Ableton Forum

Hi everyone. I guess I am still a beginner, still frustrated after all these years. I am a veteran Logic user (since the eMagic/Windows days) I have tried for years to try to understand what's going on in Live to no avail and always end up throwing in the towel and going back to Logic. Have had V5, V6, and just sprung for V8. I have spent an entire day watching movies and reading the online docs. I have got all the hardware working great in Live:
Mac Pro - OS 10.6.2 / ProjectMixIO / Unitor8 / Maschine / Korg OASYS / SSL Duende / KymaX-Capybara 320
But.... I just don't get the concept, and where I live there's no one to talk to. So here goes, (blushing at my ignorance)... I do an external audio recording in the arrange interface (I cannot fathom so much mousing around as it takes to get to get so simple a thing done), and I can see it and hear it playing - when I tab to the Scene interface, why is nothing is there in Scene 1, even though by some manic mouse hammering on the "Back to Arrangement" button you can get to hear it.
Conversely, when a loop or sound is dragged into a Scene, (where btw it's a Dog's Breakfast to tweak all of the little Sample parameters to get it to loop correctly) and then when switching to the Arrange view, you can hear the clip and see the levels bouncing on 1 Audio, but there's no waveform visible in the timeline! I could understand that to mean that what goes on in the timeline/arrange window has no bearing on what goes on in the Scenes - except that in the Arrange view I am hearing and seeing the levels on the track I expect to see hosting the waveform!
Over the years I keep hearing how cool, powerful and easy this thing is and how all the smart guys are getting great things done with this product - I get all coffee'd up and go buy and install the upgrade, and by the end of a day I am completely defeated, chastened like a whipped dog, racing back home to trusty old Logic! As a Maschine user, I really do "get" how the "Scene" paradigm makes for a better workflow in some cases. And as a long-time Logic user, I can admit that limitations exist with working solely in a timeline-based environment.
Honestly I would pay someone a fair price for a Saturday or Sunday morning mentoring session over the phone and a webex connection .
Thanks in advance for any help!
DigitEDawg

just curious, why do you want to force something upon you if you don't 'click' with it?

only because it is a great software and enormous fun to use (when it does not crash) for most users, your case shows it is not like that for everybody...

so my question is why don't you stick with what feels comfortable for you...? in the end live want make any better music for you.

I had a similar feeling with live some time ago, I realized that I love linear sequencing and that the session view is poison for me. so I went back to cubase, because I thought it's much better for linear sequencing. but I missed lives workflow so much that I got back. since then I'm a happy ableton arrange view user. sure I miss some things from cubase, but I feel really happy with live at the moment. just use what you like and not what you should 'like'.

I understand exactly how you feel. I've had Live for a year and still find bits of it confusing but I'm getting there slowly. I'm persevering because I know how good it is. I'm coming at it from a Cubase / guitar player background. - Though I'm still reading the manual regularly!

The scene/arrange thing. The way I got my head round it was to think of the arrange window as your normal input to that mixer channel and the scene/session window as an insert point on that mixer channel which if something plays there, cuts off the normal input, or in the example you give, plays something when there is no signal at the normal input (arrange window).

The coffee helped as well but red wine is doing the biz at present

M.Bell ?

I'm going to try to explain what I think you're missing.

Every track contains some number of clips. In general, you cannot see all of those clips at once, if only because some of them might be in the Session view and others might be in the Arrangement view, and you can see only one view at a time.

Every clip in the Session view is in the grid somewhere.

Every clip in the Arrangement view starts and ends at a particular time.

Even though the clips in the Session and Arrangement views appear to be independent, all the clips in a particular track are really all in the same track--so to see all the clips in a track, you have to look in both the Session and the Arrangement views.

Now, here's the part that many people seem to find hard to internalize:

Each track plays at most one clip at a time!

This rule means that if a track is playing a clip in the Arrangement view, it cannot also be playing a clip in the Session view. Moreover, if it is playing a clip in the Session view, it cannot also be playing a clip in the Arrangement view.

