Transcripts
1. Intro: Hi, my name is Sof, and I'm a musician,
producer, and artist. On this course,
I'm going to teach you media effects
inside of Ableton Live. Welcome. It's so
great to have you. If you go through these
steps on this course, you will gain a
strong understanding of navigating Ableton's browser. You will grasp and
explore and apply some media effect devices such
as scale, cord and random. These are just some of the devices that we're
going to go through, and these will set you
up to be able to then apply these to your
productions and add interest, make your progressions
and ideas more complex. And more importantly, bring
more of that depth and expression what's working inside of the Ableton Live door. I know you've been
creating music, so let's make it even more amazing through learning
these techniques. I'm really looking
forward to teaching you. Let's go.
2. MIDI Effect 1: Chord: So welcome into this session. What we are going to do
is we are going to load the cord device into Ableton. I'm going to grab Midi
effects and grab Cord. You can see that I've already
got an instrument in there. That's an organ sound
nice and simple, and we've got six
macros to play with. I'm going to play
with primarily the first and second macro knob, just to ease us into it. If I shift macro knob, four semitones, and I shift the second one to seven semitones. It will now play chords when I press a key
on my keyboard. Now, if we arm the track
and we take a listen, we're going to go
C major, D major, E, F, all the cords that
we are going to play, these will all be major
at this point in time. It's giving us a major triad. However, if we're
working in a key and we're working inside of a scale and we're using diatonic cords, you will notice
that we often have major and minor cords in a particular pattern
going up the scale. In order to map these cords and snap them to the key
that we're working in, which is C major
to ensure that all of our cords are what
we call diatonic. Inside of that scale, we can activate this
in scale device here. So I'm going to click
that and it goes purple to show that
it's been activated. We know what scale we're in because we can see C major here. Then if we shift this
four scale degrees and then two here, and I bring up something
called midi monitor. This will be able to show
us what cords we are playing with just one
key on our keyboard. If I play C, C major, D minor, E minor, F major. So if I played all those chords, that's snapped to
the key of C major. Whereas the four, without
the snapping to the scale, this meant that we
were just going up in all major chords, which is absolutely fine. But if we want to use theory
and work within a scale, it's best at the moment
when you're starting out to just snap to that key. What I did during that
process was that I set intervals in semitones
for the new MIDI note. So for example, when I use the
Cord device without scale, I was setting the
shift first knob to plus four semitones. So playing a C will cause me to play a C and an E
on the plug in. So you can define up
to six notes to be added using the dials
on the Cord device. So you can create
chord progressions that you wouldn't
necessarily think of using the ord device by experimenting with different
intervals and voicings. And you can create
cords that sound unique and fresh for
your productions. Using cord with other techniques that we'll discuss later, such as Apigiator and
also the scale device will allow you to create more complex and
intricate patterns.
3. MIDI Effect 2: Note Length: So we started with the
Cord midi effect device. Now let's go on to the note
length midi effect device. So note length alters the
length of incoming midi notes. It can also be used to trigger
notes from midi note off messages instead of the
usual note on messages. So when we are using
note on and note note on is when we press that key and we're holding
it down with that note. Note off is when we've
released that key. So when the device is set to
trigger from a note on mode, only the timing
controls are available. The length of held notes
can be adjusted in milliseconds or sync in
relation to the song tempo. Gait defines the percentage of length value that the
notes should be held for. At 200%, the gait parameter
will double a note's length. So if we take a look at this in practice using the device, and I'm going to bring in
the MIDI effect device, note length, and this is
where we've got our trigger. So note on. So whether the
device will be triggered by the midi note on
or when the node is off. We've also got gait. So as I was saying earlier, when it goes up to 200%, this will double the amount of time that the note is held for. And the note will be doubled. Then we've also got length. The length of time that the held notes are maintained
for in milliseconds. When we have the
trigger as note off, this means that at the moment at which a note is
to be released, the timing of an incoming note will be delayed by its length. This is because it will be
starting at the point at which it would have been stopping if we'd have had it as note on. Note lengths, or settings will then be responsible
for the duration of how long that note will be played when the
key is released. The main difference
between when we've got it as note on and NOT off is that we get three new controls when
we've got NOT off. And the three new controls
are release velocity. And when we use
release velocity, this determines the velocity
of the output note. So this is going to be
that balance between the incoming nut on and
the note of velocities. We've also got decay. So this is going to be
the time needed for the incoming notes
velocity to decay to zero. And with this decay, this begins immediately
from the moment that that device receives
a midi note on message. So the value at the
time of the note being off will become the velocity
of that output node. We've also got key scale, which is really interesting. And this is where incoming notes can be used to
alter the velocity, decay time that defines the
velocity of the output nodes. So when we've got the key
scale set to positive values. The notes above something like C three will have
longer decay values, and the notes below C three will have shorter decay values. With negative values,
if I dial that in, this behavior that I've just
explained is then inverted. I will now do a demo of
the note length device, set our gait to
200 and our length set to 1.9, just for an example. And if I play this We can hear that slight difference, and then also, if
I put note off. We can see how those
notes are playing when that key would normally
have been released. Again, I encourage you to explore the note
length MIDI device. It's really interesting,
and you can create some really cool effects
in your productions.
