Ouch! My Ableton MIDI clip automation was gone after going from Session view to Arrangement view. I only realized after exporting audio: movement was missing. That was frustrating.

I learned a lot In the process of repair. These notes are mainly for myself. But if you are headed towards the same trap then maybe the following paragraphs might help save you some time.

I’d like to start with the problem statement(s) from my newcomer’s perspective. In despair, I entered these statements into my search engine of choice:

keep automation when moving from Session view to Arrangement view

MIDI automation lost when dropping clip into arrangement

clip envelope not carried to Arrangement view

Session view MIDI automation move to Arrangement view

Arrangement view how to repeat automation

from session to arrangement site:https://www.ableton.com/

site:ableton.com reference drag and drop clip from session to arrangement

This didn’t quickly help because if terminology alone. In the next few paragraphs I try to use both, the naive terminology as well as the precise Ableton terminology (the “correct one”).

In Session view, a MIDI clip can be tweaked with two different types of “automation”. In fact, only one is really called “Automation” in the user interface. The other is called “Modulation”.

Automation is for varying an absolute parameter value over time, and Modulation is for changing a value over time relative to the current (absolute) setting. That’s incredibly useful to know. If you don’t understand that part yet: that’s OK, you can safely read on. I will clarify below.

In Session view, when you automate a device parameter in a MIDI clip via Automation (not Modulation), then it is usually bound to the clip’s loop setting, i.e. the automation repeats just as your clip loop repeats. This is the default behavior. You don’t need to understand anything of what I just tried to say – it “just works” as expected. That is cool, that is the point.

An interesting question: what happens to this automation when you use the mouse to drag and drop a clip from Session view into Arrangement view?

As you might guess: things are likely to fall apart. There is no single, meaningful default behavior anymore. The Ableton product management needed to pick “one way”. And often this one is not the one that you need or expect. A deeper understanding is required. Let’s see:

MIDI clip properties in Session view with automation⌗

image

This is called a Clip envelope, of type Automation (not Modulation). Notice how the left panel shows both, and Automation is highlighted in yellow.

Now, I drag and drop the MIDI clip (that has this clip envelope configured) from Session view into Arrangement view (into a lane for the same device).

Same MIDI clip, properties in Arrangement view (automation byebye)⌗

After dropping the MIDI clip into track lane in the Arrangement view, it shows these properties:

This panel does not show “Automation” and “Modulation” anymore.

The distinction is gone. And the “Clip envelope” of type “Automation” disappeared from this view. Is the clip envelope is gone for good?

At first I thought that this is where I lost my automation. But that is not true.

What happened is non-obvious. The clip envelope (type: Automation) got automatically detached from the clip, and it got translated into a more global Arrangement view automation. That magic makes sense. See next screenshot.

Same MIDI clip, Arrangement view (automation hello again)⌗

Same MIDI clip, different view:

So. The automation is still there, but this time it’s in the track’s automation lane view (see right-hand side of screenshot). Everything cool?

Extending the clip does not repeat the automation :-(⌗

No. When we now use the mouse to extend the clip by dragging its right edge then the automation does not get repeated. Example:

That’s obvious only when visualizing the automation lane. As in the screenshot above. Then it is easy to spot the misconception. But when you just drag -> drop -> extend then this is easy to miss (because the automation lane is likely to not be displayed).

That’s the part that I consider to be a pretty nasty trap.

In summary, drag (Session view) -> drop (Arrangement view) -> extend is a workflow during which you might unknowingly lose your carefully crafted automation.

I noticed only much later. Via careful listening after exporting audio. “This does not sound right”. Then I investigated, and found that my automation was gone. A couple hours later I find myself writing this text here.

But yeah, I just didn’t know enough about Ableton yet and will probably not make this mistake again.

Let’s look at solutions!

Explicit duplication does account for automation⌗

This is the outcome of duplicating the clip (e.g. right-click -> Duplicate):

So. We could use this strategy to keep the automation going with every loop iteration.

Seemingly, here the difference between “duplicating” and “extending” becomes critical. For clarity, I want to show the difference in a short video:

But didn’t seem like the best solution. What if you’d like to fine-tune the envelope? Delete all clip copies, start from scratch? No. I did a little more reading.

