Ableton Live Ultimate Course 14 - MIDI Clips Video Lecture - Become

so guys in this video we're going to be
talking about MIDI clips kind of the
same as audio clips but kind of
different so we're going to do is we're
going to select an area we're going to
right-click and then insert MIDI clip
and we're going to drop a VST instrument
this is South one it's a usual suspect
really so yeah we're going to look at
our clip at the bottom here and our clip
is over here so yeah this is pretty cool
so what you have is and you have pretty
much the same thing you don't
necessarily have warping but you have
your little piano roll here and you can
you know move this up and down you know
start lupus' ition and you can scale
around one thing i want to mention is
you can use your computer keyboard like
qwerty keyboard as a keyboard by
pressing this little button up here and
using your home row so however you press
is read out out out out out on here so
we're gonna click on our little pencil
tool and select an area what we can do
also is say yeah let's go 16 so that
plane twice Oh turn that off and we'll
select and duplicate and duplicate that
and we can select and move these down
very fun so what we have here and that's
basically how you input MIDI notes so
MIDI is just data and it does not carry
audio it just tells things what to do
it's been around for about 30 years you
can have Ableton tell a modern synth
what to do upward synth annex internal
synth you can have program automation
changes you can
have it change a synth digital synth
that's ten years old 20 years old thirty
years old and MIDI is so robust that you
know 30 years from now we'll have a
software that'll still work with you
know gear like this around me quite
versatile but again it's not carry data
it carries it can send clock data which
is kind of a metronome
pppp beep and it'll tell say the synth
LFO rate if you sync the LFO rate it
will sync to it it'll sync your drum
machines what else listened sends well
note which note you're pressing and how
how hard you're pressing it so we have a
velocity here and this is basically how
hard you press the MIDI note what you
can do is you can bring that down so
right and you'll notice that the actual
note gets lighter which is great so say
if you have that and that's your that's
your MIDI that you're working on here
and you want to kind of zoom in and edit
you can actually click fold and only the
notes that are relevant that you are
using are present so you can select and
delete some of them all right and that's
all well and good what we can do now is
we'll go yeah we'll go left to right
same thing you can change the color of
the clip we can select an area and we
can half it so it does that we can make
it longer we can actually make you know
the whole thing longer this makes it
longer we can reverse the entire me clip
we can invert the scale no no no no I
don't know that we can select only a
certain part and then invert that I
don't know
we can move things around we can force
legato so we can make all know it's kind
of touch each other and you'll see that
right now three two one BAM right you
really hear that if you have like a plug
or whatnot and you can actually
duplicate loop so it'll copy it over so
you say okay I copied it over and then I
can move this up or I can move it full
semi tone episode semitone a full octave
up so we do you can move this a full
octave up by holding shift and pressing
up so now we have to do we've to make
this longer damn got that so so now
we're getting a business here one thing
that many does is we can change the
program via MIDI message so a bank that
will change the bank for example South
one has four banks the virus has banks a
through H and a few other banks we have
eight banks on the JP and different
since have different amounts of banks
and you can have it set to a change bank
through here right so what we can do is
we can duplicate that we can have this
going to yeah bank three program five
and we can have this one go to Bank
seven or Bank two program nine you can
hear that now in theory
so we're changing the bank as an example
so you can have one synth doing kind of
multiple things so what we'll do is
we'll set it so it's not changing banks
or anything like that yet start and stop
this is your loop kind of position you
can change it by dragging this guy
around and your start/stop time of
course you have your velocity here yes
we have our envelopes here now this is
the same thing as the audio envelopes
but a little bit different we have all
of these now these are all midi CC
messages right these are some of them
are default so modulation is the
wibbly-wobbly mod wheel see there it is
see I'm moving it on the virus keyboard
here but it's the mod wheel right and
you can map that to say mod wheel is
mapped to resolution of resonance your
pitch Bend you can bend your pitch so
what I'm going to do I'm just going to
get rid of that we're just going to look
at this for now we have our pitch Bend
and right now it's at absolute zero
which is the center position so what
I'll do is I'll just put a marker here
and then put a marker here and you nodes
undo just move that up so this is the
pitch so it's bending the pitch up and
down via MIDI messages
I'm gonna do is I'm going to create a
new MIDI track just so you can hear this
so and I'm going to in it don't worry
about this right now we're going to get
into this a little bit later so I'm
going to just turn off and blow up as
you can't insert notes in envelope mode
so this little button down here I'll
click on that we have that so I'm going
to have pitch Bend
so you can do that and then we'll have a
sound that rises up
that's pretty fun and you can send other
kind of messages which is pretty cool
foot pedal a port amount of time volume
balance your controller panorama and all
these other fun things depends depending
on the synthesizer if you're using an
outboard synthesizer you have to kind of
look up what a MIDI CC affects likes a
filter cutoff and so like that it's
different for each synthesizer and all
that but generally if you're using say
you know South one you have your cutoff
filter here you'll just automate it on
the main kind of Lane here and you'll do
that right and then it'll be in the
actual automation Lane not in the
envelope the clip envelope you can't
necessarily for a lot of sense you can't
have an envelope for the mod wheel it's
sent through MIDI only and yeah that is
MIDI so yeah a few things about MIDI is
velocity and values in general it's a
value between 0 1 and 127 so between 0
and 127 that is that dictates a knob
knob values so all the way to the left
is 1 and all the way to the right be
turning up all the way to the right it's
127 so a value all the way at the top
here just an example it doesn't matter
what it is value always at the top is
127 and all the way at the bottom is 0
right so you'll imagine that it steps
progression up through all those values
and that's how you have automation the
resolution of MIDI data it's kind of a
shortcoming you get you know stepping
filter stepping in some sense especially
the Nord but you know that's just kind
of the things you have to deal with but
it's quite great so velocity you know
you'd have a different velocity
depending on how hard you press
the note you'll see down here I'll just
press lightly see it's like right down
at the bottom then I can press it harder
and it's all the way full velocity right
yeah so just think of MIDI as data-value
be doin wha
or a value between 1 & 127 and different
channels go into different things and
it's quite versatile you should
familiarize yourself with it but that is
basically clip the MIDI clip options and
fun things alright I'll be learn stuff
and take care