Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

[Angstrom]

There are some things in Ableton Live that I think only three people know about.

Here's one: The rack Hierarchy view, right click the little Rack Overview and receive a menu which will allow you to quickly jump to any instrument, or effect within the rack.

It's very useful when dealing with complex racks, but almost nobody knows about it.



So what obscure Ableton Function do you think most people do not know?

[yur2die4]

I don't know if this is really news to anyone, it is kind of easy to realize if you make clips a lot via live playing but I love this particular 'feature', which actually wasnt there in Live 6, not sure about 7:

When you trigger a clip to record, if you are Holding notes already, it puts the Note on smack dab at the beginning of the clip.

In 6, if you are already holding a note, it might ignore it. Was very frustrating!

Works great for chords and drum beats. I'll hit a drum early, and hold it down as I trigger the clip. Of course, this wouldn't apply for drum pads, which usually trigger as small slivers.

[simmerdown]

holy shyte the hierarchy menu!

got one to add, but ill have to edit it in later......

[invol]

@Angstrom, nice one.

Here are a few...

To move your view of anything in Live left/right or up/down, hold Option+Command (Mac) and you will see a hand you can drag around - e.g., Device Chains, Arrangement View, Zone Editors...

Hold Option (Mac) and use the arrow keys to move the selection to different areas of interface - e.g., Track to Browser to Track View, etc..

In Instrument Rack or Sampler Key Zone Editor, hold notes for desired range and double click on the Zone (resizeable bar).

I am sure there are PC equivalents to the first 2.

[markhunter]

Most obscure would be that Ableton Live is an anagram of Notable Evil

[agent314]

Select a group of MIDI notes and right click and there's an option for 'Stretch notes' which will leave the relative timing intact but change how long your notes last.

I find this especially helpful when I'm playing in a MIDI drum track by feel, and I end up playing the 4-bar phrase in 3.75 bars but am happy with the timing/feel otherwise.

[simmerdown]

you can also use those 'stretch notes' handles to reverse the midi, so they play forward, but in reverse order, just drag the right handle all the way left, and vice versa

[simmerdown]

also, i like to autotmate my 128's sometimes, when you have the sample selector bar selectected it of course shows that in an automation lane up in the arrange view, sometimes i just draw a random squiggle in there, then zero in on changes that sound good, the duplicate that curve throughout...good trick to add variety to perc, highhats, congas and such, scratch samples too...

[twitterytom]

right click on the bar of ping pong delay / simple delay and change between delay type. fade / repitch

[Warrior Bob]

The keymapping is case-sensitive.

[synnack]

Great thread. Not obscure but this popped to mind.

In a drum rack, to use your set's send effects on an individual drum hit rather than the ones in the rack itself, drag and drop a utility as a send effect in the rack. That will let you use "Audio To" in that chain on the rack to route just that hit in the drum rack to the set send track without effecting the audio.

Speaking of utility. This tip is also cool. How to Mid/Side anything:

Grab a Utility device from the Live Library and apply it to the track you wish to process. Now right?click on the Utility’s header and select Group. This will put the Utility device inside an Audio Effect Rack. Click the Show/hide Chain button to show the Rack’s chains, and then duplicate the existing chain by right?clicking on its name and selecting Duplicate (or Ctrl-D/Cmd-D). Name one chain ‘Mid’ and the other chain ‘Sides’. Now select the Mid chain and set the Utility device’s Width to zero percent, then set the same parameter on the Sides chain to 200 percent.

What you have now are two chains working in parallel, one providing the ‘sum’ and one providing the ‘difference’. Note that this is not M/S as such, as both are still stereo chains — as before, what you have are the Mid and Sides channels separately decoded to L/R stereo, which means that the Sides chain contains the same signal in the left and right channels, but in opposite polarity.

( from http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar11/a ... h-0311.htm )

[timday]

You can enable mapping macros to siblings in a rack by messing with the options.txt file.
I didn't discover this (it was Garyboozy in this thread, second post, which has the details) but it's worth repeating.

[The Northern Contingent]

Nice thread!

In the piano roll editor, when inputting notes with the mouse by double clicking, keep your mouse button held down on the second click. Now if you drag your mouse up and down you can alter the velocity of the note you have just created.

[bosonHavoc]

Nice thread!

In the piano roll editor, when inputting notes with the mouse by double clicking, keep your mouse button held down on the second click. Now if you drag your mouse up and down you can alter the velocity of the note you have just created.

and that will also be your new default velocity setting

also
click on the note or clip in arrangement first then hold down alt (pc) or cmd (mac)
this will allow you to drag the note or clip as if grid was turned off

and to modify the velocity of an existing note hold down alt (pc) or cmd (mac) first then clicking+dragging up and down on the note to increase or decrease the velocity.

[Muzik 4 Machines]

and to modify the velocity of an existing note hold down alt (pc) or cmd (mac) first then clicking+dragging up and down on the note to increase or decrease the velocity.

that's not obscure, it's like in the manual basics section