Ableton Forum

Hi,

Can anyone tell me what Ableton uses as it's positional reference when using a global quantization of over 1 bar.

For example, let's say my song is made up of 8 bar phrases, and I have laid out a verse/chorus structure in arrangement view, and also have various loops and bits and pieces in session view that are also 8 bars long. I want to be able choose to repeat the verse, so would like to click on a marker in arrangement view and have Ableton jump back to the beginning of the verse after 8 bars have elapsed. The first question is... what does Ableton use as it's bar 1 of the 8 bar prhase? Is it 8 bars from when I first pressed play? Is it physically bar 1, bar 9, bar 17 of my timeline?

Let's say my arrangement has a 1 bar pickup at the front, so in fact the first 'verse' actually begins at bar 2, and the 9th bar of the song is at bar position 10 - what happens then? Or what about if my song has a 4 bar bridge in the middle - does everything fall apart at that point, in terms of global quantization?

Similarly, does Ableton use the same rules for when to launch a loop in session view, if I'm running along in arrangement view at the time. ie - will it wait for bar 9 before starting the loop? And what about if my 8 bar phrase is offset by 1 bar because of a pickup?

Finally (and still related, I believe) If my global quantization is set to 1 bar, and 4 bars in on arrangement view I choose to launch a loop in session mode that is set to legato - will that loop play from bar 5, or will it do something different?

Any answers to these will really help me. I have been doing a lot of hands on with this, and some sessions are just not behaving how I would expect. In one session, global quantization appears to have broken completely and choosing a markers in arrangement view causes the transport to jump that point almost straight away, regardless of my GC setting.

That final point might be a rogue setting or a corrupt project, and can be ignored here, but it isn't helping me get my head around things.

thanks,
Richard

ok, to add further info to this, I have found a Max for MIDI device that will display a clock face showing the current position within the selected global quantization cycle https://cycling74.com/forums/global-quantization-clock

This has greatly helped me understand what my clips and loops are doing, and they seem to behave as I expected. The global quantization position is determined by the bar number - which makes sense.

I'd therefore expect a clip in session view to start on the first bar of that cycle - be that a 4 or 8 bar cycle. However, every time, when I launch a clip in session view, it starts every time 1 bar early. So if I'm set to 4 bar GQ it starts at the beginning of bar 4, 8, 12, and if I have it set to 8 it will start at bar 8 (where 9 is the first bar of the new cycle). What can be causing this to happen? Any help greatly appreciated, as it's doing my head in. The loop in question is 8 bars long, with a start bar of 1, and a loop length of 8. It's not set to legato.

thanks in advance.

Not sure that's the problem you are having, but note that the currently playing bar counts as the first counted bar.

not sure I follow. It seems that Ableton divides the timeline into whatever is the GC value - so if it's 8 bars, bar 1 is strictly the beginning of the quantize cycle, as is bar 9, bar 17. It doesn't seem to matter where you press 'play' (certainly for arrangement view anyway) - the quantize cycle is locked to the bar count.

Stripping this issue to its basics - if I press play in arrangement view, with an 8 bar global quantize, and then flip over to session view and press play on a clip - is there any scenario in which the clip would start playing before bar 9, or bar 17, or bay 25.

Bear in mind:

• clip is set to global quantization

• no legato mode

I have a sesison in front of me, where I can press play on the arrangement, hop over to session and click play on a clip a few times. First couple of times it will wait to play at the beginning of the cycle, but after that it will randomly start playing a bar early - ie loses reference to the 8 bar divisions on the timeline.

Here (Live 10.1b17 on Windows) it does seem to matter where I press play.

Here, when I click a point at the Scrub Area, that sets the quantization from that point, not from where its playing.

If the song position marker is at 2.2, and I click 1.3., with 1 bar quantization it will trigger at 2.3 (1 bar after 1.3), not 3.2.

I'm beginning to wonder if this is a bug - I'm on the latest mac version - 10.0.6 downloaded yesterday.

I can now demonstrate that if I jump around on my timeline for long enough, even if it's just using location markers in arrangement view, and certainly if i'm triggering loops in session view (whilst the rest of my tracks follow the timeline of arrangement mode), then global quantization eventually breaks.

Happens every time - first few 'locates' or 'triggers' happen OK, and in the way you'd expect, but after that it becomes a lottery.

Pottering - seems like the behaviour your describing is not as its supposed to be, also?

ok I think i have something of a breakthrough. it possibly isn't a bug, but it's certainly unusual behaviour. I think i had some time signature change automation on my timeline - albeit some which didn't actually change the time signature - it stays at a solid 4:4 throughout.

However that seems to have been enough to trip up the logic of global quantization enough that it couldnt' work out where stuff should trigger when jumping either side of that automation point.

I will test some more, but thought I'd share this back to those who've helped so far.

thanks all

mu71rd wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 01, 2019 8:12 pm

Pottering - seems like the behaviour your describing is not as its supposed to be, also?

I don't know really, I use Session View for triggering stuff real-time, I just described how it worked when I tested earlier in the current Live beta I'm using.

My expectations were that it quantized around the currently playing position, but when I clicked the Scrub Bar, it fit a grid based on the clicked point.

It is more obvious if you use the larger quantization values (4 bars, 8 bars).