Session View vs. Arrangement View: Which View is Best for Backing Tracks?

5 thoughts on “Session View vs. Arrangement View: Which View is Best for Backing Tracks?”

1. I primarily run tracks in Session View. I find it easier to use when working with large Ableton Sets. I normally drag my tracks into Arrangement View and make selections of the different sections and send them to Session view to separate the intro, verses, and choruses (that's the easiest and quickest way I've found). And then with follow actions I can go through the different sections easily.

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2. I’m using his method and it going great so far. Can’t get the group channels to merge, but except that once you get your songs formatted and in folders, it’s now really easy to drop and drag songs into the master set . Thank you!

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3. I don't miss the days of "Follow" haha. Thanks for the video and explanation of your journey. When people ask me why I use session view, I'll just send them this video 🙂

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4. Great video as always. The problem is there is a subset of worship leaders who don't understand how to produce original music and who likely don't understand the differences between a highly produced song like Throne Room Song that doesn't lend itself to dynamic arrangement changes and Agnus Dei which you can do anything with on the fly because of the song's simplicity.

   It's usually a bad idea to try to dynamically change the arrangement of highly produced songs because 1) it's doubtful you'll be able to improve upon the existing arrangement (especially if you don't already produce original music) and 2) you'll probably just end up confusing everyone else in the band and the congregation since they're likely already accustomed to hearing the song in a specific arrangement.

   When everyone agrees to perform highly produced songs in a specific arrangement, session view becomes the more efficient way to run tracks live. For more flexible songs, go ahead and segment them minimally for those repeatable sections/builds and use session view. Even with simple songs, there aren't many places that lend themselves to segmentation.

   Better yet, make the worship leaders arrange their own set lists. This will element a lot of nonsense immediately.

   Running tracks live in arrangement view is a solution to a problem better solved using communication, basic musical instruction, and alternative methods IMO (from the perspective of someone who has used various DAWs and other NLEs – i.e., timeline based editors – for 25 years).

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5. Question I can't find anything on you tube about just running completed Stereo Tracks in Arrangement view and still enjoy the automation like start chorus and such and also running midi control for lights. Everyone uses Multitracks. I use finished mixed stereo tracks for live performance pre mixed the way I like. Is there an example of someone running Abelton like this

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