In general, when you press the global play button (the triangle pointing to the right), every track with one or more Arrangement clips starts playing each of those clips at the appointed time. However, if you launch a Session clip, three things happen in addition to launching the clip:

1) If an Arrangement clip is playing in that track, it stops (because a track can play only one clip at a time).

2) No more Arrangement clips will play in that track.

3) If the global record button (red circle) is enabled and the track is armed for recording, whatever the track is playing gets recorded into an Arrangement clip in that track.

So once you start playing Session clips in a track, that track will no longer play Arrangement clips. This state of affairs is indicated by the Arragnement clips in that track becoming shaded, and also by the red "Back to Arrangement" button turning red. If you click that button, it stops the Session clips that were overriding Arrangement tracks and gets everything to play in the Arrangement again.

So... If you put a clip in a Scene, it's a Session clip. When you launch it, you cannot also play any Arrangement clips in that track. What you can do is arm the track for recording, turn on the global record button, and record the clip into the Arrangement. Then you get the waveform in the timeline that you wanted.

Does this help?

this post really made me laugh because this is exactly how i feel, not with live though but with every other daw out there.
i have been fidling with reaper and pro tools for the last 3 years and i still dont understand what makes them such great products. with both reaper and pro tools it seems like it takes me ages just to do simple edits to a piece of audio that i can do in live in seconds.
i just get these other daw programs! actually i get them but i dont get why they are such a pain in the ass.
its like every other daw has menu after menu that you have to scroll through just to add a damn effect.
and effect inserts! blah ! what is with effect inserts? in live you just drag an effect to the bottom of the screen and done!

maybe we should just stick to what works for us huh?
i would but something often pops up on the internet about how great pro tools or reaper is for audio.
i can see using pro tools for live recording only, but reaper is a real piece of shit for me.
with reaper the only way to high light a piece of audio is by highlighting on top of the screen on the time line.. it then selects all audio.. what the hell is that i ask myself?
why are these other programs so great? i need to know!!

i think its our own curiosity that is driving us mad.

DigitEDawg wrote:

when I tab to the Scene interface, why is nothing is there in Scene 1, even though by some manic mouse hammering on the "Back to Arrangement" button you can get to hear it.

you need to click on what ever you just recorded in the arrangement view and keep holding the mouse button dow then press tab to drop it into a slot. its sorta like dragging from arrangement and dropping into the session view.
nothing is added automatically to the slots in session. everything is either recorded into the session view slots by clicking the circle button in an empty clip session view in audio tracks, or by double clicking an empty slot in the midi track.

Conversely, when a loop or sound is dragged into a Scene, (where btw it's a Dog's Breakfast to tweak all of the little Sample parameters to get it to loop correctly) and then when switching to the Arrange view, you can hear the clip and see the levels bouncing on 1 Audio, but there's no waveform visible in the timeline!

i dont understand you mean, when you drag a loop from the browser or the arrangement view that the waveform is not showing up in the timeline..
im guessing you mean when you drag a loop from the browser into an emty slot that nothing is showing up in arrange view?
in order to see the wave form in arrange view you need to arm the record button in what ever track you are talking about and then click record.. your wave form will now be recorded into the arrange view. a more simple way would to be to just drag the clip from the browser to an empty slot in session and also into arrange.

live its pretty much a game of dragging audio from the session view to the arrange view and from arrange back to session.
like i said before nothing is ever automaticly added to the empy clip slots nor to arrange view.

I could understand that to mean that what goes on in the timeline/arrange window has no bearing on what goes on in the Scenes - except that in the Arrange view I am hearing and seeing the levels on the track I expect to see hosting the waveform!

there is a button at the top of the screen that looks like an arrow.. this is the back to arrange button and it gets in the way all the time. after you play around with some clips in session view and return to arange view this button will probably be red. when it is red it means that you are only hearing audio from the session view being played. nothing from arrange view is playing of course since there are no wave forms . just click on this button to turn it off when switching from session to arrange mode..

nathannn wrote: there is a button at the top of the screen that looks like an arrow.. this is the follow action button and it gets in the way all the time. after you play around with some clips in session view and return to arange view this button will probably be red. when it is red it means that you are only hearing audio from the session view being played. nothing from arrange view is playing of course since there are no wave forms . just click on this button to turn it off when switching from session to arrange mode..

