Ableton Live - Editing / Moving multiple envelope points at the same time as your note data?

Question

When you view CC or other data (such as volume, pan etc) in the Envelope section of your clip window, you can easily select a single data point by clicking on it; you can select multiple points by shift-clicking. But is there a way to select entire bars of CC data at the same time as bars of note data so you can move them together and maintain their position relative to one another? What about multiple types of CC data?

Here's a concrete example: suppose I have a synth track with note data, hold pedal CC data and mod wheel data. I want to trim out, say, part of the first bar and then move the rest of the track to the left to fill in the gap. Can I somehow select the note data, the hold pedal data and the mod wheel data simultaneously and move them to where I want them?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I just tried this in Live 8.2.2. I started in session view with a MIDI clip containing notes, as well as modwheel (CC 1) and stuenuto (CC 66) data in it as envelopes. These are envelopes in the clip itself, not on the timeline - because we're in session view.

I couldn't find any way in the clip editor to select both note and envelope data simultaneously. However, splitting/consolidating in arrangement view worked for me - I produced a clip with the envelope and note data moved around together. Here are the steps in detail:

1. Drag the clip to an empty area of the arrange view (click and drag the clip, then press tab to switch to arrangement and drop). I put it on the same track, but I suppose any other MIDI track would do.

2. On the arrangement editor use the split command (cmd/ctrl+e) at the location where you want to cut the clip. The clip will split in two.

3. Drag the clips so that you have them arranged how you want.

4. Consolidate the clips (cmd/ctrl+j)

You'll now have one clip, with all the note data and controller data moved over. It's still a MIDI clip that you can edit - it's not bounced to audio. Click and drag that clip back to the session view and you should be set.

The method is, of course, not perfect - if you wanted to have a note sustain past the split point, you'll of course not be able to do that because the split cuts everything off at that point.

Conceptually, I suppose you could split your clip into two clips on separate tracks, edit to taste, and then route their MIDI outputs to another track and record - effectively resampling the MIDI data - although I've never tried it and I suspect it's a bit more elaborate than what you're looking to do.

Answer 2

You can move multiple envelope point at once by dragging a selection around all the points and then click-dragging on any one of them.

The other option would be to "pick up" the clip by clicking and holding on it, press TAB to go to arrange then drop it back onto its track, do your edits then right click and select "consolidate", this will give you a new midi clip to drag back to the session view.