Playing Live With Live's Arrangement View

[wahrk]

So I've tried several times with stems and with full tracks, but I just have a really hard time jiving with Live's session view. It was fun when I was younger and just fiddling, but with the way I write songs these days it's too complex to try and recreate fills and automation on the fly most of the time. Plus I don't feel like there's anything to add to the songs. I like them the way they are and have a lot of trouble thinking of anything to add that doesn't require 3 hands or at least a minute or two of setup/automation. I don't really like looping parts either. Perhaps I'll find a way to make it click, but in lieu of that I have another idea I'd like to try...

 

Why not play live with the arrangement view? I could set up my available songs in a folder in such a way that I could just pull out whatever song I want next while the current one is playing, toss it on, line it up where I want it to come in, and have the option to fidget with mixing/effects with my controller or just automate them, or both!

 

I could have some transition audio clips that I could use, such as just the drums or lead from a song or perhaps a new drum buildup built with the kit from a song. I might even be able to have some MIDI clips with automation to add in for effects and whatnot (I remember being able to do some dummy clips stuff in the past with session view.)

 

Does this sound like something doable? Do you guys have any tips or suggestions for attempting this route? Is there perhaps another program that would be better suited to this approach?

[Guest mischjok]

Yes you could do all that.

 

I have the same problem as you and I have decided to either mashup my songs or use the stems of songs in similar tempos to jam along.

[Guest RadarJammer]

The fatal flaw with Ableton Live

 

edit: maybe that was off topic a bit, but it's good to be informed about these things

[wahrk]

The fatal flaw with Ableton Live

 

edit: maybe that was off topic a bit, but it's good to be informed about these things

Relevant? Somewhat, I suppose. Shitty? Absolutely.

[acid1]

I think the idea about Ableton is you record yourself jamming in session view into arrange, then you further IDM things once they laid out.

[wahrk]

I think the idea about Ableton is you record yourself jamming in session view into arrange, then you further IDM things once they laid out.

Yes, this is a common usage. I am talking about arrangement view for live performance on the fly though.

[Guest RadarJammer]

Its too bad wav file cue points don't have meta data that could be used to hold midi/cc trigger info.

[awepittance]

I think the idea about Ableton is you record yourself jamming in session view into arrange, then you further IDM things once they laid out.

 

its too bad you can't jam in live and then have the recorded arrangement version of it compatible with cubase or logic. For some reason i absolutely cannot stand abelton's timeline options, i feel extremely limited compared to the DAW's i just mentioned.

 

i personally think the clip view jam recorded into a session is probably one of the best and most useful things about abelton live,

[Guest Promo]

Live 8's beat warping is a pain compared to previous versions I'll say that!

[acid1]

I think the idea about Ableton is you record yourself jamming in session view into arrange, then you further IDM things once they laid out.

 

its too bad you can't jam in live and then have the recorded arrangement version of it compatible with cubase or logic. For some reason i absolutely cannot stand abelton's timeline options, i feel extremely limited compared to the DAW's i just mentioned.

 

i personally think the clip view jam recorded into a session is probably one of the best and most useful things about abelton live,

 

You can, it just depends how lazy you are.

 

I frequently bounce my shit out and load it up in renoise. At first I was trying to muck with Rewire (which you can do as well), but I found I perfer just having it all in renoise. So after manually bouncing audio and midi to files and then loading it up in renoise, I wrote an applescript that will do it all for me, then it "recreates" the song in Renoise. The manual process for this takes about an hour or so depending upon how fast your computer is at offline rendering and how many tracks you have going on at once etc.

I think the idea about Ableton is you record yourself jamming in session view into arrange, then you further IDM things once they laid out.

Yes, this is a common usage. I am talking about arrangement view for live performance on the fly though.

 

Why you would use arrange for live sets and not session is beyond my level of comprehension. Perhaps you missed the point entirely?

 

Live 8's beat warping is a pain compared to previous versions I'll say that!

 

The old method of warping audio to the grid didn't really make sense, but I think a lot of us got used to it. Makes more sense to drag transients around in the long run. You can always do the old method by holding option (dunno what it is on pc) while dragging a warp point, that way the warp point stays static and the audio warps around it. I used this method for a while when i had my 8 training wheels on as well.

