Recipe - Doing more with less using MIDI effects

Key idea

In this recipe we’ll use the simplest possible MIDI source, a single MIDI note, and process it with MIDI effects and routing to create an entire track from one note. We’re going to use MIDI effects Tools - MIDI tools . We’re also going to be using MIDI and audio routing which is covered in Process - Routing MIDI and Audio . We will also use modulation in sound design to keep the listener engaged - Tools - Modulators .

We’re going to have a single MIDI generator track, and then additional tracks with MIDI Effects to process the inputs. We’re going to route the output of these processed MIDI tracks into various instruments.

You may need to try various sounds and jump between tweaking the MIDI processing and the sound design in the instruments in order to get the sound you want.

Create a MIDI track. This is going to be the “generator” for our track. We’re not going to add an instrument to this track.
Create a single MIDI clip with a single C3 note lasting one bar. Name this the “Generator” track (CTRL+R to rename).
Create a new MIDI track called “Note length” and another called “Arp”. In each of these tracks, set the MIDI input to the Generator Track (the single note C3 track) and set Monitor to “In”.

Image shows the MIDI routing from a generator track, which is creating a single MIDI note of C3 on the first beat of every bar, being sent through Note Length and Arp tracks which are in turn transforming this initial MIDI note.

In the “Note Length” track, add a MIDI Note Length MIDI effect. This will be used to take the output from the Operator track and stretch out the MIDI notes to last a nominated number of seconds.

Image shows the MIDI Note Length device. Here the Length of the MIDI note is extended to 5 seconds.

In the “Arp” track we’re going to add an Arpeggiator effect (surprise!) but also another MIDI “Note Length” effect with which we can tweak the note length of the output from the Arpeggiator to taste, and a Velocity effect to add a little variation to the velocity of the output MIDI notes.

Image shows the MIDI Arpeggiator device which is playing notes in the order they appear at a rate of eighth note divisions. Notes are arpeggiating up 7 semitones each time. A Note Length MIDI device comes after this which is extending the notes to 775 miliseconds. Finally a MIDI Velocity device is adding a little random velocity and driving the velocity values upwards slightly.

Tweaking the Length and Gate settings of “Note Length” will allow us to alter the sound of what is generated from the “Arpeggiator” effect - note that the Gate setting in the “Arpeggiator” does this as well, but we could potentially map these parameters to a MIDI controller if we wanted to vary the arpeggiator sound coming from this track.

Now let’s go on to the instruments and sound design.

Image shows the various routing paths in the Recipe 2 example and modulation of track mix volume and sends.

I have an Operator track with a short, plucky sound. A Wavetable instrument provides a pad sound. An Electric instrument provides an electric piano sound. Finally there’s a Bass track providing anchoring bass notes to the track.

I’ve added a Shaper to the Wavetable track and mapped its output to the Gain knob on a Utility device. The “minimum” is set to 50% and the “maximum” to 0% and the rate is set to 1/4 quarter notes so that each beat, the Shaper ducks the gain to produce a pumping “sidechain compressor” like effect.

Image shows the Shaper modulation device. The device has a mapping button at the top left which determines which parameter is going to be modulated. The minimum value is set to 50%, the maximum is set to 0% which means that as the modulation goes up, the parameter value will be turned down. A variety of modulation shapes are include along the bottom. There is a representation of the modulation as it repeats in the top right. Rate and depth dials are below this. In the example shown Shaper is being used to turn down the gain of a Utility device.

The second Wavetable track, named “Wavetable pre-compressor,” pulls its audio from the main Wavetable track before the ducking effect (“Pre-FX”). This track’s output is set to “Sends-Only,” so we only hear its processed signal through the return effects, never the dry sound.
On the Operator track I’ve added additional MIDI Effects to transform the incoming single MIDI note to create movement and interest.

Image shows the MIDI device chain which is adding Random MIDI notes, applying a Minor pentatonic scale, using MIDI Note Echo device, another Random MIDI device, another MIDI Note Echo and a final Minor Pentatonic scale device.

You can employ all kinds of MIDI effects here. In this example I have grouped these effects into a MIDI Effect Rack and I’m using Macros to allow me to switch on and change various effect parameters from a single set of 8 knobs.

