Ableton Forum

Live is my fav music program ever, and I have a Pro Tools HD system in my living room. I'm not a beginner.

There is a substantial amount of confusion about how a professional soundscape designer with 50-track song arrangements can EASILY ("time is money," k?) manipulate the song arrangement (arrangement view) via edit functions like copy, paste, delete. ALL OF THESE EDIT FUNCTIONS AFFECTING ALL TRACKS.

If you want to see how much confusion there is about this, check out DDCCD postings and responses dating back 6 -12 mos.

I want to be able to edit on Ableton arrangements as easily (minimum keystrokes - FAST) like I do every day on Digidesign pro Tools and other software apps. In Pro Tools with a 60-track song, these edit functions are FOUR keystrokes each... affecting each track of 60-track arrangements with cut, copy, paste functions. Even On my Roland 1680 hard disk recorder 12 years ago!!!!!, I had the ability to EASILY edit (copy, paste, delete) entire song arrangements.

Where is the "Copy time" function on the drop down edit menu?

What's up? Make it easy! Please. How are pros QUICKLY copying bars 20 thru 22, and inserting them at bar 50????????????!!!!!!!!!!!! Not overwriting over those bars at 50, but INSERTING i.e. the arrangement becomes two bars longer.

Alternately, is there any pro out there that can share his tips via video. This forum is awesome, but the subject needs to be covered in depth and on video. I am tired of visiting ableton forum every time I want to make music and arrange a song on Live.

I am an artist. Sometimes I am thick when it comes to technology, but lets make arrangement editing super-clear even for people like me. Please.

Thanks

PS: Yes I have read the .pdf manual and also Live Power books. Bits and pieces of the answers, and room for confusion... look at the user responses here. Thanks.

There's options for copying and deleting time in one of the drop down menu's. I use this all the time when doing arrangements. At work right now and don't know the commands off the top of my head - I think you copy as normal (ctrl-c) and then use ctrl-shift-v to paste that time. Or you can use ctrl-shift-delete to delete time.

These are all found under the edit menu as well. Hope that helps.

Thanks, but that has been dealt with extensively in my previous posts. If you have a way to easily do a workaround for "copytime" (not available in the dropdown menu), please let me know. Take Care.

cut time, paste time, and then paste time where you want.

or duplicate time, cut time, and paste time where you want.

it's one additional button on the keyboard. the request to have "copy time" in the menu got put into feature request several times.

this is the workaround till then. it's one additional button. you press ctrl-shift-x -and-then- -v (still holding ctrl-shift).

or you could go and use some autohotkey tool to remap ctrl-shift-c to ctrl-shift-x and ctrl-shift-v as a combo so you have your one-key-combination-only-solution...


same for apple with different key namings of course

I cannot believe how much time I am spending on this!!! But thanks for your help.

I just selected a few bars, then went to frickin dup-time, then I did frickin cut-time. So far so good. My time is being wasted in learning to cut and paste arrangemnets in Ableton!

Then I placed curser 10 bars ahead in arrangment, and did frikin paste-time. (all these functions were on the dropdown menu)

And the tracks are OFF. They shifted downward several tracks.

Ableton forgot about Copy?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

i am going to do a youtube video myslf. I am going to rread and show every post I have submitted to Ableton forum asking for help. And I am going to read word-for-word all the responses, and go thru every suggestion keystroke by keystroke. On screen.

I remember what it was like making music. But typing about how to do professional-easy arrangement edits is so much more fun.

stop the panik. just paste at the top of the arrangement and it's all fine. same behaviour as when you just cut and paste time (or do what ever you want with time).

time-pasting starts where you paste and pastes downwards.


i know it's not perfect the way it is, but you really create an elephant out of a mosquito here. "My time is being wasted in learning to cut and paste arrangemnets in Ableton!" is it really that much time you have to waste to get yourself the idea to cut'n'paste with two keystrokes that it's the same as copy (or dup'n'cut).

and does it take so much time to find out that you have to paste at the top, and not somewhere in the middle?


i know not having copytime, and pastetime not pasting at the top both IS ANNOYING. but it's not something overly complex to not see out of the box how you can handle it.

DDCCD wrote:My time is being wasted in learning to cut and paste arrangemnets in Ableton!

did you come out of the womb knowing how to walk or did you waste a bunch of time on that too?

its called learning. its okay. don't let your PRO status interfere.

Ableton Live - is a live performance tool first and foremost, and a linear editing tool secondary. Please find some room to excuse Live's [apparent] rudimentary editing features within the Arrangement view. Considering Pro Tools is over twice as old as Live - and its contrary linear focus to Ableton Live - it is going to more advanced within the Linear editing division with regard to features and tools.

ps your attitude stinks!

Are you a PRO by any chance?

Well I know the answer to your question!

but I'm probably not PRO enough to give it here...

It's late.

to the guys posting jokes in this thread, fuck off. This guy is a very busy pro and has little time to waste on copying and pasting. He already can't believe how much time he has wasted, and he hasn't even produced his word-for-word youtube video dramatisation of every thread he's been involved with on the forum dealing with this.

It is really a good idea to stop by from time to time.

hahaha...this thread makes my day... :lol

Pasha wrote:

It's late.

awesome

i should save that somehow. but how? ... sadly i missed the course, maybe it would have helped me?

How are pros QUICKLY copying bars 20 thru 22, and inserting them at bar 50????????????!!!!!!!!!!!! Not overwriting over those bars at 50, but INSERTING i.e. the arrangement becomes two bars longer.

Copy & Insert is a two step process.
You might like it or not but it's what it is.
I have took some screenshot for you. Hope it helps.
I'm not a pro but for me is easy and intuitive enough and not a loss of time.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/i6op9q