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Ableton is an epitome of software design innovation. I think few people understand how groundbreaking the Session View vs Arrangement View design was to advance

by 1zael 2y ago

Ableton is an epitome of software design innovation. I think few people understand how groundbreaking the Session View vs Arrangement View design was to advance the workflow of both produced and live music. Subcomponents like Operator created design patterns that are widely adopted by most VSTs today. Kudos to the Ableton team for crafting a product that is so beloved.

pottering 2y ago
Not only Session View, but also its absence of effing toolbars, wish people realized how genius that is.
PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
Not just groundbreaking, but zeitgeist shaping. Session View (aka "clip launching") represents more than just a workflow - it represents an idea of what music is. Some people might want to spend their time arguing over whether or how much or when that idea is correct. I'd prefer to note that in the 25 or so years since its debut, the idea has reshaped so much contemporary music whether it is correct or not. The idea that you build up music out of sections that potentially repeat, then move on to another section ... it all seems so obvious to us techno-centric geeks. It actually isn't how most of the world has traditionally conceived of music, but the language that has been traditionally used has often had a structure that has made it easy to strip out the complexities, and the result is ... Ableton Live's Session View.
- BodyCulture 2y ago
  And it is stable, this always shocked me when I tried out some other software for music production that it actually crashed and killed my project! You will not have that bad experience with Ableton!
  - mb7733 2y ago
    Part of what drives that is that Ableton is designed to be used in-performance, so even minor instability isn't acceptable at all
sutra_on 2y ago
The interesting thing about that is that no one in my (limited) experience uses the session view as it was intended to be used for music composition. After trying it for a bit, everyone seems to revert back to using the linear Arrangement view. Session view is still useful in some performance cases, but it makes me wonder if it would make sense to have it as an optional view, and not as the default view for all sessions.
- marpstar 2y ago
  Very interesting. When my buddies and I started playing in Ableton after years in Adobe Audition (circa 2010?), we immersed ourselves in Session view for writing and piecing everything together, building songs top-down instead of left-to-right. It completely changed our entire workflows, and that seemed like the point. I'm only ever in arrangement view when I'm finalizing the order of the sections before final mix down.
  - enqk 2y ago
    Same here, I only move to the arrangement after I spent enough time on a piece in session view. It's also the place I put jamming results
  - face_pop 2y ago
    [dead]
  - sutra_on 2y ago
    I fell in love with the Session view when I started using Live in the early 2000s. But the thing is, even the most basic production nowadays uses a ton of automation, variations, break downs, single shots, etc. Session view just doesn't work for that. It's nice to be able try out various combinations in the Session view but I switch to building bigger structures almost instantly. I found it faster to just record clips directly into the Arrangement view and not waste time on moving between different views. Right from the beginning, basic things like chopping audio or e.g. removing the last kick in a bar are a pain to handle in the Session view (creating a copy without that last kick). And once I start touching automation - which is basically from the start - Session view becomes irrelevant.
BodyCulture 2y ago
If only it finally was available for Linux!
- daedalus_j 2y ago
  I wish... Live is the only reason I have a windows partition anymore. I just can't quite get it to work in wine/emulation... When I'm forced to upgrade to windows 11 I simply won't have Live anymore, because I won't be doing that, and so I haven't purchased the latest version and am starting to experiment with the alternatives. Makes me sad though, it'd be so great to have on Linux.
  - sureglymop 2y ago
    I use it in a VM with vfio pci pass through of a gpu. Works fine but I'll probably move to bitwig anyway, I don't respect the decision of not having Linux support (they even run Linux on their push devices).
- httpsterio 2y ago
  Bitwig is made by ex-Ableton engineers and honestly, it blows Live out of the water in terms of flexibility.
  - sutra_on 2y ago
    I was so impressed by Bitwig since the beta. Just couldn't find anything major enough to make the switch from Live. Also, M4L is such an amazing ecosystem, I would miss it. Any features in more recent Bitwig versions that stand out?
    - brylie 2y ago
      I’m not sure how recently they were added, but the Grid (modular environment) and the modulation sources are really powerful, particularly for adding organic/generative elements to a production. I’ve heard that Bitwig routing is another workflow enhancement, but haven’t used it too extensively. It would be cool if Bitwig would introduce a scripting environment similar to Max for Live.
ppqqrr 2y ago
Yes, 22 years ago. And while they’ve expanded some plugin features, astonishingly little has changed/improved about the base Live since then. Even minor quality-of-life features like setting a default audio interface is not even on the roadmap for 22 years. I think part of that is probably the clientele, musicians aren’t exactly famous for asking for more from their tools. Maybe I’m a grump for not thinking that “session view vs arrangement view” (which is really a bare minimum digital mimicry of the popular music making interfaces of the 20th century: the magnetic tape and a vinyl loop) is enough as the dominant paradigm for music making in a world now driven by global, recursive, abstract navigation of/ negotiation with interconnected, automated logic processes… But I don't wanna be sarcastic.
CooCooCaCha 2y ago
If you're impressed by Ableton, wait til you see Bitwig.
mixmastamyk 2y ago
Where to learn more about this, from a UI standpoint?
- sutra_on 2y ago
  Haven't seen any good Live UI write-ups but here is a video covering the history of its creation and evolution: https://www.youtube.com/live/aG2h9NJXYi0 https://www.youtube.com/live/aG2h9NJXYi0

by 1zael 2y ago

pottering 2y ago

Not only Session View, but also its absence of effing toolbars, wish people realized how genius that is.

PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago

Not just groundbreaking, but zeitgeist shaping. Session View (aka "clip launching") represents more than just a workflow - it represents an idea of what music is. Some people might want to spend their time arguing over whether or how much or when that idea is correct. I'd prefer to note that in the 25 or so years since its debut, the idea has reshaped so much contemporary music whether it is correct or not. The idea that you build up music out of sections that potentially repeat, then move on to another section ... it all seems so obvious to us techno-centric geeks. It actually isn't how most of the world has traditionally conceived of music, but the language that has been traditionally used has often had a structure that has made it easy to strip out the complexities, and the result is ... Ableton Live's Session View.

BodyCulture 2y ago
And it is stable, this always shocked me when I tried out some other software for music production that it actually crashed and killed my project! You will not have that bad experience with Ableton!
- mb7733 2y ago
  Part of what drives that is that Ableton is designed to be used in-performance, so even minor instability isn't acceptable at all

sutra_on 2y ago

The interesting thing about that is that no one in my (limited) experience uses the session view as it was intended to be used for music composition. After trying it for a bit, everyone seems to revert back to using the linear Arrangement view. Session view is still useful in some performance cases, but it makes me wonder if it would make sense to have it as an optional view, and not as the default view for all sessions.

marpstar 2y ago
Very interesting. When my buddies and I started playing in Ableton after years in Adobe Audition (circa 2010?), we immersed ourselves in Session view for writing and piecing everything together, building songs top-down instead of left-to-right. It completely changed our entire workflows, and that seemed like the point. I'm only ever in arrangement view when I'm finalizing the order of the sections before final mix down.
- enqk 2y ago
  Same here, I only move to the arrangement after I spent enough time on a piece in session view. It's also the place I put jamming results
- face_pop 2y ago
  [dead]
- sutra_on 2y ago
  I fell in love with the Session view when I started using Live in the early 2000s. But the thing is, even the most basic production nowadays uses a ton of automation, variations, break downs, single shots, etc. Session view just doesn't work for that. It's nice to be able try out various combinations in the Session view but I switch to building bigger structures almost instantly. I found it faster to just record clips directly into the Arrangement view and not waste time on moving between different views. Right from the beginning, basic things like chopping audio or e.g. removing the last kick in a bar are a pain to handle in the Session view (creating a copy without that last kick). And once I start touching automation - which is basically from the start - Session view becomes irrelevant.

BodyCulture 2y ago

If only it finally was available for Linux!

daedalus_j 2y ago
I wish... Live is the only reason I have a windows partition anymore. I just can't quite get it to work in wine/emulation... When I'm forced to upgrade to windows 11 I simply won't have Live anymore, because I won't be doing that, and so I haven't purchased the latest version and am starting to experiment with the alternatives. Makes me sad though, it'd be so great to have on Linux.
- sureglymop 2y ago
  I use it in a VM with vfio pci pass through of a gpu. Works fine but I'll probably move to bitwig anyway, I don't respect the decision of not having Linux support (they even run Linux on their push devices).
httpsterio 2y ago
Bitwig is made by ex-Ableton engineers and honestly, it blows Live out of the water in terms of flexibility.
- sutra_on 2y ago
  I was so impressed by Bitwig since the beta. Just couldn't find anything major enough to make the switch from Live. Also, M4L is such an amazing ecosystem, I would miss it. Any features in more recent Bitwig versions that stand out?
  - brylie 2y ago
    I’m not sure how recently they were added, but the Grid (modular environment) and the modulation sources are really powerful, particularly for adding organic/generative elements to a production. I’ve heard that Bitwig routing is another workflow enhancement, but haven’t used it too extensively. It would be cool if Bitwig would introduce a scripting environment similar to Max for Live.

ppqqrr 2y ago

Yes, 22 years ago. And while they’ve expanded some plugin features, astonishingly little has changed/improved about the base Live since then. Even minor quality-of-life features like setting a default audio interface is not even on the roadmap for 22 years. I think part of that is probably the clientele, musicians aren’t exactly famous for asking for more from their tools. Maybe I’m a grump for not thinking that “session view vs arrangement view” (which is really a bare minimum digital mimicry of the popular music making interfaces of the 20th century: the magnetic tape and a vinyl loop) is enough as the dominant paradigm for music making in a world now driven by global, recursive, abstract navigation of/ negotiation with interconnected, automated logic processes… But I don't wanna be sarcastic.

CooCooCaCha 2y ago

If you're impressed by Ableton, wait til you see Bitwig.

mixmastamyk 2y ago

Where to learn more about this, from a UI standpoint?

sutra_on 2y ago
Haven't seen any good Live UI write-ups but here is a video covering the history of its creation and evolution: https://www.youtube.com/live/aG2h9NJXYi0 https://www.youtube.com/live/aG2h9NJXYi0