^^Emphasis added

Err... Sorry to be a pedant but there's couple of things wrong in your post there mate: That button is called the Back To Arrangement button, and when it is red it means that only the tracks that have had clips fired from Session have "over-ridden" the Arrange playback. You will still hear whatever is playing from Arrangement on the tracks that have not had clips fired from Session.

Cheers,
P

You need to read the manual. Sorry but there it is. the opening chapter about "live concepts" will clear up the basic misundertanding you have about the relationship between Arrangement and Session view. you're expecting it to do things that it won't do because that's not how it works (e.g. expecting something that you record in arrangement to then show up in session).

also, people generally -start- with session view and later move ('record') stuff over to the arrangement view. there are exceptions, of course, but generally speaking that is the workflow. jam it out and record in session first, play around with different possible arrangements, then send it over to arrangement view for the final linear sequence.

-M

Pitch Black wrote:

nathannn wrote: there is a button at the top of the screen that looks like an arrow.. this is the follow action button and it gets in the way all the time. after you play around with some clips in session view and return to arange view this button will probably be red. when it is red it means that you are only hearing audio from the session view being played. nothing from arrange view is playing of course since there are no wave forms . just click on this button to turn it off when switching from session to arrange mode..

^^Emphasis added

Err... Sorry to be a pedant but there's couple of things wrong in your post there mate: That button is called the Back To Arrangement button, and when it is red it means that only the tracks that have had clips fired from Session have "over-ridden" the Arrange playback. You will still hear whatever is playing from Arrangement on the tracks that have not had clips fired from Session.

Cheers,
P

thanks for clearing that up.. i was typing and thinking pretty quick
i also agree with mholloway about reading the manual. if you dont want to read the manual you should at least click on help at the top of the screen and go through some of the live lessons.

if you still are not getting it after going through the lessons then come back and post more questions.
for most people (especially noobs that are not used to another daw) live is really easy to learn and the basic concepts can be grasped within less than a day.
its really simple man!
its all drag n drop, play and record.

To all - If I were to take nothing else away from all these responses, there's a obviously lot to love about Live just for the community spirit! Thanks to everyone for your quick responses and sense of humor , and especially to ark and nathannn, Pitch Black & mholloway - all of your posts have amounted to the illumination of the proverbial light bulb, Dawn Breaking over MarbleHead, etc.
To those who wondered why I would persist with an environment in which I am not comfortable, the answer is only because I believe if I can grasp the concept, the knowledge will broaden my skills, and ultimately have a positive influence on how I work, regardless of the specific tool I am using.
Funny, I have also had similar issues getting Pro Tools, however never felt as compelled to follow that path, since I was already immersed in Logic, and one traditional timeline-centric DAW is probably enough.
With Live on the other hand, I get enough of the idea from what i have seen, heard and read to know that this is an entire paradigm shift, and I am determined to "get" what this new way of working has to offer!
Thanks to everyone, again! I can't say enough how tickled I am at the responses. You guys have really made my day!
btw, nathannn, adding effects, and in fact whole arrays of effects in Logic is dead simple and quick. I'll definitely comment on the relative ease in Live, but not until I have "honed some skills", brother.
Best!

No worries mate, just wanted to avoid any possible confusion.

The Help View window (in the above pic) is also good. Keep it open and hover your mouse above anything - an instant explanation appears for that feature/control/parameter. I've been on Live for 8 years and still find it incredibly useful for new features and things I don't use much.

(Click the triangle at the bottom left of the screen)

<edit> that was @nathannn... happy to be of service Digi!