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Comment by sutra_on | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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

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.

Session view user here.

It’s trivially easy to make arrangement view your default view. You simply hit tab to switch the view to arrangement and then overwrite your default template in the ‘File’ menu. Now you’re set.

I didn't mean "default" in the sense that it's the first view in a new session. It's one of the only two default views. It would be useful to me if I could open a different view on my second screen.

Same here, everyone I've introduced to Live has been completely stumped by session view and preferred linear arrangement. I don't understand why it's the default view other than hanging on to the idea that this software is first a live looping tool and DAW second.

I use the session view for vocal recording. Recording multiple takes to new clips in session view, then copied into the arranger, it lets me comp several takes without messing up the final arrangement, and is great for project organisation.

In case you missed it, Live 12 has take lanes now, far better for comping.

How did you get that knowledge? Everyone?

I produce music since the early 2000s and used to own a music studio. And to answer your question: not everyone, "no one in my (limited) experience" uses the Session view for composition.

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