Ableton/Live/UG/07 Session View
- The grid of clips, tracks and scenes for playing and improvising without a fixed timeline, and recording a session into the Arrangement.
- Click a clip's triangular launch button to start it, or select the clip by its name and press
Enter; arrow keys move to neighbouring clips. A square Clip Stop button in a slot or in the Track Status field below the grid stops the track. 0 deactivates the selected clips. Clips can be triggered from the computer keyboard or a MIDI controller, even mapped across a note range to play chromatically.- The grid gives random access: clips play in any order regardless of layout.
- Stopping clips doesn't stop song time: Play stays lit and the Arrangement Position keeps running. Press Stop twice to stop everything and return to 1.1.1.
- Rename clips, several at once, with Rename; add info text with Edit Info Text; pick a color from the context menu. Drag to reorder;
Shift-click selects a range, Ctrl-click separate clips. - Group Track slots are shaded, in the color of the leftmost clip, when any track in the group has a clip in that scene. Their launch buttons launch those clips together, empty ones hold stop buttons, and clicking one selects its clips.
- A track plays one clip at a time, so put alternatives in the same column: song parts, variations of a drum loop.
- Drag the edges of a track's title bar to resize it, narrow enough to show only launch buttons and key controls;
Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) resizes all tracks. 0 on a selected track header deactivates the track. - Rows are scenes. A Scene Launch button in the Main track column launches the whole row. Cancel Scene Launch in the Main track's context menu cancels a pending one.
- After a scene launches, the next one down is selected, unless Select Next Scene on Launch is off in Launch Settings, so you can step down the list. Keys and MIDI can launch and scroll scenes.
- Rename scenes with Rename, using
Tab to move to the next; add info text and colors from the context menu. - Drag scenes to reorder. Nonadjacent scenes collapse together when dragged;
Ctrl+up/down moves them without collapsing. Scene numbers follow position. - See Ableton/Live/Mode/Session.
- Drag the left edge of the Main track's header to show the hidden Scene Tempo and Scene Time Signature fields. Launching the scene switches the Set to those values.
- Drag in a field, or type and press
Enter; the Scene View edits them too. Tempo 20 to 999 BPM; time signature numerator 1 to 99 over 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16. - Return to Default,
Delete, or a double-click disables a field again. - Left and right arrows move from a slot or scene to these fields;
Tab and Shift+Tab step through name, tempo and signature, scene by scene. With a field selected, Enter selects its scene and a second Enter launches it. - Scenes with tempo or meter changes get a colored launch button. Sets from before Live 11 that set tempo or meter in scene names have those values moved into the fields.
- The Scene View opens when you select scenes, click a Scene Tempo or Time Signature field, or click the Main track's title bar.
- Its upper section has Tempo and Signature sliders; its lower section has the scenes' Follow Actions.
- The title bar shows the scene's name, number and color, or the count of selected scenes. Its context menu renames scenes and sets their color.
- The Track Status field above each track's mixer controls shows what the track is doing:
- A pie chart: a looping Session clip, with the loop length in beats on the right and the number of repetitions on the left. On a Group Track, without numbers, it means a track inside is playing.
- A progress bar: a one-shot clip, with time remaining in minutes:seconds.
- A microphone (audio track) or keyboard (MIDI track): the track is monitoring its input.
- A miniature of clips: the track is playing the Arrangement.
- Clips reach the Session from the browser or by recording.
- Several files dropped at once stack in one track, vertically in Session View; hold
Cmd (Mac) / Ctrl (Win) while dropping to spread them across tracks. This works for raw audio and MIDI files, not Live Clips. - Drag clips around the grid; select several with
Shift or Cmd/Ctrl, or rubber-band select from an empty slot. - Launching a clip also selects it so the Clip View shows it. Turn off Select on Launch in Launch Settings to keep the current view, for example a return track's devices, when launching clips or scenes.
- Edit → Add/Remove Stop Button adds or removes a slot's Clip Stop button. A slot without one is left alone by its scene: remove the stop button at scene 3, track 4, and launching scene 3 won't affect track 4.
- Besides Cut, Copy, Paste and Duplicate, the Create menu has:
- Insert Scene: an empty scene below the selection.
- Capture and Insert Scene: a new scene holding copies of the clips now playing, launched at once without a break. Useful for keeping a good combination while you keep experimenting.
- With Ableton/Live/UI/Control Bar/Button/Arrangement Record on, Live logs Session playing into the Arrangement: launched clips, changes to their properties, mixer and device automation, and tempo and meter changes from launched scenes. Press it again or stop to finish.
- The Arrangement then holds copies of the launched clips on the right tracks and times. No new audio is recorded, only clips.
- A track plays either its Session clip or its Arrangement, not both. Launching a Session clip, or pressing a Clip Stop button, takes the track off the Arrangement until you press Ableton/Live/UI/Arrangement View/Button/Back to Arrangement, which lights up while what you hear differs from the Arrangement.
- Stop All Clips sits in the Main track's status field. Session and Arrangement clips are independent, so you can record improvisations into the Arrangement again and again.
- Move clips between views with Copy and Paste, by dragging onto the view selectors, or between windows with a Second Window (
Cmd+Shift+W on Mac / Ctrl+Shift+W on Windows). - Pasting Arrangement material into the Session lays clips out top to bottom in time order, so stepping down the scenes rebuilds the arrangement.
- Create → Consolidate Time to New Scene turns a selected Arrangement range into one clip per track in a new scene, writing new samples for audio tracks.
- Related: Ableton/Arrangement View/Q/Can I record in Arrangement View while playing Session View clips? and Launchpad/Custom/Mode/1 Arrangement.