4. MIDI Effect 3: Pitch: We will now take another look
at a MIDI effect device, and this time, we are going
to be looking at pitch ch. What's mainly cool
about pitch as a MIDI effect device is that
it's a transposition tool. This will change the
incoming note pitch by plus or minus around 128 semitones. So for example, if you've got a preexisting
piece that's in a certain key and you
need to transpose it so you can work
inside that same key, pitch is going to be
a really great way for you to do that. Let's get into the session.
Inside of our session. I'm going to double click pitch and bring that device down here. And notice how in
the device chain, this is before the instrument. So we are making sure
that that pitch is affected right before that
instrument is being played. So at the moment, our pitch
is set to zero semitones. So this little progression
that we've got here will sound
exactly the same. Okay, so nothing is
happening to it right now. And looking at the device
itself, it's fairly simple. We've got a big macro
here, which is pitch. So that's where you will
turn it up or turn it down based on how many semitones you would like to
change the pitch. And then the two parameters at the bottom called lowest and range just listed
lowest range here, these act together to
define a pitch and a pitch range through which the notes are allowed to pass. So notes outside of this defined pitch range that
you've set will be blocked, and the effect of LED light
will flash when this happens. Notes outside of
the pitch range are limited based on their
untransposed pitch. So this is sort of prior to the transposition
effect taking place. So if I give a little demo
inside of the session, we've already heard it at this moment without
any picture effect. Now, if I add the pitch effect, so I might go up 12 semitones, so that's an octave,
and I play this. We can hear how that's changed the pitch
without me needing to change the midi notes
themselves inside of that clip. You might want to go a
little bit experimental. You might want to do something
like five semitones. And if you listen
to this. And it's up to you how you choose to
use it in your productions.
5. MIDI Effect 4: Random: Far, we've looked at three
different midi effect devices. We've looked at Cord, we've looked at note length, and we've also looked at pitch. Now we are going
to take a look at a really interesting midi
effect device called random. Random is really
interesting because it adds an element of the
unknown to otherwise, kind of, I guess, more common pitch parameter. I will walk us through a few of these different controls on the random midi effect device. I'm going to bring in
that random device from Ableton's Browser. Double click, and I've brought
that random device in. One of our kind of key elements
in this device is chance. And chance you can think of like a dry wet knob for randomness. So how many notes are
you going to have them change to a
random other note? So if I put the chance
up to 50% here, we can see how this will affect the notes in
a little moment. The choices control is
fairly self explanatory. So this just defines the number of different random
notes possible. The higher the choices. So if we go up to 24, the higher the amount of
random notes to choose from. But let's keep it at
12 for the moment. Then we've also got interval, interval used to be
called scale previously. So that's what you might
see on a lot of tutorials, but they change it to interval. And what interval is is this is multiplied by the
choices control value and the result dictates
the pitches that the random notes are allowed to have relative to
that incoming note. If we use our midi clip
that we've got here, I will just turn everything off and we can listen to
it in its original form. I'm going to up
the chance to 50%. I'm going to put
the choice on one, and I'm going to put
the interval up to 12. The reason that I've
set those parameters is because if we play
the notes C three, with the chance set to 50%, the choice is set to one
and the interval set to 12, half of the resulting notes
will play at C three, for example, and then the other
half will play at C four. So if you think back to the use of cord device
and also pitch, we've got 12 semitones, which is one octave. So our interval
means that we've got 50% chance of some of these
notes playing up an octave. So if you listen
to this now with the random device activated, m We can hear how that has transformed
our midi notes. It's a really cool
way to spice up your progressions and
you can also snap this into the key of your piece by toggling
this icon here, similarly, like how we
did with the chords. Try using the scale
effect after random, and this will constrain
the output values to a specific harmonic range, so you'll always stay in key, but it gives you a
bit more time and space to play around with
things how you want to.