[wahrk]

Why you would use arrange for live sets and not session is beyond my level of comprehension. Perhaps you missed the point entirely?

To be able to set things up beforehand. The idea of pressing a button when I want a track to play is not an appealing one to me. I would much rather cue it up to play 10 seconds to 5 minutes beforehand, depending on the situation.

 

Think about emcees. The really talented ones can spit out complex rhyme schemes and set up significant lines very well because they are thinking 8-16 bars ahead. I would rather my control over the music work in a similar manner, with the speakers as my mouth and the timeline as my plan for the next minute or two.

[acid1]

Why you would use arrange for live sets and not session is beyond my level of comprehension. Perhaps you missed the point entirely?

To be able to set things up beforehand. The idea of pressing a button when I want a track to play is not an appealing one to me. I would much rather cue it up to play 10 seconds to 5 minutes beforehand, depending on the situation. Think about emcees. The really talented ones can spit out complex rhyme schemes and set up significant lines very well because they are thinking 8-16 bars ahead. I would rather my control over the music work in a similar manner, with the speakers as my mouth and the timeline as my plan for the next minute or two.

 

You could do this... also could do it entirely in session, few notes...

 

You could have your 8-16 bar loops set up in session, and drag them into arrange using the TAB button to switch views. You can turn loop on and off when you set up new sections next.

 

If you wanted to stay in arrangement only and work on a section of music before looping it, you'd have to put it in different channels, and assign them to cue so you could work on it with your headphones before changing the loop position. You could even do this with the cross fader if you set up sends correctly.

[wahrk]

Why you would use arrange for live sets and not session is beyond my level of comprehension. Perhaps you missed the point entirely?

To be able to set things up beforehand. The idea of pressing a button when I want a track to play is not an appealing one to me. I would much rather cue it up to play 10 seconds to 5 minutes beforehand, depending on the situation. Think about emcees. The really talented ones can spit out complex rhyme schemes and set up significant lines very well because they are thinking 8-16 bars ahead. I would rather my control over the music work in a similar manner, with the speakers as my mouth and the timeline as my plan for the next minute or two.

 

You could do this... also could do it entirely in session, few notes...

 

You could have your 8-16 bar loops set up in session, and drag them into arrange using the TAB button to switch views. You can turn loop on and off when you set up new sections next.

 

If you wanted to stay in arrangement only and work on a section of music before looping it, you'd have to put it in different channels, and assign them to cue so you could work on it with your headphones before changing the loop position. You could even do this with the cross fader if you set up sends correctly.

I think the key portion of this advice that I have to point out the flaw in is that I rarely use or enjoy the idea of loops. I would mostly be working with full songs, parts of songs, and pre-composed pieces that are meant to be played once. This doesn't mean that sections of these tracks won't repeat music-wise, but the audio file itself would most likely not be repeated. And if it were, it would most likely not be more than once or twice, and this would be reflected by multiple instances of the file laid out sequentially on the timeline rather than looping that section.

 

I would remain open to the idea of looping here and there when applicable, but for the most part, the play button would be hit and it would move forward through the timeline as I continually construct the layout of audio ahead of the play position by a minute or two.

[sneaksta303]

you can put full songs in session view too man. I really dont understand. Also, there's a crossfader. Shit doesn't have to loop.

[acid1]

The problem is, I don't think you can have Live play/loop minutes 0-1 while you listen to minutes 1-2....

 

I think you'd need to set up a huge loop in arrange, and set up two busses on a cross fader, basically construct the next part of your songs in the cue, and then either cross fade over to them, or move them after the part thats already playing and adjust the start end points.

[sneaksta303]

I feel like this is being made more complicated than it really is.

[acid1]

I feel like this is being made more complicated than it really is.

 

I agree, why you wouldn't just construct sections in session view and then mix between them is beyond me.

 

This is basically the entire point of the session view. Square block, round peg action at its finest.

[kcinsu]

Kind of the point of playing live shows, is that it's live... There is some interaction going on. Composing 2 minutes ahead is kind of detached from that idea, and probably not easy to really do well. Just start learning session view, maybe change your approach. You can have long files play and not repeat, and you can have trigger times that are more than a bar.