Reading on. Changing strategy.⌗

I want to share a forum thread on this incredibly important topic, and how it has the potential to bite and confuse people. (emphasis mine)

From https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?t=145454:

So, is it fair to say that we literally need to copy and paste automation data for every part of the song where said data repeats itself? Holy @#$#! I have a base line that goes over 4 bars. I’m automating a low pass filter up and down in an arc during those 4 bars. Those 4 bars need to be repeated throughout the song.

and then

Ah! I think the penny just dropped. After re-reading and experimenting I think I’ve figured it out. You an actually store automation data in the clip, and that automation data can be looped but you have to unlink it from the region. That makes so much more sense. Actually, if I’m correct, it’s cleared up all my main issues with Ableton. But, let’s see if that is the case. Anyway, here’s a moron’s guide to looping automation envelopes:

  1. In the top left of the “Envelope” box, select the parameter you want to automate from the drop down lists.
  2. Make sure the Region/Loop toggle button is set to “Unlinked” and the “Loop” button is enabled (very important)
  3. Edit the automation envelope in the window on the right
  4. Now copy and paste the clip from the Session View, in to your arrangement
  5. Ensure there are no Region Automation Envelopes along the arrangement timeline for the parameter you want to automate

Now, if you loop the clip along the timeline, the automation will be tied to the clip all the way along the timeline without the need for copy/paste.

So I thought “Wow” they got that figured out. I tried every step of these instructions But failed:

What was described very confidently just did not do the trick. Maybe it’s because these instructions are more than ten years old?

So. I continued to read.

From https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?t=237119#p1768559:

Let’s not split hairs about the difference between “Automation” and “Modulation” as that isn’t the question the OP asked at all, that’s a different topic. The OP simply wanted to know why the movements they recorded in Session do not carry over to arrangement.

As you eventually explained In Clip View, both control types (Modulation+MIDI / Automation) are stored in the clip. In Arrangement it will get separated automatically. I actually got that part wrong when I said it stays with the clip, Automation data is carried over just fine and will be split out of the clip and placed into the arrangement tracks automation lane making it global.

Modulation/MIDI Control Data (blue envelopes) will always stay with the clip but the Automation data (red envelope) is split out into the automation lanes for the track.

This can be confusing for a new user because if they click on their clip in Arrangement view they will no longer see automation data listed in the clips envelope section like in Session.

Honestly, that experienced user is spot-on that this can be (no, is!) confusing. But I think the really confusing ingredient here is that the automation does not get extended when extending the clip.

I’d like to quote another user about this, from https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?p=1773245#p1773245:

But if I then want to extend the clip in Arrangement and drag the end it fills out the new part of the clip with the looped MIDI but not the automation. I expected the automation to come along for the ride. […] Is there a setting I’m missing to enable dragging the end of the clip to also duplicate the loop’s automation? Or am I thinking about this wrong to expect the automation to be duplicated?

I feel that person. Really. She continues to write that the solution seems to be “duplicate instead of extend”:

Once you carry a clip to arrangement the track automation will become separated from the clip and placed into the track’s automation lane. This allows you more flexibility to allow an extended clip to contain automation over a time scale rather than locked to the clips region so if you want to duplicate the automation you need to duplicate the clip region and not extend the clip or extend the clip then duplicate the envelope.

Ok. Quick pause.

We identified two challenges:

  • Automation Clip Envelope get auto-magically detached from clip and translated into normal/global automation when going from Session view to Arrangement view.
  • Normal/global automation does not get extended when extending a MIDI clip in Arrangement view.

I know, now we got the problem described multiple times from different perspectives with different words. The problem should be clear by now.

Towards the ‘proper’ solution we already got a pointer above: Automation vs. Modulation.

Prepare Modulation clip envelope in Session view⌗

Drag and drop the clip from Session view into Arrangement view⌗

Lovely. Still there. This is tied to the clip.

That is, when you now use the mouse to extend the clip in the Arrangement view, this modulation is applied as expected.

Now you can automate the absolute value (that this modulation-over-time applies to) in the Arrangement view, if you’d like to. The following (and last) screenshot demonstrates this:

Thank you for reading! :-)