6. MIDI Effect 5: Scale: Talk about specifically scale. Now, scale is a really, really powerful tool
inside of Ableton. If you aren't sure
of what scale is, a scale is a collection
of notes that sound good when you combine them
together in very simple terms. We've got different
types of scales. Not everybody is able
to access music theory, but everybody should have
the ability to create music. Using Ableton scale device, it will keep you in key and playing in a
particular scale. When we play in scale, it
allows us to translate our thoughts, feelings,
moods coherent. To the listener, and each
scale has a different feel, each set of notes bring
out something new. So the scale device
inside of Ableton changes incoming midi notes to the scale of your choosing. This makes it possible to
stay in the scale that we choose no matter
what note is played. So scale alters the
incoming note pitch based on a particular
scale mapping. For example, if we set the
scale device to play D major, instead of C major,
the incoming Cs, for example, would be
converted to outgoing Ds. And using the scale
device as well, if you want to do solos
over the top of chords, for example, we can also lock in for things like
the pentatonic scale. If you do need further
information on scales, there are plenty of
cheat sheets out there. A lot of it is just
understanding the patterns and then memorizing this
in your own time. We are going to focus on a
major scale in this tutorial, and I'll go through the
controls in the scale device, and then I'll do a demo. So let's head into the session look at scale
device in practice. Inside of my Ableton session, I have gone to Midi effect, and I can see scale right here. But what I'm going to
do is I'm going to open scale up using
the drop down here. And we can see the array of scales that are
available to us. For the purposes
of this tutorial, we are going to work
inside of a major scale, but there are plenty to
choose from, as you can see. So I am going to grab
the major scale here, where it just says major, and I'm going to double click. So it loads it as a device. And by default, it will always bring us to C. Whichever
scale we're in, for example, because
we're in major, it's brought us to C major. We've got a few different
controls with this device now. For example, we've got
where it says C here. This is what we call the base. This is the tonic note, the first note of that scale, and that's what's making it the scale that we
are about to use. We're in C, but we might
want to go to F major. Now the base of this
scale is set to an F. If I played a
C on my keyboard, it would come out as an we also have the option to
transpose right here. That is to move the note up or down by a certain
amount of semitones. If you wish, fold is also a
button here that can limit the output of notes to one octave if you're wanting
a much more confined scale. We've also got range here, and this will limit how high
we can go in this scale. I've set my key to F major and if I press
a C on my keyboard, I'm currently playing an F.
So as I've spoken about, this scale will confine you to a certain key and all
your notes will therefore be correct or right for that scale in traditional
theory terms. You can also snap
the scale like so to the overall key that you've created your
piece in as well. So if you had
different instruments, you could snap it
to the overall key and then you know that whatever you play will be matching
that key and that scale. If I give a demo, if I
put the scale to F major, and then I play the notes, And every single note that
I've just played there is now in the scale of F major. So no note that I could play could deviate
from that scale, but then for more
advanced techniques, you can adjust the scale inside of the
little note matrix, so the square here if
you would like to.