 

Otherwise why not just do a dj set? You can do that in session view too, or use a dj program.

 

I dunno, I'd say it's worth it to change your approach and get more hands on with it. You could also cut up your tracks into small looping sections and trigger the next section when you are ready.

[awepittance]

acid1, the 'lazy' part is very true, but i find it personally not worth the amount of clean up work and back tracking required when bouncing a clip --->> arrangement view to waves. The easiest way i've found to do this is to just Soundflower 16 channels from abelton into cubase audio tracks. IT still makes the editing a pain in the ass, in some ways even more so than in abelton by itself (because in abelton when you turn on and off a track the region disappeared if you just bounce audio you will have to see where your waveform stops. It's just not as concise.

 

I actually did my whole 'Acroplane guide to electronic music' record the way you describe how you did an Abelton session into renoise, it just took me an insane amount of editing and i dont think in the end i would ever do it again without a supply of some kind of speed.

[wahrk]

The problem is, I don't think you can have Live play/loop minutes 0-1 while you listen to minutes 1-2....

This is problematic.

 

Kind of the point of playing live shows, is that it's live... There is some interaction going on. Composing 2 minutes ahead is kind of detached from that idea, and probably not easy to really do well.

I see your point, but I don't think it's too far-fetched and would be viable with the right tools.

 

Just start learning session view, maybe change your approach. You can have long files play and not repeat, and you can have trigger times that are more than a bar.

I'll probably end up doing this, as it seems like there are too many things in the way of doing it the way I've described here. I never tried trigger times more than a bar, and this may be something to try. I feel like it will get off very easily though as soon as I run into a 2-bar section though. Maybe I could find a way around that though. We'll see.

 

Otherwise why not just do a dj set? You can do that in session view too, or use a dj program.

 

I dunno, I'd say it's worth it to change your approach and get more hands on with it. You could also cut up your tracks into small looping sections and trigger the next section when you are ready.

I've tried both of these, and neither have been satisfying yet. The latter feels like so much preparation work for a less than satisfying result. Perhaps I'll find a good setup and fall into a groove eventually, but currently, sitting around waiting to press a button when I knew bars ago when I wanted a track to drop seems like a waste of time and energy. It's like building in the capability of making a mistake for no reason.

 

acid1, the 'lazy' part is very true, but i find it personally not worth the amount of clean up work and back tracking required when bouncing a clip --->> arrangement view to waves. The easiest way i've found to do this is to just Soundflower 16 channels from abelton into cubase audio tracks. IT still makes the editing a pain in the ass, in some ways even more so than in abelton by itself (because in abelton when you turn on and off a track the region disappeared if you just bounce audio you will have to see where your waveform stops. It's just not as concise.

 

I actually did my whole 'Acroplane guide to electronic music' record the way you describe how you did an Abelton session into renoise, it just took me an insane amount of editing and i dont think in the end i would ever do it again without a supply of some kind of speed.

I think this is pretty off topic.

[sneaksta303]

I'm still really confused.

[ryancolecreate]

I know what you mean man. I'ev also been playing with different live setups, but I still have not hit on something that feels really natural yet. I love the idea of ableton, but haven't found my own groove with it yet. I suppose I just have to keep pushing through it. I did find the beat warping to be a pain in the ass when the clip you want to loop isn't already cut to loop length. Meh oh well.

[acid1]

i dont think in the end i would ever do it again without a supply of some kind of speed.

 

lol

[Guest RadarJammer]

Is there perhaps another program that would be better suited to this approach?

 

You could try AudioMulch and do sort of what GirlTalk does, having all songs that you might want to use in a set simultaneously playing but muted and you could could either mute/unmute them from a controller via the fileplayer or set a fade time and mute/unmute them with a matrix mixer. A launchpad would work here. You would want to do lots of brainstorming and warping beforehand and the results would be similar in nature to Live's clip launching but instead of triggering clips from the beginning you would be triggering them from whatever playback position they happen to be at. Transition sounds could be strategically added to let you go into different timings. This solution feels really homebrew and that's a pretty good alternative to the Soviet Prison vibe I get from Live's strict interface.

[acid1]

you would be triggering them from whatever playback position they happen to be at.

"Legato Mode" Clip Launching in Session View