Ableton/Live/UG/10 Editing MIDI
- The MIDI Note Editor: creating and editing notes, folding to a scale, and editing several clips at once.
- Open the Clip View on a MIDI clip and choose the Notes tab; the other tabs are the Envelopes Editor and the MPE Editor (Ableton/Live/UG/12 Editing MPE).
- Notes go in the grid. The time ruler runs across the top; the note ruler down the side shows C-2 to C8, a tuning system's pitches, or a Drum Rack's pads, beside a piano ruler.
- The header's left side has folding, scale highlighting and the Find and Select Notes toggle; its right side shows and sets the grid.
- The Preview switch above the piano ruler sounds a pitch or pad when you click a key or add or move a note.
- Below the editor are the Velocity and Chance lanes. The Lane Selector menu shows either or both, the toggle beside it shows or hides all, and Swap Lane in a lane's context menu switches which one a lane shows. Drag the divider or split lines, or
Option-scroll (Mac) / Alt-scroll (Win), to resize them.
- Drag the time ruler vertically to zoom and sideways to scroll;
Cmd-scroll (Mac) / Ctrl-scroll (Win) also zooms time. - Scroll the note ruler to change octaves; drag it sideways to zoom key tracks.
Option-scroll (Mac) / Alt-scroll (Win) also zooms key tracks. - Double-click the note ruler or time ruler to zoom to the selection; with nothing selected, they fit the clip's pitch range or its first to last note.
- The clip overview in the Clip View Selector shows the whole clip: drag inside its outline to scroll or zoom, or drag its edges.
- Keys:
Page Up/Page Down move an octave, with Shift one key track; +/- zoom around the selection; Z zooms fully to it, X shows the whole clip; Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) with +/- zooms the editor. - Drag the split above the Clip View for more height, or toggle maximum height with
Cmd+Option+E (Mac) / Ctrl+Alt+E (Win) or View → Expand Clip View. - The grid acts like a magnet: a note moves freely to the first grid line, then snaps. Turn snapping off with the grid settings button, Options → Snap to Grid, or
Cmd+4 (Mac) / Ctrl+4 (Win); hold Cmd (Mac) / Alt (Win) to bypass it for one action, or to enable it while it's off. - Notes keep their offset from the grid as they snap, preserving a loose feel.
- Ableton/Live/UI/Control Bar/Switch/Follow scrolls the editor with playback; an edit pauses it until you press Follow again, restart playback, or click a scrub area after stopping.
- With Permanent Scrub Areas on, clicking the scrub area below the beat-time ruler plays from there, quantized; otherwise
Shift-click. Chase MIDI Notes sounds notes that started earlier.
- MIDI clips come from recording on a MIDI track or Capture MIDI, double-clicking an empty Session slot or a MIDI track's display in the Arrangement, or Create → Insert Empty MIDI Clip(s),
Cmd+Shift+M (Mac) / Ctrl+Shift+M (Win), on a selected slot or timespan.
- Notes arrive by recording on an armed track, by Capture MIDI, by double-clicking in the editor, or by drawing in Draw Mode.
- Turn Draw Mode on with the Control Bar button or
B, then click and drag to add notes; clicking a note in Draw Mode deletes it. - "Draw Mode with Pitch Lock" in Display & Input Settings keeps drawing on one key track, and
Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) switches to freehand melodic drawing; with the setting off, the roles swap. Melodic drawing erases notes it crosses; pitch-locked drawing erases as you move back toward the first note. Menus show the current state as "Draw Mode (Pitch Lock On/Off)". - With Draw Mode off, drag or use the arrow keys to move notes in time or pitch, and double-click a note to delete it.
- With an instrument on the track, the Preview switch plays notes as you add, select or move them. On an armed track it also lets you step-record notes. The switch applies to every MIDI track in the Set.
- Like Arrangement editing, note editing is selection-based: select, then run a command such as Cut, Copy, Paste or Duplicate.
- Undo restores earlier states, and editing a clip imported from a MIDI file never changes the file, since its contents were copied into the Set.
- Click to place the insert marker; left and right arrows move it by the grid, with
Option (Mac) / Ctrl (Win) to the previous or next note boundary. Home and End go to the clip's start and end. - Drag to select a timespan; enclosed notes are selected too.
