Arrangement View needs lots of work.

[mholloway]

I'm such an Ableton fan boy that I rarely have days like today where I'm just fed up and have to, yep, rant about it on the forum. But TODAY is that kind of day.

Just did a four hour session working on the score to a short film. I'm using Live because for just about any type of project, Live is where I feel most comfortable. Except......doing scoring work is revealing oh so well the numerous problems I have with the Arrangement View.

1. why can't you select clips? and before you say that you can -- No, you can't. You can select time, and thereby clips or parts of clips inside that time range, but not clips. There is no multi-clip selection (like in every single other DAW) where you hold command or shift and click all the clips you want to select, then perform some action or move them or whatever. All you can do is select clips that exist within the same region of time. Which sucks, because what if I want to move two clips that play at the same time while also moving a different clip that plays somewhere before or after those two, meanwhile not moving some other clips that fall within the same region--- NOT possible. This was ranted about here relatively recently. It really blows, especially when you're doing detailed arrangement editing (like in film work) and need to change the timing very subtly for multiple clips but not for others....


2. you can't select parts of clips if that channel is collapsed. the visible rectangle can't be partially selected unless you open up the channel view and make a selection in the space below. often a time-waster, opening and closing channel views when you just want to select something.

3. why don't clips have boxes around them? why only the narrow rectangle at the top? a nearly complete song looks like as swimming mess of midi notes and audio files because nothing has a delineated border except all these little colored rectangles OVER the actual material.

4. Automation becomes a nightmare, because when you automate parameters their "natural" value becomes meaningless. This has resulted in the famous "utility" plugin workaround for automating a tracks' volume, so the actual volume slider can remain static while still having automation occur. There are better ways. Also, I prefer Reason's method of keeping automation inside it's own clips, rather than live's method of having one automation line that runs through the entire song, I'm constantly having to scroll through entire songs to make sure the proper value hasn't accidentally been changed due to changing one node elsewhere in the track. this happens all the time. if we could break automation for a track into chunks, like reason's clips, this wouldn't be an issue. OH, and as I've posted before, whenever I double-click to enter a new automation node, it nearly always changes the current value of the parameter slightly, rather than just making a node at the current value, due to tiny movements happening in the mouse at the time of the double-slick. so fucking annoying.

5. it's ugly. it just is. nasty to look at. don't get me wrong, i really like Live's GUI overall, for session view, browser, clip envelopes, devices and knobs, the simple approach works wonders for everything EXCEPT arrangement. Look at reason or cubase's arrangement sequencers. everything is so clear and obviously defined. cutting, pasting, moving objects, all feels fluid and intuitive. live's arrangement page looks like a blurry, sandy plate of squashed boxes and scribbles.

6. there's no proper mixer available in arrangement view.

ok. i'm not just trying to be a negative jerk. I LOVE live and am a hardcore user. I don't jump over to other DAW's for mixing because I can't stand the added workflow of exporting everything and then having to arrange it again (doing so is, yes, worse to me than having to put up with everything above). I even own logic, it's fine and all, but I like getting tracks done inside one daw, and Ableton is basically the love of my life, music software wise -- But life would be SO much nicer and smoother if the Arrangement View could be seriously overhauled.

I know it's not just me. It can't be.

Live 9 wish list -----3 things > Overhauled arrangement view, a real sample editor, and clip-level automation. Then it really will be the Holy Grail, and the world will end or something.

-M

[dna598]

yeah its a bit annoying when Live gets so close to being the one answer but isn't for whatever reasons. I have un-learned logic and recycle workflow by now.. But they have small features i need in live. Like auditioning slices (easily) and midi legato.

[Pitch Black]

I know it's not just me. It can't be.

Its not, another hadcore fanboi here who feels the same way. I agree with all you've said above. My pet hate is WHY can't I toggle automation envelopes visible/invisible for all tracks with a single keystroke, let alone a single operation. Select all tracks then fiddle about getting the "none" option to appear.... arrrrgh!

So off-putting for me... whatever you're doing, if you just want to hide automation for a second, you have to go way off-task and pay attention to all these different tracks and parameters.

[nylarch]

Funny I'm just reading this b/c earlier today I d/l Reaper for Mac and was quite blown away by what could be done as an arrange tool for so little money. Its very responsive and just the scrolling, nudging, tab to transients, etc. is so well implemented I was kind of amazed. I was under the impression the Mac version was way behind the Windows version (it appears to be in sync) and also thought that there were really no bundled plugins - there's actually tons of FX plugs (not sure about quality). And yes it just looks good (and I was also under the impression Reaper was butt ugly). Seems to be an amazing piece of kit for $60 USD (non-commercial) and I'm kind of wondering what the catch is...it feels so much less bloated than Logic but seems to have the same deep list of features for arrangement....that Live lacks. And to be honest I'm not sure Live should really ever have (lest it become super heavy).....

