performer and I think that's its strength.

Werner,
ok, there are things you're not happy with, but would it be possible to expose them without this hysterical complaining? Dunno why but I get the feeling by reading your post that you fit the stereotype of the "crazy pianist" : nevrotic, romantic, skinny, pale, hyper-emotionnal and suicidal. Even your name fits the cliche!
Please relax, you gave me a headache...

try to enjoy life... and Live

Ben

Did I exagerate that much? Sorry, wasn't my intention. And sorry to disappoint you, I consider myself not the type of guy you think - at least not all the points all the time... (Actually I'm even flying to Moscow with a band next week. Let's have a coffee together or whatever...)

Anyway, meanwhile I received a brilliant tip from SongCarver (many thanks) which let me solve my little problem more or less quite simple. Everyone else who might be interrested can read it here.

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... +structure

And yes, Live is a brilliant and truely innovative app but it still misses some features, IMHO. That's all. anyway I like it and I'll use it on stage.

Thanks for all your input and have nice days and nights. Bye.

Werner.[/b]

he he,
glad to see you did not get insulted, at least it shows that in addition of being a "crazy pianist" you've got a sense of humour
so coming to Moscow? What band? What club will you play at?
if you need some info about the city (clubs for ex) don't hesitate to ask... Russian chaperones are well known for taking foreign bands/djs to soporific "European" places just to prove their city is catching up and will soon overthrow all other Euro capitals. The "cool", exotic Moscow, like flee markets and soviet places seems to disgust or ashames them...

Ben