Ableton/Live/UG/03 Live Concepts/08 Audio and MIDI
- Live handles two kinds of signal. Audio is a series of numbers approximating a waveform; MIDI is a series of commands, like "play a C4 at mezzo piano", closer to a written score.
- An instrument turns MIDI into audio. Ableton/Instrument/Simpler plays one sound chromatically; Ableton/Live/UG/31 Instrument Reference/07 Impulse assigns a different drum sound to each key.
- Audio tracks record and play audio clips; MIDI tracks record and play MIDI clips. A clip can't go on the other kind of track. See Ableton/Track/Audio and Ableton/Track/MIDI.