[UncleAge]

I know it's not just me. It can't be.

Oh, it's not just you. Trust that.

<reaper>Seems to be an amazing piece of kit for $60 USD (non-commercial) and I'm kind of wondering what the catch is?

There is none really. It's just a good host at a great (entry) price.

[nowtime]

I feel your pain. Not fun. Especially on a 15" screen.

[luddy]

4. Automation becomes a nightmare, because when you automate parameters their "natural" value becomes meaningless. This has resulted in the famous "utility" plugin workaround for automating a tracks' volume, so the actual volume slider can remain static while still having automation occur. There are better ways. Also, I prefer Reason's method of keeping automation inside it's own clips, rather than live's method of having one automation line that runs through the entire song, I'm constantly having to scroll through entire songs to make sure the proper value hasn't accidentally been changed due to changing one node elsewhere in the track. this happens all the time. if we could break automation for a track into chunks, like reason's clips, this wouldn't be an issue.

I sympathize with almost all your complaints, have run into those problems doing the very thing you're doing (scoring to film) and other arrangement work.

I do however like the automation in Live a lot. You know that you can put volume automation inside a clip, right? Well, most any kind of automation. The problem is that it's relative automation, basically scales the current global value of that parameter from 0% to 100%. If you can set your track fader to a value that you know is 'too high' for the whole track, then you can use clip automation to modulate it everywhere, then use the global fader to modulate things.

A couple of other alternatives worth mentioning. Remember that audio clips have a gain parameter in the clip inspector. You can do a lot of rudimentary leveling of material with that gain control. This is kind of nice because it scales the waveform display.

If you set up a group around tracks you want to automate, then you can use the group fader for overall volume and the track faders for relative volume.

Instead of a utility plug, I often use an empty instrument rack with a single chain that contains nothing. The volume control on that chain goes from -inf to something absurdly large so it makes a good gain plug.

Personally, I never use clip automation for arrangement-oriented automation. That's true whether I work in Logic (which also has region automation) or Live. I find that it's very easy to copy the automation around in Live so it hasn't given me any kind of problem. When you create track automation for a clip, if you start by highlighting the clip and pulling on the automation envelope a little, it will set breakpoints at the boundary of the clip. That ensures that the value before and after is not affected. Once you have the habit of doing this, side-effecting the global value is a non-issue in my experience.

Live 9 wish list -----3 things > Overhauled arrangement view, a real sample editor, and clip-level automation.

I love the fact that *all* editing in Live is non-destructive. Personally I would not like to see destructive editing glommed on, it would only confuse the very clean model IMO. A very powerful nondestructive waveform editor would be cool I guess, but ... it seems kind of far afield from what Live does well.

Live has clip-level automation! There's a whole treasure-trove of cool tricks built up around clip automation, including dummy clips, fancy use of volume envelopes for glitching, etc. etc. There are lots of complaints about its shortcomings, but it surely has it.

Then it really will be the Holy Grail, and the world will end or something.

-Luddy

[necho]

+ 1000000000

I've given up on the arrangement view until it gets sorted in a future update.

It could be great: like, the best out there.... but it needs some serious attention.

[nylarch]

Call it a hunch but I think the next few releases are going to be focused on arrangement. The trick will be to bring in a lot of what we're missing in arrangement without out creating bloat and keeping the new found stability intact.

[Hervé]

Have to agree here, love to jam on session and record it on arrangement, but when it comes to edit it in there, fun is gone..

[necho]

Call it a hunch

Its a hunch.







If Ableton want to expand further into the DAW market (which, judging by the recent releases, they do), then they do need to improve the arrange view.

[esky]

+1 on all points, there's a lot to improve.
I always liked Logic's solution to viewing automation data. Live's thick red lines are not so elegant.
Also, the apc 40 red frame should apear in the arrangement window, around the track parameters, to ease navigation there.
Thanks for this threat Mr.Holloway...!

[0fps]

I know it's not just me. It can't be.

Its not, another hadcore fanboi here who feels the same way. I agree with all you've said above. My pet hate is WHY can't I toggle automation envelopes visible/invisible for all tracks with a single keystroke, let alone a single operation. Select all tracks then fiddle about getting the "none" option to appear.... arrrrgh!

So off-putting for me... whatever you're doing, if you just want to hide automation for a second, you have to go way off-task and pay attention to all these different tracks and parameters.

U can hide and show automation selector and envelopes at the arrangement view, simultaneously at all tracks by pressing alt + click on a show/hide button.

[tenderboy]

+1

love live for quick layouts...but making complex arrangements and mixing is just a pain and not really doable imho

[wildcon]

+1

Live's arrangement page really sucks compared to other DAW's

I also love using live and swiftly moved from Cubase as my main DAW, however the right click tool box with scissors tool etc is great.

also really p'd off about not being able to select seperate clips/parts etc.

Come on Abes - sort this out.