This has always bugged me about Ableton Live

[Fraggle]

Why can’t Ableton and max for live devices UI be expanded and resized ?

In the same way that you can now expand the clip view, I would want the same for the plugin and instrument view. I have used Ableton since version 4 and squinting my eyes to tweak the small UI devices in the bottom of the screen has always been an issue.

So much screen space being wasted when most of my time is spent manipulating functions on plugins rather than performing with clips.

Alternatively, just have a UI button on all Ableton and Max for live devices. You would click it to get a detachable UI that was larger that (importantly) you could expand and use int the centre of the screen.

‘Accessibility’ to clip editing has now been addressed (in 11.1) but millions of people will also want a more comfortable experience when using Ableton and max devices.

If 3rd party plugins can do this , why can’t Ableton and Max plugins ?
_______________________________
I am beta testing the 11.1 and sent this suggestion to the Ableton team - I hope they read it and implement it , but I am not holding my breath.

[antic604]

I guess this is because of overarching design principle that aimed for the comfort and safety of single-screen, laptop user in live performance situation, where pop-up windows and any divergence from uniform design could be confusing and potentially disastrous. The idea was to have all devices always at the bottom panel, with uniform control scheme (that's why you are expected to assign 3rd party plugin parameters to macros, so you don't even have to open the window most of the time).

Having said that, I'd also appreciate the ability to simply resize the bottom panel with devices independantly from whole GUI* - after all it's all vector graphics with flat textures.

I've sent the same request to Bitwig few months ago. Let's see who implements this first

* I'm assuming you know you can zoom in/out the GUI in Preferences / Look & Feel?

[Fraggle]

The live performance ergonomic/uniform control thing , I understand that , and if live performers want to keep the UI the way it currently is , that is their choice - It would be lovely for me to have an alternative choice though.

Hopefully both bigwig and ableton implement this idea as soon as possible - I am amazed it is version 11 and still there is no choice to expand the plug in UI or have a detachable / resizable UI version - like you said , its all flat textures.

[antic604]

Hopefully both bigwig and ableton implement this idea as soon as possible - I am amazed it is version 11 and still there is no choice to expand the plug in UI or have a detachable / resizable UI version - like you said , its all flat textures.

To be fair, most Live devices are designed with that limitation in mind - they have few parameters on the front panel, big controls and if there's more of them you get "tabs" to go through them.

In Bitwig, I have UI zoom assigned to Ctrl + Shift + Plus/Minus and I can quickly zoom-in if I know I'll be working with devices and zoom-out when I'm working with arrangement. Not ideal, but works well enough. I'm not sure it can be done in Live, though. At least not on PC, I think

[anttimaatteri]

in my opinion the most bothering thing in ableton is still the split between session view and arrangement view as two entirely separated views, while the whole section of the mixer is session view only. i hardly ever use arrangement view as a result.

[apoclypse]

in my opinion the most bothering thing in ableton is still the split between session view and arrangement view as two entirely separated views, while the whole section of the mixer is session view only. i hardly ever use arrangement view as a result.

Yeah. This really bothers me in Ableton. I primarily make music linearly. I really just use the session view a place to hold clips so I can easily drag and drop them into place. That's why I really like Bitwig and Logic.

[jonljacobi]

I think it simply depends on how you use the program. Not that I’d mind being able to expand devices and have the mixer in arrangement view. It’s not a big deal for me either way as I mix by ear.

[billybuck]

Ableton has some really capable and cpu-friendly instruments and FX. I think I’d be happy using those rather than third-party plugins — if I didn’t have to squint to see them.

[pottering]

Preferences > Zoom Display.

[antic604]

Preferences > Zoom Display.

The problem is that it scales the whole GUI, not just the devices panel - this is what this request is about.

The issue is shared by Bitwig, too. Although in that case when both are at the same scaling Bitwig's device panel is slightly bigger & tracks smaller, which - for me, at least - is more optimal:

both.png

[DrFolder]

This has bugged me as well for years. So much editing has to be done on 25% of the gui. I don't use these programs for exactly that reason. I use to have Ableton and would like to take my laptop out to work on projects and I would end up getting a sore neck from hunching over editing on the low part of the screen all the time. Once I changed to software that didn't have that limitation my bad neck went away. Wasn't there talk of Bitwig being able to move the editing lane to the top of the page before it was released as a feature that may be added?

[antic604]

...Wasn't there talk of Bitwig being able to move the editing lane to the top of the page before it was released as a feature that may be added?

Perhaps you're thinking of the tablet screen profile?

Two of the four available views have indeed the devices panel on top:

tablet profile.png

[DrFolder]

...Wasn't there talk of Bitwig being able to move the editing lane to the top of the page before it was released as a feature that may be added?

Perhaps you're thinking of the tablet screen profile?

Two of the four available views have indeed the devices panel on top:


tablet profile.png

Yeah maybe. I certainly would like to see an option for having the edit bar run along the top or even have the devices be able to pop out like a vst. Having track editing lanes open for multiple tracks at the same time would be very helpful, this way you wouldn't need to select a different track to move a parameter. I haven't used Bitwig or Ableton in a while so I don't know if this feature is already available.

[antic604]

...Having track editing lanes open for multiple tracks at the same time would be very helpful, this way you wouldn't need to select a different track to move a parameter. I haven't used Bitwig or Ableton in a while so I don't know if this feature is already available.

Yes, in both Bitwig and Live:

[SLiC]

This has always bugged me---- why all of the FX and Instrument VSTS are not automaticity separated in to 2 different folders like ever other DAW...they separate VST2 and VST3 but not FX and Instruments!