Ableton Forum

My god, I've been working for 45 minutes trying to move parts of an Arrangement a couple of minutes forward to make room for some new parts, but since Ableton is only selecting in terms of time, and not in terms of clips, it is a friggin' nightmare trying to move just SOME of these parts to the right!

I want to keep the relationship between the different clips intact (in terms of time), but da** it becomes complicated once you want some clips to stay put, and some clips to move - within the same time frame.

This, of course, is something a regular DAW has been able to do for years and years, so I really hope Ableton does something about this. Please?

i doubt they will ever do anything about it.
its been like this for years. im guessing its another one of them problems that would take a whole rewrite to fix.

Ah, that doesn't sound promising. I'm quite new to Live, and didn't know this was something that seems to be "burned" into the code. Hmm.

Maybe post a screenshot or something? I'm not I follow you digid. I have no problem selecting individual clips in Arrangement and moving them around, inserting time (silence), deleting time, etc. Maybe it's just not a workflow you are used to?

edit: I should read more carefully. I know it can be difficult to keep relationships between clips intact while moving stuff around, but I've been doing it for so long in Live, that it's not a problem for me usually. If Logic is more what you're used to, you should use that. Whatever gets the music done. Who cares what tools you use, right?

digid wrote:My god, I've been working for 45 minutes trying to move parts of an Arrangement a couple of minutes forward to make room for some new parts, but since Ableton is only selecting in terms of time, and not in terms of clips, it is a friggin' nightmare trying to move just SOME of these parts to the right!

I want to keep the relationship between the different clips intact (in terms of time), but da** it becomes complicated once you want some clips to stay put, and some clips to move - within the same time frame.

This, of course, is something a regular DAW has been able to do for years and years, so I really hope Ableton does something about this. Please?

What about selecting the clip before the time gap you want to create, and assuming you want to insert that clips lengths worth of time, hit Cmd + I. Then just drag the clips back, thus creating the space you were after...Or have i totally missed the point?

you're talking about the 'clip overview'...you need to 'open' the track up..
then you can drag select a range... it just looks different

digid wrote:My god, I've been working for 45 minutes trying to move parts of an Arrangement a couple of minutes forward to make room for some new parts, but since Ableton is only selecting in terms of time, and not in terms of clips, it is a friggin' nightmare trying to move just SOME of these parts to the right!

OK so you're trying to move only certain parts of the measure? say 43/1/1 to 55/1/1 without say moving the drums?

I want to keep the relationship between the different clips intact (in terms of time), but da** it becomes complicated once you want some clips to stay put, and some clips to move - within the same time frame.

Move the tracks you want to move next to each other, then selecting them isn't an issue.

I get the feeling your problem isn't as simple as you're writing is making it though? Another thing to look into here is Insert Time in the Live menu. Fortunately Live moves automation data by default so it's no issue.

as I understand the OP he wants.. let's say he have a auto track with 4 audio files in it. now he wants to move just audio file 2 and 4 - that's not possible since live doesn't allow multiple selections.

do I get you right?

yep, this is an issue for me too, but I've learned to live with it. It's more a problem for me when I edit automation, no multiple selection from automation points.

mr.ergonomics wrote: It's more a problem for me when I edit automation, no multiple selection from automation points.

yes there is.. select a range in the automation and move it around... you don't select the actual point..you drag-select a range..
also if that's what the OP was intending then that's true .. no multi-clip selection (apart from a complete range)..

3dot... wrote:

mr.ergonomics wrote: It's more a problem for me when I edit automation, no multiple selection from automation points.

yes there is.. select a range in the automation and move it around... you don't select the actual point..you drag-select a range..
also if that's what the OP was intending then that's true .. no multi-clip selection (apart from a complete range)..

This

Lazos wrote:Maybe post a screenshot or something? I'm not I follow you digid. I have no problem selecting individual clips in Arrangement and moving them around, inserting time (silence), deleting time, etc. Maybe it's just not a workflow you are used to?

edit: I should read more carefully. I know it can be difficult to keep relationships between clips intact while moving stuff around, but I've been doing it for so long in Live, that it's not a problem for me usually. If Logic is more what you're used to, you should use that. Whatever gets the music done. Who cares what tools you use, right?

Sorry, I wasn't being clear enough, and I forgot to mention I also want to do this selection over several tracks, and I don't want to select all clips within tracks.

I am at work now, but since I have Live on my work Mac, I made a quick example to show what I mean (this is not the arrangement that led med to post the original post, but it gives you a pretty good idea of the challenges you meet when you want to move stuff around and still keep the relationship between clips intact). I want to move the clips in red, I don't want to move the non-selected clips.

Wow? That's some funky shit?
Well it's not impossible, a really super cheat way to do this would be to option drag (copy) the whole set to the right like you said, then go back and select the clips you want to erase individually (Live will select the whole clip), and delete. This would keep the relation between clips intact, and wouldn't take 40 minutes.

"Funky" isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I see my mess, but thanks.

That's not a bad suggestion you're making, at least not for my case. It would certainly be easier than the /$/%&# I was trying to do yesterday! Thanks

No prob, deleting tracks/clips in Live is super quick so there's one advantage.

nathannn wrote:i doubt they will ever do anything about it.
its been like this for years. im guessing its another one of them problems that would take a whole rewrite to fix.

I never really use arrangement but your right you can only select in blocks of time and across tracks, not a bunch of individual clips scattered around. I don't think I know one sequencer that can't do this basic function. Just tried Reason no problem, so much for getting to know the arrangement view. I suggest a simple select clip, ctrl select next clip, and so on. We can already drag and select for time blocks!!