Enter toggles between the timespan and its notes; Esc or a click outside clears it. Arrow keys with notes selected move or transpose them. Shift+arrows select or resize a timespan by the grid; add Cmd (Mac) / Alt (Win) to ignore the grid, or Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) to go to note boundaries.- Click a note to select it, or with
Option (Mac) / Ctrl (Win), up and down select the nearest note and step through notes in time, and left and right step along the same key track. - Drag to select several notes;
Shift-click adds or removes one; Shift-click a piano key toggles all notes on that key. Option+Shift (Mac) / Ctrl+Shift (Win) with up and down keeps adding notes. Cmd+A (Mac) / Ctrl+A (Win) selects all; Invert Selection, Cmd+Shift+A (Mac) / Ctrl+Shift+A (Win), swaps selected and unselected notes.
- The Find and Select Notes toggle shows note filters that select matching notes, to edit all notes of one pitch or length at once. Filters can be combined, and each has an Invert toggle and a Select button to reapply it.
- The eight filters:
- Pitch: chosen pitches in every octave.
- Time: a range with Start and Length in beats, repeating every Repeat beats.
- Chance: a probability or range.
- Condition: active notes, notes under 100% probability, or notes with velocity deviation.
- Count: every nth note or chord, with Offset; Quantized counts each grid step as one, so every third sixteenth on a 1/16 grid.
- Duration, Scale (the clip's scale or a chosen one), and Velocity.
- Notes are selected as you adjust a filter, and a yellow dot marks active filters. Clicking in the editor clears all filters and the selection.
- With filters showing,
Shift-click a piano key to add that key's notes, or Shift-drag to make evenly repeated time selections.
- Drag notes or use the arrow keys to move them in time or pitch, snapping to the grid;
Cmd (Mac) / Alt (Win) with left and right nudges them off the grid. - Copy and Paste work on selected notes, pasting at the insert marker.
Option-drag (Mac) / Ctrl-drag (Win) copies, even if you press the key after starting the drag. - A new note over the start of an existing one replaces it; over the end, it shortens it.
- Drag a note's left or right edge to change its length, snapping past the nearest grid line unless you hold
Cmd (Mac) / Alt (Win). Shift+left/right lengthens or shortens selected notes by the grid; add Cmd (Mac) / Alt (Win) to ignore it.- Fit to Time Range,
Cmd+Option+J (Mac) / Ctrl+Alt+J (Win), stretches selected notes to fill the time or note selection; it's also in the Duration menu of the Pitch and Time Utilities panel.
- Selecting several notes or a timespan shows two Note Stretch markers below the scrub area. Drag one to scale the notes in time proportionally, snapping to the grid past the nearest line unless you hold
Cmd (Mac) / Alt (Win). - Between them, a pseudo stretch marker stretches or squeezes the material on either side without touching the rest.
- Dragging one marker past the other reverses the notes' order.
- Linked clip envelopes stretch along; unlinked ones don't. The Stretch controls in Pitch and Time Utilities do the same job.
- Select notes and press
0, or use Deactivate Note(s), to mute them; they turn gray and don't play. 0 again turns them back on.
- Split and Chop divide notes into parts; Join merges notes of the same pitch.
10.5.8.1 Split
- Hold
E and draw a line across notes to split them in two, or hold E and drag inside a note to split and place the cut. Add Cmd (Mac) / Ctrl (Win) to snap to the grid. - With no notes selected,
Cmd+E (Mac) / Ctrl+E (Win) or Split Note(s) splits every note crossing the insert marker or the edges of the time selection.
10.5.8.2 Chop
- Select notes and press
Cmd+E (Mac) / Ctrl+E (Win), or use Chop Note(s) on Grid, to cut them at each grid step. Keep holding Cmd/Ctrl and use up and down to change the number of parts, with Shift for powers of two. - With the mouse: select notes, hold
E+Option (Mac) / E+Ctrl (Win), and drag up or down over a note; Shift again for powers of two.
10.5.8.3 Join
Cmd+J (Mac) / Ctrl+J (Win), or Join Notes, merges selected notes on one key track into one, joining their MPE data too.