7. MIDI Effect 6: Velocity: Let's talk about
another MIDI effect. And what we're going to
talk about is velocity. Velocity as a concept
is really quite simple. And in production terms, it helps out a lot of feeling and emotion into midi notes in the same way that
you might be playing a guitar or a keyboard
in real life, and you'll be kind of varying
your playing over time. We never play at the
same volume as humans, so why should we program our software to play
at the same value? Why can't we have
that same variation? Velocity can alter
incoming midi note values from kind of a ranges
of one to 127, one being the quietest that
a note is played and 127 being the loudest in either a
control or a random manner. Our velocity MDiefect
device that looks like this has nine controls, but we will only be
going over a few of them just so it
helps you get to grips with that
device and you can dive straight in and apply
it to your productions. One of the key functions
with velocity is operation. Now, by default, it will
always set to both. But this chooser selects whether the velocity effect should apply to the midi
note on message. So when we press that key or whether
the effect should come when we release that
key on midi note off. We've also got the
range and lowest nubs. These two controls,
range and lowest knobs, define the range of note
velocities that are going to be accepted by
our MIDI device. So the lowest sets the lowest
accepted velocity value, which range then adds to. Incoming velocities
on the device are shown by the X
axis on their display. And notes with any velocities
outside of the range that you've set are still accepted by the device in clip
or fixed mode, but their velocities are
transformed in value. So another core control on
the device is also random. So this control adds or subtracts a random value
to all velocities. When we can activate this, you'll see that it's
represented by a little bit of a gray area on the device,
and it's really cool. I recommend playing with this. There are other controls on the device to get you started, we'll restrict ourselves
to those in particular. So let's get into the demo. I'm going to double click the velocity device
from the browser. I've brought that into
the device chain. I'm going to add that I would
like the lowest notes to only play from about maybe 63. And I'd like the highest notes. They can play to their
max volume of 127. So this means that we've got no notes that will play kind
of below the range of 63, 64, and they will
only play up to 127. And then I'm going to add
a little bit of randomness in just so we can
hear the difference. So I'm just going
to dial that in. I might put 22 for
argument's sake. And you can see that
when I dialed random in, we've now got this gray area
that I spoke about before. And if we press plate, We can really hear that
change in velocity, particularly on that third note. So hopefully, this really
quick crash course in the velocity device has shown you how we can create
movement, expression, depth inside of our productions, just by navigating and
changing the values that we assign velocity wise to each note being played
by an instrument.
8. MIDI Effect 7: MIDI Rack: Hey, we are now onto the
final midi effect device, and this is the MIDI
effect rack era. And what a midi effect rack is is something that's
really slept on, actually, with people that
are kind of using Ableton. And I don't see
this spoken about quite as much as what
I think it should be. So what is a rack,
first and foremost? So a rack inside of Ableton is a flexible tool
for working with effect plugins and instruments
in a tracks device chain. For MIDI racks, these can
only contain midi effect. And these can only be
placed on midi tracks. So mini effects, racks are
really cool because we can use them to control different
devices that control our midi. What I'm going to
show you to do is I'm going to create a
midi rack to control two parameters of two
independent midi effects contained in a rack. So the two midi
effects that I'm going to use will be ones that
we've used earlier, and that is and random. Et's get into the session. We are going to add our effect rack onto our organ track that we've been
working with so far. I'm going to double
click my midi effect frac in the
browser just here, and we can see that it's
given us this empty box. We now need to fill this
box with our devices. We are going to add the
pitch media effect and also the random media
effect into this rack. I'm going to toggle this because here we can now see
our macro controls. And the Brows are what we
are going to use to map our media effect to
these overall knobs. Now we've got pitch and
random inside of our rack. It's important to
note that what we are going to control
and the parameters are going to be
controlled by the rack will be the pitch knob from the pitch media effect and chance from the
random media effect. We have added our
two effect here, and I'm going to right click
first on the pitch knob, and I'm going to map
it to Macro one. So when I click this, we
can now see that pitch has replaced Macro one right here
on the random media text, we are going to map chance right click and we're going to
map that to Macro two. So when I play with
these two macros, we can see that they're
toggling the device, which means that we can get
rid of that and then just work with these really
too intuitive macronubs. Then when we dial this in
and play with the pitch, So we're down seven semitones. Up the chants. So if we think about what
we're doing with these macros, we're changing the pitch
here and the chance, we're changing how
many random notes can sneak their way
into this MIDI clip. And that's how we use
a MIDI effect rack. And mapping to macros
is really important if you're getting scrips with doing live performance
with Ableton, but also inside the studio. It's nice, tidy practice, and you can customize how you're using these MIDI effects. And if we go into the
browser, as well, we can also go to MIDI Rack, and there are also
premade racks to try. So again, you could
just bring them in by double clicking and they will insert themselves
into the device shame. Hopefully, this has given you
a really good overview of Abton MIDI effect
racks and what they can be used for and why
they are brilliant.
Sophie Russell, Music Production