The “Random” effect is going to add (or subtract) up to 12 semitones shift to the incoming note. Remember that our generator is a single C3 note for one bar. We then quantise this randomness to the C minor pentatonic scale using the “Scale” effect.

Then we have two distinct “Note Echo” effects which are going to echo the incoming note at 5 beats and 8 beats delay. Each effect has the “Thru” setting switched on so we’ll hear the original note and its delay. You can experiment with setting this to “Mute” to mute the incoming note, and just play the delayed version. The device on/off switch on the top left of the device is mapped to a macro knob which allows me to switch these devices on and off with a knob or button on my MIDI controller.

The second “Random” effect adds more randomness to the original note, and all of the delayed / echo output MIDI notes. This allows me to add a little more variation to the output by turning up the “Chance” setting on this device. Note that the “Choices” knob is also mapped to a macro knob, so I can dial up more or less variation.

A third “Note Echo” has a 3 beat delay with a Pitch shift up 7 semitones but with very low Feedback setting so that the pitching up fades quickly. Again, device on/off is mapped to a controller knob or button to allow me to turn this on and off.

Finally a “Scale” device ensures that all this chaos is quantised to a C minor scale.

These are just examples of what you could do, but the concept here is that the generating device can be as simple as you like - a single MIDI note lasting one bar in this case - but these devices then allow you to create a cascade of evolving MIDI note information all within the C minor pentatonic scale. Mapping to MIDI controllers allows me to dial up and back the amount of variation during the track.

Note that I’m routing the output from the Operator track with all the MIDI Effects into the Note Length MIDI track, and the output of that becomes the input of the Arp MIDI track. By routing the MIDI information around like this we ensure that the MIDI information is linked and related giving a more consistent sound.

In performance of this track, I use a MIDI Controller to change settings of the MIDI Effect Rack in the MIDI note track, which essentially is using me (the human in charge) to dictate HOW MUCH generative randomness happens, but the MIDI effects in the “Note Length” and “Arp” tracks ingest this chaos and make some things happen downstream across a variety of instruments and sounds. I then use the controller to fade up and down the volume of each of the instrument tracks to allow me to shape the overall emerging track so that all sounds aren’t playing all the time.

We have mostly been looking at MIDI NOTE effects here. There’s also a much-overlooked MIDI device called “Expression Control” which allows you to map incoming MIDI data (like velocity or pitch bend) to almost any parameter in Live, including controls in the Operator instrument just for illustration.

Image shows the Live 11 Expression control device. In this device various MIDI inputs like Velocity, Pitchbend and Random values are modulation parameters like filter cutoff, synthesizer release time and filter resonance.

Sure, instruments like Operator and Wavetable have the ability to vary many different parameters using MIDI information, but notice how each of the MIDI parameters on the left hand side has a drop-down menu option. Let’s look at what we can do…

Image shows that the Expression control device can take a wide range of input controls, which then can modulate various parameters.

There’s a wide variety of incoming MIDI inputs which can then be used to map to effect controls, as well as a “random” input which will select a new value for every MIDI input note, and “incremental” which will increment values for every MIDI input note.

Also note that the effect allows you to specify Min and Max levels for each of these - for example the Random input is mapped to Tone in Operator, but the range is limited between 55% and 75% of the values. This kind of constraint can add nice variations in timbre for each note without it sounding too jarring.

Using MIDI “Expression Control” can be useful to modify a variety of parameters in Ableton including some that aren’t easily mapped within an instrument.

The basic concept in this recipe - and one that I use frequently - is to take one MIDI part and make the most of it. Using MIDI effects like this can ensure that the resulting sounds are related to the input, without having to be exactly the same. Anything you can do to delay, alter, spread out, harmonise and alter the incoming MIDI will add interest to the part. Using these MIDI parts with different instrument parts / sounds and audio effects will add variety and interest.

It might be better here to put the MIDI Effects from the Operator track onto the MIDI Generator track. This would then separate MIDI generation, effect and transform processes from the instrument and sound-design aspects.

Press play. Listen to what you hear, and refine settings if necessary.

You can hear an example of this track here: https://soundcloud.com/mikeksmith/2_single-note-input/s-ijkBeXue1aw

MikeKSmith · 2_Single Note input