Capture MIDI Magic!

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Ableton Cook up
September 22, 2024

In today’s newsletter:

  • 🎹Capture MIDI feature, to never lose what you play

  • 🗣️Discover Auto Shift, Ableton’s real-time pitch correcting device

  • ⚙️Analog Gear Integration in Your Digital Setup: External Instrument device 

  • 🗓️ Music Events International Music Summit (IMS)

  • ✅[Workflow Trick] Scroll Through Clips!

🎹Capture MIDI Magic!

Ever play something amazing on your MIDI controller, only to realize you forgot to hit record? It's a moment every musician has experienced, and it can be incredibly frustrating. But with Ableton Live’s Capture MIDI feature, those magical moments are no longer lost to time.

What is it?

Imagine this: you’re in the zone, playing a groove or a melody that feels perfect, but you weren’t recording. Normally, that musical idea would vanish into thin air. However, Capture MIDI is always listening, even when you’re not actively recording. When inspiration strikes, simply press the Capture MIDI button, and Ableton Live will retrieve your last performance and convert it into a MIDI clip. It's like a musical safety net, ensuring you never lose a brilliant idea again.

This feature doesn’t just recall a basic approximation of what you played, it captures your performance with all its nuances intact, including timing, dynamics, and expression. Whether you were jamming on a keyboard, triggering samples, or tapping out a drum pattern, Capture MIDI remembers it all.

How To Use It?

Arm a MIDI track(s), or set the monitor to In. Live then listens constantly for all MIDI data on those tracks. Once you're done playing, press the Capture MIDI button on the transport and Live creates a new MIDI clip with all captured MIDI data in any armed/monitored tracks.

Note: The button is greyed out when there's no MIDI data to capture. It changes to black once there's MIDI data captured and ready to be inserted.

Interesting to Know!

Capture MIDI can identify tempos between 80 and 160 BPM and will match your performance to the tempo of your project, automatically adjusting the timing without sacrificing the feel of your original playing. The Capture MIDI feature uses minimal system CPU resources because MIDI information has very low bandwidth.

Watch this video for demonstration.

Capturing MIDI

Discover
🗣️Auto Shift
Ableton’s real-time pitch correcting device

Live 12.1 now puts real-time pitch correction within reach for anyone working with vocals. Inspired by popular tools like those from Antares Tech or Waves, Auto shift automatically adjusts the pitch of your tracks according to the selected scale, ensuring perfect intonation of your audio elements. Here are its highlights:

  • Auto-tuning As it should, Auto Shift intelligently analyzes your audio and applies real-time pitch adjustments to keep everything in perfect tune. This device uses minimal CPU and so can be used in live performances without causing glitches to the audio.

  • Harmony Layers With Auto Shift you can create layers of vocal harmony using only the source vocal audio. The device lets you pitch vocal samples up or down a chosen scale, and even micro pitch them using fine tuning. You can then create layers of harmony using an Audio Effect Rack.

  • Formants Auto Shift goes beyond simple pitch correction by introducing advanced features, such as the ability to modify the formant of your audio. This enables you to transform the tonal quality of vocals and other audio elements in creative ways, similar to the well-known Soundtoys Little Alter Boy plugin.

  • MIDI Sidechain An incredible feature in Auto Shift is the ability to have it receive MIDI notes from a selected MIDI clip and follow it. The MIDI clip can contain a melody or entire stacks of chords. Auto Shift will follow the MIDI information and yield richer more controlled vocals.

  • LFO Like many devices made by Ableton, Auto Shift has an internal LFO which can be mapped to all of the parameters in the device. Having an LFO at hand ready to be mapped greatly enhances your creativity and flow.

  • Ear Candy There are endless creative ways in which you can use Auto Shift to make ear candy elements out of your dry vocal take. One such way is to use the afro-mentioned MIDI Sidechain feature by having Auto Shift follow a chord progression and then having an arpeggiator device on the MIDI track as well.

This interesting tutorial by Side Brain will give you a clear idea of the magnificent results Auto Shift is capable of producing. Don’t miss out on it!

Auto Shift

⚙️Analog Gear Integration in Your Digital Setup: External Instrument device 

In today’s music production world, many producers are embracing hybrid setups that combine digital and analog tools. If you are an Ableton Live user, you can explore the best of both worlds, adding the warmth and unique character of analog hardware without sacrificing the flexibility of your software environment.

Ableton Live

Incorporating analog gear into your setup can bring depth and “soul” to your music. Instruments like synthesizers, drum machines, and outboard gear offer a sound that many consider more organic and lively compared to their digital counterparts. Ableton Live simplifies the process of connecting external hardware, allowing you to fully harness the potential of analog gear in your production workflow.

One of the most powerful tools in Ableton Live for integrating analog gear is the External Instrument device. This device allows you to seamlessly integrate external hardware into your digital sessions. With the External Instrument, you can send MIDI data to your analog equipment and simultaneously receive the audio back into Ableton. This turns your hardware into a natural extension of your project, making it easy to control and record analog sounds directly within your session.

How it Works

The External Instrument device works by routing MIDI to your external gear, allowing you to play and sequence your hardware directly from Ableton. At the same time, it receives the audio signal back from the hardware through your audio interface. This setup not only allows for real-time control and monitoring of your analog gear but also keeps your workflow organized by maintaining everything within the same Ableton track, reducing the need for complex routing or additional audio tracks.

This device is particularly useful for integrating analog synthesizers or drum machines that you want to use as part of your Ableton projects. You can use Ableton’s MIDI effects, automation, and even Max for Live devices to manipulate your external hardware, just as you would with any software instrument.

Here you can explore the topic with a video tutorial.

External Instrument device 

🗓️ Music Events
International Music Summit (IMS)

What is it? International Music Summit (IMS) is a global thought-leadership platform for industry, culture, education, technology and wellness in electronic music. Established in 2007 in Ibiza, the event unites innovators, creators, visionaries, and disruptors from across the global electronic music ecosystem to deconstruct the topics and issues that really matter to our community. The summit presents opportunities for delegates to explore best practices and innovation in music, technology, diversity & inclusion, education, and health & wellness.

Where and When? This version of the summit is taking place in Dubai on the 14th and 15th of November. Check this link for the list of speakers and topics.

International Music Summit (IMS)

✅[Workflow Trick]
Scroll Through Clips

Instead of dragging the edges of a clip, audio or MIDI, in order to find the part of the clip you want, use this trick to quickly scroll through clips.

How To Do It?

Simply hold ‘Shift+option’ (Mac) or ‘Shift+ctrl’ (Windows) then click and drag on a clip in arrangement view. This will make your clip editing way smoother.

Scroll Through Clip

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