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8 uses for midi devices in ableton live

9-12 minutes

Ableton's stock plugins are great, but the MIDI devices are often
ignored. Most producers using Ableton work heavily with MIDI &
these devices can expand what's possible & improve the workflow
when working with software instruments. In this article, we'll look at
some ways you can use Ableton's MIDI devices for creative effects
and time-saving utilities.

stacked arpeggiators

Arpeggiators are a staple of synthesizers, but even the more

complicated patterns can still feel tired & stale. One way to get a
fresh sound is to stack multiple arpeggiators in parallel. Just drop
an arpeggiator on a MIDI track as normal, but group it (cmd + g)
right away & duplicate the chain (cmd +d) to get a couple other
instances of it. Then tweak the rate, style, & steps of each device.

You should quickly find something that has interesting interlocking

patterns, whether you're holding down one note at a time or a
wider chord. Try adding a pitch device set to an octave up or down
to give each chain a different starting point, or change the
"distance" to something smaller than an octave & combine with the
scale device to keep everything in key. It's also useful to map
some controls to the group macros to have quick control of the
different chains' parameters. Try mapping all of the "gate" timings
to one macro & the "rate" dials to their own to keep independent
control.

drum fills and rolls

Arpeggiators work well for tonal instruments, but they're usually not
thought of when it comes to percussion. With the right settings,
however, an arpeggiator can be a great way to add fills & rolls to
drums. You can drop an arpeggiator on an individual pad - say,
the hi-hat - & map the rate to the drum rack's macro.

You should also map the on/off switch for the arp as well & set the
"min" value to 1 so the arpeggiator will stay off when the dial is set
to 0. I prefer to invert the synced rate (so the lowest value is the
slowest timing) & adjust the range to something more reasonable,
but these will need to be set to taste, of course.

You can put an arpeggiator on any pad that you'd want to do these
kinds of repeating notes on (& map each of their rate dials to the
same macro, to boot), or you can put one before the whole drum
rack. If you go with this method, be sure to set the "style" to "chord
trigger" so that multiple notes can go through instead of just one at
a time.

random drum selection

Natural acoustic sounds are never consistent. Just try clapping 10

times - each hit will sound completely unique. Part of the reason
listeners get turned off by electronic drums is that every hit sounds
identical - each snare sounds exactly like the last, every hi-hat
sounds the same, etc. If you have 10 clap samples, you can load
them all into a nested drum rack & place random before it so that
the sample will be chosen randomly. To set this up, load up any
drum rack (it must have at least one existing sample in it), open it's
chains, & drop an empty drum rack in the chain list. Next, open the
i/o of the main drum rack & set the nested drum rack's "play" to C1
instead of C3. This will ensure the lowest random note will reach
the lowest sample in the nested rack.

Then, select all the samples you want to have randomly selected in
the browser & pull them onto the blank nested drum rack. Place
the random device in front of the nested rack. Set the "choices"
dial to 1 less than the number of samples in your nested rack
(because the choices will be the number of steps above 1 that the
random device can choose from) & pull the "chance" up to 100%
for fully random.

Now every time you trigger the pad with the nested drum rack, a
random sound will be selected.
You can use this to play many different instances of the same
sound (like lots of samples of the same snare) or just lots of
different percussion sounds to discover random sequences that
you like. The example audio is made by pressing just one note
over and over again, yet each sound is different.

discovering chords

When you move a chord shape over a guitar neck, you get the
same chord with a different root (A major becomes B major by
moving up two frets). This is easy to replicate in ableton using the
chord device: +4 & +7 would make a major chord out of any key
you play (an A note becomes an A major, a B becomes a B major).
However, this is isn't so useful for finding progressions when only a
couple of chords of the same "quality" will be in the same key.

On a keyboard, moving shapes works a bit differently. Think about

your basic C major triad. If you move this up the white keys, say to
E, you don't get E major but rather E minor - in fact, you'll get an
in-key chord of different quality for every note as long as you stick
to the white keys with this shape. With this in mind, even if you
don't know the chords in C major, you can "discover" new in-key
chords that work together to find a progression. This is the kind
exploration we're after with this trick.

Putting it together is simple enough - just put a chord device at the

start of your chain followed by scale, preferably the "C Major"
preset to start with. Change the "base" to the key of your song (or
it's major equivalent if in minor). Then, adjust the chord to whatever
you like & play a single note on the keyboard; you'll now be able to
move this "shape" around & the resulting chords will always stay in
key.

In the audio example, I'm just playing three notes on the computer
keyboard with the above settings. Try experimenting with different
scales as well. This should help you find new chords that work well
together because of their similar shapes, but keep in mind this
won't allow you to play every chord ever without some adjustments
- the idea is to just find a few you wouldn't normally play by just
inputting notes.

note length

Every producer is familiar with ADSR, the envelope that shapes

everything from amplitude to filters to pitch. It's common for a MIDI
note to trigger the attack, & the length of the MIDI note influences
the rest of the envelope stages. Given this, manipulating note
length could prove an important component of your sound design.

Fortunately, Ableton's note length is set up to adjust this

automatically. The two parameters you really want to look at are
"note length" & "gate". It's usually good practice to set the note
length to a reasonable average time & then manipulate & even
automate the "gate" percentage.
 With this set up on your MIDI chain, the "gate" dial can become a
powerful tool that influences the way your synth's decay, sustain, &
release times play out & for certain sounds - especially plucky
instruments - and this is great to keep in mind.

random velocity

As I mentioned earlier in the article, acoustic sounds aren't

consistent, & the subtle variations keep a listener's attention.
Velocity is just another means of creating realistic variation in your
instruments, & while there are lots of ways to use the
velocity device, it's the fastest way to randomize the incoming
notes' velocities. Just turn the "random" knob to taste, & put
constraints on the highest & lowest value possible with the two
dials on the right side of the device.
In the audio example, I'm playing one drum hit with my computer
keyboard - it should sound stiff and mechanical, but the varying
velocity make it sound much more organic.

Make sure that whatever your MIDI notes are feeding into
is velocity sensitive. For Ableton's Simpler, for example, you'll want
to set the "vol< vel" dial to an appropriate level. If you want to learn
more ways to randomize velocity, check out my article 5 ways to
add variation to velocity in ableton live.

key change

It may be a small thing - & one you're already aware of - but you
should never forget the power of the pitch device. Not good at
playing in B minor? Just set a pitch device with +2 semi-tones at
the start of your chain & play in the familiar A minor key.
Of course, you'll have to place these on every MIDI track if you
want to change the pitch of your whole song & transpose the audio
clips independently, but it is certainly handy when you want to try
out different keys.

recording midi

Consider the routing of MIDI in Ableton. Raw MIDI notes get

processed through MIDI devices - as we've been discussing -
before passing to instruments that convert the instructions to
sounds. When you record on a MIDI track with an arpeggiator,
you're recording these first raw incoming notes - not the resulting
output of the arpeggiator.

If you want to record the raw MIDI output of the arpeggiator - or

any of the devices mentioned in this article - that is easy enough to
do. Just create a separate MIDI track, set its input to the track with
the MIDI device on it, & arm to record. Now the output of the
processed MIDI will be recorded out into a separate clip. 

Try combining this recording technique with any of the other tricks
on this page to create inventive MIDI clips to work off of.

Seri Beats made an awesome video version of this article and

goes into deeper detail with great demonstrations. Definitely check
that out below:

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