Abelton Live Workflow

[coops2]

I've just download the Live 6 demo and I really like the way you trigger scenes and record them into the arrangement view so was I was wondering how people using LIve are creating their scenes to start with as the MIDI piano roll seems somewhat lacking to someone who spends of lot of time using a mouse to enter notes

Do us use loops, real instruments, the piano roll, make loops in other hosts and import, is Live intended or better at one of these more than the others?

So just curious as to how people use Live to give me a bit of starting point to epxeriment with

[beej]

I tend to use Live in one of two ways. Either I'll import recorded audio from my other DAW so I can jam around with arrangements on the fly until I can get a core structure I'm happy with, or I'll record stufff directly in Live - so I'll either record MIDI into clips, or bits of audio..

I rarely start by entering notes on a piano roll, as it's about a ga-jillion times quicker just to play it...

[coops2]

Yes that was my initial thought, to perhaps jam with bits I'd created elsewhere to work out the sructure in Live as it quite insperational triggering the clips for some new ideas. Its really interesting to find out how other people are working as there looks so many differnt ways to use Live I think

[Aural Chaos]

This might be a generalization, but I think people who are really into entering notes on a piano roll are less likely to be Live users.

Me, I use clips entirely-both short repeated ones like drum patterns, and long ones played in from guitar or recorded as MIDI.

[diverdee]

I don't mind the piano roll - although I prefer to play stuff in.
Play it into arrangement view, add some automation maybe & then copy/cut & paste it into the session view & keep rinsing & repeating, setting stuff to trigger semi-randomly & messing with different length clip envelopes waiting for happy accidents.
Kinda takes the stress away from arranging.

[pdxindy]

I do a few things within Live.

I mostly play midi parts rather than input by mouse, then sometimes I will edit with the mouse in the piano roll.

I also create audio loops/clips, sample stuff, vocal snippets, drum/percussion.

Sometimes I work entirely in Arrange mode. That is usually when I already know specifically what I want to do, say for a soundtrack for video. Othertimes I am using Session mode to take parts and clips recorded in Arrange and looking for how they work together, like Diverdee was describing. Then sometimes just realtime creative experimentation in Session like a project with a few friends where we make a video drama with audio as a realtime performance, recording everything on the fly with minimal editing.

Live lends itself to such creative uses like no other host I've tried. It just says, come play with me! It feels like a musical instrument in its own right.

So, yeah, the piano roll could be better. Groove support could be better. But there is nothing quite like Live.

[coops2]

Yes it seems a totally different way of working Perhaps trying to use it as a traditional sequencer shows its piano roll could be weak but if you approach using it from different point of view then its a totally different experience and a very powerful software. Perhaps a sub host such as phrazor used with Live and you have best of both worlds.

I'm trying to work through tutorials and be open minded to new way of working and ignore my traditional sequencing habits, I'm quite excited by demo Having the tutorials there is definately helping think I be lost by now without them. They are a very good idea. I can see this becoming an addictive program

Did anyone find it easy or difficult at first moving from traditional sequencer to Live's way of working? I think I'd have to break many ingrained habits but that is probably good thing

[beej]

It just requires a context shift of how you normally think, if you're doing stuff in the session view. I tried out earlier demos and didn't really "get it", but then Live 4 came along and I tried out the demo again and it clicked. So much of my stuff had been very timeline constrained, it was a little weird to compose without a definite timeline. But it's really cool, because you can stick stuff up and jam around and develop a structure by feel, rather than working out what you want to structure to be beforehand.

I also really like using the follow actions to generate psuedo-auto pseudo-random soundscapes and stuff, very cool...

[original flipper]

HI

I find that the piano-roll/midi editing side of things a MAJOR PITA!!!

I simply don't use Live for this reason; I have it on standby - in the hope that Ableton will mke things more usable.

In detail, try editing several reasonably complex midi passages and you will probably decide life is too short for the messing arouind involved with opening, resizing, editing and closing the piano-roll.

Flipper.

[Synthbuilder]

... life is too short for the messing arouind involved with opening, resizing, editing and closing the piano-roll.

I always have the piano roll set to fill the screen. I simply double click on the clip I want to edit and the whole screen turns over to piano roll. The piano roll remembers its last size setting for the next time you use it.

I use the wee arrow thing on the bottom of the page to bring me back to arrange window. I think you can also use CTRL+TAB too.

I always found that it was Cubase where I had to keep on changing the size of the key edit window. Oh, and Tracktion too.

[musikmachine]

Been using live for a while(5.2).It was my first full blown daw(apart from cubase vst but we won't go there).I also use project5v2 and more recently energyxt for sequencing.I have no problem switching between apps.Bear in mind ableton comes with a ton of midi clips.And the ability to create your own for future use is great.It's highly versatile so you shouldn't have a problem adapting to it's workflow.Have you checked ext for midi?

Live inspires creativity.

Peace

mm

[musikmachine]

... life is too short for the messing arouind involved with opening, resizing, editing and closing the piano-roll.

I always have the piano roll set to fill the screen. I simply double click on the clip I want to edit and the whole screen turns over to piano roll. The piano roll remembers its last size setting for the next time you use it.

I use the wee arrow thing on the bottom of the page to bring me back to arrange window. I think you can also use CTRL+TAB too.

I always found that it was Cubase where I had to keep on changing the size of the key edit window. Oh, and Tracktion too.

Yeah ctrl + tab.The shortcuts make a big difference and will improve your workflow significantly.You can show/hide most of what you see on screen via keyboard shortcuts

[kovacs]

I've been using live since v4, moving from FL.

Mostly I record audio (guitar via Guitar Rig) or MIDI (via a Keystation 88). I dabble a bit with clips before I move everything into the arranger. Workflow in Live is quite fast for me. I have no quarrels with the piano roll but I am not the most ardent MIDI tweaker.

I find that Live is extremely easy to work with, and once I got the creative juices flowing I can keep at it for hours.

[kovacs]

... life is too short for the messing arouind involved with opening, resizing, editing and closing the piano-roll.

I always have the piano roll set to fill the screen. I simply double click on the clip I want to edit and the whole screen turns over to piano roll. The piano roll remembers its last size setting for the next time you use it.

I use the wee arrow thing on the bottom of the page to bring me back to arrange window. I think you can also use CTRL+TAB too.

I always found that it was Cubase where I had to keep on changing the size of the key edit window. Oh, and Tracktion too.

Yeah ctrl + tab.The shortcuts make a big difference and will improve your workflow significantly.You can show/hide most of what you see on screen via keyboard shortcuts

When in the piano roll (full screen), Tab takes you from piano roll clip properties. Shift+tab takes you to scene view. From scene view, Tab toggles arranges/scenes.

[zai]

Loops and midi. That's how I use Live.

Zai