Live MIDI Editor: STILL TOO PRIMITIVE

[zaphodb]

I don't understand why the Live MIDI editor is still the cut-rate bargain basement affair that it is. Let's face it: music is largely math. And when it comes to working on MIDI parts and getting the details exactly right it is extremely important to be able to see (and edit) the MIDI events in a list that shows the numerical values for the events.

C-Lab Notator (which I know Henke at the rest of the gang at Ableton admire) had a List Editor back in the 1980's. Most of today's top of the range sequencer offerings have this. Without it I really struggle a lot, and have gone back to using my Roland grooveboxes (all of which have a list editor) for doing my important MIDI parts. It is a pain to do this and it shouldn't be like this...

There ought to be a button on the MIDI editor that changes its display from a piano roll to an event list view. In the piano roll, when a single note is selected, that note's parameters should be displayed somewhere so that you can know its timing exactly.

What I describe here "hides the numbers" (mostly) for people who don't want to see that stuff. But Event List view is critical for those of us who really have to understand what is going on in our complex MIDI parts. Being able to view CC data in event lists is especially important.

It's time for Ableton to bite the bullet and make Live good enough for serious MIDI work.

[jlgrimes]

I don't understand why the Live MIDI editor is still the cut-rate bargain basement affair that it is. Let's face it: music is largely math. And when it comes to working on MIDI parts and getting the details exactly right it is extremely important to be able to see (and edit) the MIDI events in a list that shows the numerical values for the events.

C-Lab Notator (which I know Henke at the rest of the gang at Ableton admire) had a List Editor back in the 1980's. Most of today's top of the range sequencer offerings have this. Without it I really struggle a lot, and have gone back to using my Roland grooveboxes (all of which have a list editor) for doing my important MIDI parts. It is a pain to do this and it shouldn't be like this...

There ought to be a button on the MIDI editor that changes its display from a piano roll to an event list view. In the piano roll, when a single note is selected, that note's parameters should be displayed somewhere so that you can know its timing exactly.

What I describe here "hides the numbers" (mostly) for people who don't want to see that stuff. But Event List view is critical for those of us who really have to understand what is going on in our complex MIDI parts. Being able to view CC data in event lists is especially important.

It's time for Ableton to bite the bullet and make Live good enough for serious MIDI work.

I agree with you to a point.

For the most part, I actually like Live's piano roll. It is simple and to the point (coming from Sonar). The fold function is my favorite thing about the piano roll.

Only things I don't like:

1. Drum Racks fold function don't work. This must be a bug and needs to be fixed.

2. Lacks precision capabilities of other sequencers. I agree with you on this point. With Live you can't really see the numbers and all of the technical stuff, wheras with Sonar, I could make all notes land exactly at 120 velocity or I could move notes back by 7 or so midi ticks. Live is all about "eyeballing" stuff and kind of using your ears. With Live I don't always get that assurance that my edits are "mathematically perfect".

3. This is really a continuation of point 2 but Live also lacks curve drawing functions for envelopes and velocity controllers and what not. That would add another level of precision to Live. Many sequencers "even Sonar" lacks things like these and I think Cubase is the main sequencer that excels in this type of editing.

4. Lack of a step editor and an cut and divide and glue tools.

5. Not really piano roll related but in Sonar I liked how you could quantize to ticks and get all kind of crazy time resolutions that's not possible with normal quantize, but that stuff I didn't use too much anyways but was great for real experimental type stuff.


I think one thing though Live is probably taking into account is they know that by adding this, this could make the interface more cluttered, but certain things don't always need an icon just a keybinding would be sufficient to me.

I never really been a fan of Event List View though but I do like in Sonar that you can get precise event of your notes if you need them. And I really don't mind something like this being another window, because things like this not everyone would use anyways and would make little sense of seeing this in a window. Or maybe a right click "view midi event" function.

[John Daminato]

I disagree with this. Midi was an afterthought in ableton. Of course its primitive and not by accident. You start adding all your 80's editor crap and now you just polluted the interface and made it less intuitive. Ableton was designed from a more musician perspective as in the 80's that appeared to be more a programming perspective. I worked with 90's midi and felt it was annoying and great, but annoying more.

Not everyone views music as math, I would say a lot of pure artist don't from my experience. Its done more by feel and inspiration. Do you think a musician needs to know his exact mathematical timing of his last 3 notes?...Rhetorical question.

I do agree that some tweaks can be done with the midi but not too many and Im not sure where you can start. Something that no one else has.

[Nokatus]

Not everyone views music as math, I would say a lot of pure artist don't from my experience.

I would say a lot of pure artists do, from my experience. Do you think those approaches are mutually exclusive, or more importantly, do you think one approach makes the art itself better than the other one? Rhetorical questions.

[John Daminato]

Nokatus" Rhetorical questions"

Come up with your own sarcasms buddy.

[Nokatus]

cheers

[Soma]

C-lab notator? Had to look it up...

I could imagine the piano roll using an expand arrow, like sampler and spectrum to display a tracker like event list above the current note system. That would be sweet.

[rydan]

4. Lack of a step editor and an cut and divide and glue tools.

+1