Ableton Forum

I've been teaching myself Live for 2.5 years, read a couple books, seen a bunch of YouTube videos, etc. I'm good at learning stuff like this, in general, but there's something basic about Live that I must be missing.

I guess I don't know how best to record an improvised session in Live.

I set up tracks with a bunch of clips I like, open MIDI instruments and map them to my keyboard and PadKontrol, map knobs to do certain things.

Then I hit record, and time starts counting. If I switch to arrangement view, I can see the clips being 'laid down'.

So my question, and the thing I must be missing, is what to do once you've spent some time recording an improvisation.

You now have 1500 measures recorded in arrangement view.

The settings, levels, parameters, etc., are completely different at the end of the arrangement than they were at the beginning. If I save the set, then what am I supposed to do the next time I open it. Are you supposed to do fine tuning in arrangement view and turn it into a recording?

What do you do if you remember really liking a moment that happened halfway through the last improvisation session. OK, so you listen in arrangement view, fast forwarding until you find it. Then what? Every time I get to this point, I get stuck because I want to have fun playing with that moment, taking it in a new direction, but then the arrangement starts playing, and levels start changing as if controlled by phantoms. Really it's just live playing back what I did last time. But how am I supposed to freeze that moment that I liked and work with it, leaving behind what I had in the arrangement? Is there a way to do this without losing other moments you liked from last time?

Thanks, I look forward to your help, Paul

You edit out all the sections you don't like and condense your 1500 measures down to 250 measures of all the best bits.

Then you render it off, burn it to a CD and play it to your friends.

I'm not sure I understand the question to be honest - what are you trying to achieve by using Live?

ctrl/cmd+shift+Delete is your friend - "delete time"

also you can select a whole bit and use ctrl/cmd+D to duplicate it, or your usual cut/copy/paste

fossilfool wrote:I've been teaching myself Live for 2.5 years... Are you supposed to do fine tuning in arrangement view and turn it into a recording?

Ahhh... yeah! No seriously, and I don't mean to be harsh. If you've been using Live for 2 and 1/2 years and haven't a clue then it's time to move on to something else. I've been using it for about five years and have only once opened the maual. It is the most intuitive program I have ever used, period!

Anubis wrote:

fossilfool wrote:I've been teaching myself Live for 2.5 years... Are you supposed to do fine tuning in arrangement view and turn it into a recording?

Ahhh... yeah! No seriously, and I don't mean to be harsh. If you've been using Live for 2 and 1/2 years and haven't a clue then it's time to move on to something else. I've been using it for about five years and have only once opened the maual. It is the most intuitive program I have ever used, period!

no need to be arrogant, I think the question is actually valid and not that simple. if I understand correctly, what fossilfool is asking is how to re-integrate a recorded improvisation back into the context of playing in a session, i.e. to take the best recorded moments and play off of them. Unfortunately, due to the way automation is handled (no recording into clips), there is no complete solution for this. I guess you could use your midi controllers in take-over mode and/or bring clips from the arrangement back into session as new scenes... hm.

fossilfool wrote: Every time I get to this point, I get stuck because I want to have fun playing with that moment, taking it in a new direction, but then the arrangement starts playing, and levels start changing as if controlled by phantoms. Really it's just live playing back what I did last time. But how am I supposed to freeze that moment that I liked and work with it, leaving behind what I had in the arrangement? Is there a way to do this without losing other moments you liked from last time?

Thanks, I look forward to your help, Paul

This seems hysterical, but I SOOOOOOOOOOOO hear you! This is probably my number one creative flow killer. If we could clikc "CAPTURE SCENE" or CAPTURE MOMENT" and have all clips and Automation copied , either to Session or tagged on to the end of the Arrangement, then we could explore the new direction AND not destroy the previous idea.

This is a simple SNAPSHOT function. I don't understand why Live doesn't have this. In fact I'm going to post in wishlist right now.







A simple SAVE AS would work except it stops all clips and ruins the mix.

nowtime wrote:

fossilfool wrote: Every time I get to this point, I get stuck because I want to have fun playing with that moment, taking it in a new direction, but then the arrangement starts playing, and levels start changing as if controlled by phantoms. Really it's just live playing back what I did last time. But how am I supposed to freeze that moment that I liked and work with it, leaving behind what I had in the arrangement? Is there a way to do this without losing other moments you liked from last time?

Thanks, I look forward to your help, Paul

This seems hysterical, but I SOOOOOOOOOOOO hear you! This is probably my number one creative flow killer. If we could clikc "CAPTURE SCENE" or CAPTURE MOMENT" and have all clips and Automation copied , either to Session or tagged on to the end of the Arrangement, then we could explore the new direction AND not destroy the previous idea.

This is a simple SNAPSHOT function. I don't understand why Live doesn't have this. In fact I'm going to post in wishlist right now.







A simple SAVE AS would work except it stops all clips and ruins the mix.

but see this all ties back to my big automation whing a few weeks back - at the end of the day automation in session would solve this, because then you could use the existing ctrl/cmd+shift+I 'capture and insert scene'

you could do that anyway here, but as you said it doesnt copy the automation

Yeah automation in the session would smooth out my workflow when I get into this kinda situation. I select the 'moment' parts in a block section and delete the rest or drag it to an empty area in the arrange. I would like to just drag it into session and have 'metaclips' made out of that captured moment so it would all be on one scene. The 'metaclips' themselves would contain the arrangement automation, keeping the original clips intact with their own settings and clip automation as well. What I end up doing is consolidating, freeze, flatten it so I can drag it over as one scene. Keep building up sections that way and before you know it you have all your best places to take it.

fossilfool wrote:
Every time I get to this point, I get stuck because I want to have fun playing with that moment, taking it in a new direction, but then the arrangement starts playing, and levels start changing as if controlled by phantoms. Really it's just live playing back what I did last time. But how am I supposed to freeze that moment that I liked and work with it, leaving behind what I had in the arrangement? Is there a way to do this without losing other moments you liked from last time?

Thanks, I look forward to your help, Paul


This seems hysterical, but I SOOOOOOOOOOOO hear you! This is probably my number one creative flow killer. If we could clikc "CAPTURE SCENE" or CAPTURE MOMENT" and have all clips and Automation copied , either to Session or tagged on to the end of the Arrangement, then we could explore the new direction AND not destroy the previous idea.

This is a simple SNAPSHOT function. I don't understand why Live doesn't have this. In fact I'm going to post in wishlist right now.

Wow, I'm glad that at least a couple people out there know what I'm talking about.

I really appreciate y'alls responses, even the haters!

I had a good breakthrough on Friday night with Live.

I focused on the Arrangement view and finally 'got' how the session and arrangement views interact.

I agree that a snapshot feature would be really cool. That's totally what I was trying to expresss.

I also just want to add that when I started learning about Live, I thought that everything important happens in session view. I thought that arrangement view was kind of like a nice 'add-on'

But now it appears to me that Session view is like a scratch pad and arrangement view is more like memory.