I've used Ableton for a few years and have always, by default, used the Arrangement View to produce music, seeing the Session View more as a clip launching live performance method of working. However, this obviously limits the usability of my Push 2, which is designed more for the clip based Session View mode of Ableton.

I mainly make techno music and I've recently began to contemplate whether I should be investing time into using and learning Session View as a production workflow, integrating my Push 2 a bit more and getting more 'live' performance-based productions. Or is Session View overhyped and best to stick with Arrangement View, as a lot of Session View videos I've watched to date focus on sample based clips, rather than the use of instruments such as drums, synths, and so on?

Anybody got any thoughts, views, or opinions? And along that line of thinking, any good resources to learn how to learn and maximise the use of Session View, particularly useful if focused on producing techno (or house)?

 

Session view is king in my book (the only reason I have not moved away from Ableton, which in my opinion is becoming more bloated and heavier with every version).
It is loads of fun for live performances, and helps experimenting with different ideas on the fly while arranging.
Totally worth the time to learn it.

 

I think of the session view more in terms of scenes, or sections, than clips. It makes it easy to experiment with different arrangements. When I have a basic layout of scenes I transfer them to the Arrangment view and then continue to work in the traditional way.

 

Personally I find that area much more suitable for composing and jamming my ideas out, having variations of clips there for later use, instead of doing all that in arrangement view, like I did before, where I would than mute/hide clips for later use. It's essentially sketch pad or color palette kind of thing, from there I would move things on my main canvas.

In Bitwig both can play simultaneously, so whenever I want to try or add something on already made arrangement, I do it from session area, that really keeps my arrangement session tidy.

My main approach for making first go at arrangement was from session view, I would try to perform at least skeleton of an arrangement, laid down sections on different scenes, hit record and just have my go at it, after that would have basic thing laid out for further fine tuning and working. Sometimes would assign controller to something like basic filter and Endless Smile, so I can improvise transitions on the go.

Noticed that flow of my tracks improved a lot, that I would have solid working foundations much quicker and it was lot of fun performing things out instead of drawing in and listening.

I'm really interested in adding iPad as secondary touch screen for making all that even more hands on, dunno, I'm having massive amount of fun working this way, just puts me in right mindset, where I don't think that much in terms of beats/bars and where I should put something to try out, but go with feeling, it's so easy to experiment with different scenarios, also to rely more on the feel and elements you got, sometimes most basic thing would prove to be the thing for a track, like leaving few elements for break and just doing Endless Smile sweep until another scene drops. Overall, it's good to find out things like this easily.

Try it out, maybe you will find it interesting, maybe not, it's one of those things that probably is something amazing to one and redundant to other, nothing wrong with either or both.

 

It can also be a good idea to duplicate each scene as you add new elements, it allows you to then move between them and experiment with when new elements are played. It's easier to visualise this than turning individual clips on and off in a single scene.