Ableton Forum

At the moment the note preview function in the piano roll plays notes for a fixed. The notes stop playing automatically. This doesn't work well when the synth has a very slow attack, in which case you basically cannot preview the notes because they don't play for long enough.

Ideally, this should work like in FL Studio (and other DAWs) where 'note on' is sent when the mouse button is pressed, and 'note off' when the mouse button is released. This way users can adjust the amount of preview time as needed.

When selecting notes, same thing, a note starts playing as soon as it's selected and continues to play until either it is deselected or the mouse button is released, whichever comes first.

Similar principles would apply when moving notes and chords, and when drawing notes.

bump?

This is actually really frustrating, I propose that when previewing notes from the piano roll:
- Clicking the piano plays the note for as long as you hold it,
- Playing when moving a note up or down is based on the length of the note being moved, stopping immediately if you let go.

Ableton always seems to do so much right but then have these mind bending blunders

Mad Lad wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 13, 2019 1:47 am

This is actually really frustrating, I propose that when previewing notes from the piano roll:
- Clicking the piano plays the note for as long as you hold it,
- Playing when moving a note up or down is based on the length of the note being moved, stopping immediately if you let go.

Ableton always seems to do so much right but then have these mind bending blunders

Yes, that's how I would like it to work. Users can release the mouse button when THEY feel the sound has played long enough.

I'm only demoing Live and I have to agree it has a very consistent workflow that is very intuitive and predictable. This one should be easy to fix.

Still nothing... Come on Ableton, this one shouldn't be too hard!

This would make the preview button so much better!

Same issue here, please make this feature a reality !
Very useful if you want to play with long time sample.

If any of you guys is on Centercode, I posted and FR for this a few months back, you might want to upvote it (L11-SUG-2271). Sadly it's only got 5 votes... I get a feeling most people don't notice small details like this.

Still no progress on this one. Very frustrating

Just added my upvote. And yes, many of the little niggling detail suggestions, even when they'd make everyone's life easier, garner low vote counts.

jonljacobi wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 05, 2022 10:52 pm

Just added my upvote. And yes, many of the little niggling detail suggestions, even when they'd make everyone's life easier, garner low vote counts.

Thanks. I've also just emailed Ableton support directly in case they didn't notice this particular request, but the more likely reality is that they don't care. Somehow all DAWs seem to be plagued with small workflow issues that are consistently ignored year after year, and update after update. All things considered Ableton is one of the most consistent DAWs I've used, which makes the small issues more obvious because it's close to perfect. It's frustrating that other users don't seem to notice these small (yet important) things, and even more frustrating to see all those "power users" and "certified Ableton trainers" that do nothing but praise Ableton Live and never ever, not once, point out any of its flaws. I assume those people are being paid by Ableton to say nice things.

With a mere 5 or 6 votes on Centercode there isn't much chance Ableton will even consider fixing this. It would be great if they would just stop adding big features and devote one entire update to busting all the small workflow niggling problems, many of which were reported as far as over a decade ago

Ableton peeps are always reading this forum, don’t worry, things that get talked about here get noticed. Doesn’t mean they will away get implemented, but they aren’t ignoring their users.