Ableton Live track status

[leeleema]

Does anyone find the track status active read-outs a) totally confusing; b) counter-intuitive and c) actually counter productive?

Surely one of its main uses is as a count in so you know how much time is left . But because there are five different types dependent on the type of clip, it completely fails at this, as well as if you are looping only part of the clip.

Or is it just me?

[W23]

I don’t know. I’ve used Logic/Garage Band, Cubase, Renoise, and Reaper too, and are they anymore helpful? Not sure. Cubase may be a little more helpful, I suppose, but I get more lost just trying to find the correct drop down tile to do anything in that program. Logic was sort of the same way, except it’s more key command driven. They all have their annoying quirks which you just learn to deal with over time. I actually took a break from Ableton for almost a year and went back because...it’s the devil I know. Ableton IS a little funky when dealing with tracks between Session and Arrangement views (you can overwrite your arrangement tracks super easy if your not careful), and commands are different between those views but again, you get used to it. Maybe I don’t entirely understand what you’re saying. Is there another DAW that you find more intuitive for tracking? I think I’m just saying that they’re all counter-productive in their own special way.

If I wasn’t so far down the road with Live, I’d give Fl Studio a try since it has finally been ported over to MacOS, but another $300 for a 6 month learning curve doesn’t sound appealing at all to me.

[leeleema]

I know what you mean. It's something I've only just noticed despite using Live for years, ha. When I realised though, it struck as all of the things I outlined above. I actually can't fathom a reason for the way it is implemented apart from the fact that it looks nice. It's just not useful in any way. I was just wondering if anyone else had noticed or perhaps I'm missing something - I often do! It seems like it should be useful though as up until 11, you would have to manually punch in recording from session to arrangement view. Obviously the music itself is a cue and manually counting, but the track status counters would seem to be an excellent better/alternative way of doing it. But they do no such thing. They show seconds left or bars played or times looped but nothing to indicate bars left until the next clip plays which is odd as the global quantise is in multiples of bars. Seconds left is the most useful but if your clip is not the right type i.e not looping, you don't get that. It's all a bit of a mis-match, especially as the main way of getting ordered clips from session to arrangement is by playing and recording.

[W23]

I see where you’re coming from. I really don’t punch in. I just edit manually or re-record. Cubase and Logic (and I’m guessing ProTools) handle punching in much better, and they offer multiple takes in one go. Ableton will offer takes recording in arrangement for Live 11. I’m looking forward to that.