Loops in arrangement mode / "traditional" pop songs

[_Ben]

How Live works

Live provides two modes : session and arrangement.

Session mode is good for electronic music but becomes very limited for traditional pop music with more complicated structures, like verse, chorus, bridge, post_chorus, etc... Trying to map "traditional" pop songs in session mode leads quickly to such limitations that the arrangement mode is required. But moving to arrangement mode loses the ability to use loops unless moving back from the arrangement to the session mode.

To achieve this, live provides the ability to launch a scene and so to switch to session mode loops. But this action does not stop the arrangement mode that continues moving forward in such a way that returning to the arrangement mode predicatively requires jumping to a marker. This is very complex to understand and to operate...

How Pop songs work

Traditional pop songs often match a globally static structure. For example : Intro, Verse1, Verse2, Chorus1, Verse3, Chorus2, Solo, Bridge, Chrorus3, Chorus4, Outro. There is no interest to jam but during the "solo" part that is likely to be played in loop mode, until the jam is finished, returning then to the next part of the song static structure (Brigde).

I think this use case matches a standard use case that should be provided by Ableton live.

How to achieve this with ClyphX

I faced this problem for months, and I finally succeeding in doing this using ClyphX, this way ;

• I add a marker one measure before the solo
• this marker registers the scene for launch
• when the solo begins, the scene launches and plays the dedicated loop in the session view
• I add a marker at the end of the loop to jump back to the loop begin in the arrangement view so that the arrangement view now marker also loops
• this continues endlessly and so I can jam in th session view
• then I press a key to end the loop mode
• when reaching the end marker, the arrangement continues

Note : I also uses a ClyphX function to ensure device parameters moved continuously when looping to avoid "gaps".

Feature request

The feature could be formalized as is :

As a live user, I would like to be able to create loops in the arrangement views setting for each loop :
- the begin time marker
- the end time marker
- the associated scene identifier to be launched
A button (assignable to midi/keyboard like any other button) is to be provided to move back to the arrangement view.

Such a feature would allow Ableton Live to provide looping to traditional pop music and so allowing to remove the gap between these two modes/styles.

Only Ableton Live can provide provide this feature.

I hope it could be provided for anybody, with a suited user interface.

[whollifi]

PLEASE - just for the love of god PLEASE.

Ableton featured Tennyson at Loop and I believe they do something very similar. Why this functionality is in Session and no one thought to formalize in Arrangement is beyond me. The people at Ableton do so well and I'm so grateful for them. But, please, please add this function.

[barrt]

I've been recently struggling with the very same thing.

After some search, my solution was as follows:

1. Create a MIDI clip in arrangement view with a note that's send to virtual midi device, which is then mapped in Live to fire particular scene. (The fact I needed to use virtual midi device is already "HACK alert!" )
2. This scene is what you can improvise upon, exactly as you've mentioned, but the arrangement view underneath still goes on (not producing any sounds).
3. I have locator added to a place where we'd need to get back after "impro" ends, so I also have another clip (in session view) that activates that locator (same story, MIDI via virtual midi device, mapped to that locator).
4. Since jumping to a locator does not trigger "Get back to arrangement" (it simply moves the playhead, but all arrangement clips are already "silenced"), I need to add a command to do that too. Now, that's where it becomes nasty (as if it wasn't already). The "Back to arrangement" is not subject of quantization, it's an immediate action. Meaning, you can't really do this simply at the same time with "go to locator". This forced me to make a clip, for which a beginning of a bar (my global quantization setting) uses a MIDI note mapped to a command that sets the locator, then, just a hair before end of that bar there is a MIDI note that triggers "get back to arrangement" command. This "hair" means there's a tiny fraction when arrangement view will produce a sound from wherever it actually is and then it jumps back to that locator.

So, to relate it to your post, I haven't actually used clyphX, so don't know if it would help me, but to me really the jumping between session and arrangement views is simply not well designed feature. Maybe the first (pretty reasonable I'd say) step would be to make "back to arrangement" action being subject of quantization as well??