- Utilities for selected notes or a time range; with nothing selected, buttons act on the whole clip. Summarized in Ableton/Live/UG/08 Clip View/05 Pitch and Time Utilities Panel.
10.5.9.1 Transpose
- The slider shows the pitch range and transposes by semitones, or by scale degrees with a clip scale. Up and down arrows also transpose, with
Shift by octaves.
10.5.9.2 Fit to Scale
- Moves notes to the nearest degree of the clip's scale, the lower one on a tie. Grayed out without a scale.
10.5.9.3 Invert
- Flips the notes upside down, highest and lowest swapping, measured in scale degrees when a scale is active. Not the same as Invert Selection, which changes what's selected.
10.5.9.4 Intervals
- Interval Size and Add Interval add notes a set number of semitones or scale degrees from the originals, for quick chords. With notes selected, moving the slider adds them at once; without a selection, Add Interval applies to every note in the clip.
10.5.9.5 Stretch
- The Stretch factor changes note lengths; ×2 and /2 double or halve notes, the time selection or the loop. Stretch doesn't change the loop length.
10.5.9.6 Note Duration
- Choose Fit to Time Range, the grid, or a fixed length, then press Set Length; with nothing selected it applies to every note.
10.5.9.7 Humanize
- Humanize Amount sets random variation of note starts, up to a quarter of a grid step either way; press Humanize to apply.
10.5.9.8 Reverse
- Flips the order of the notes in time, or the whole clip when nothing is selected.
10.5.9.9 Legato
- Lengthens or shortens each note to reach the next; the last note extends to the loop end. The Span tool also does this.
- The Transform and Generate panels' MIDI Tools reshape notes through articulation, interpolation, ornamentation and more, or create new patterns from parameters. See Ableton/Live/UG/11 MIDI Tools.
- Four ways to quantize:
- While recording.
- By dragging notes onto grid lines.
- With the Quantize tool in the Transform panel, which can quantize starts and ends to a set value, and an Amount for moving notes only part of the way.
- Edit → Quantize,
Cmd+U (Mac) / Ctrl+U (Win), using the Quantize tool's settings, which Cmd+Shift+U (Mac) / Ctrl+Shift+U (Win) opens.
- Velocity, roughly a note's loudness, shows as color saturation: paler notes are softer. Edit it in the Velocity Editor by dragging a note's marker; the value shows in the lane header, and hovering a note highlights its marker.
Shift-click to select several markers. Drag a group to the top or bottom to make them equal, then set the value.Cmd-drag (Mac) / Alt-drag (Win) a selected note vertically to change velocity without the lane. Or select a marker, type a value and press Enter; Cmd (Mac) / Ctrl (Win) with up and down change it by 10, with Shift for fine steps.- Velocity controls below the lanes: Randomize, with Randomization Amount setting how far values may move up or down; Ramp Start and End values spread a ramp across the selection; Velocity Deviation gives each note a range played at random each time, for example 60 with +20 plays between 60 and 80.
- A shaded area and a dot on the marker show a deviation range; double-click the marker to reset it. With several notes, the slider shows each note's limit.
Cmd-drag (Mac) / Ctrl-drag (Win) from a marker also sets the range. 10.5.12.1 Drawing Velocities
- In Draw Mode (
B), draw in the Velocity Editor to set values. Drawing affects the notes within each grid step, only selected ones when there's a selection; affected notes highlight blue. - Turn snapping off with
Cmd+4 (Mac) / Ctrl+4 (Win), or hold Cmd (Mac) / Alt (Win), to draw markers one by one, for a crescendo. Option-drag (Mac) / Alt-drag (Win) draws a straight line; add Shift for a flat one. - Click a piano key to select one key track's notes, then draw a ramp just for them.
10.5.12.2 Note Off Velocity
- The Release Velocity Editor shows Note Off velocity, the speed of releasing a key. Only some devices use it; Sampler can route it to many parameters.
- Probability is the chance a note plays on each pass. The Chance Editor lane is hidden by default; show it from the Lane Selector menu.
- Drag a note's marker between 0 and 100%; the value shows in the lane and Status Bar, as a range when selected notes differ. Or type a value and press
Enter; up and down change it by 10%, with Shift for fine steps. - Notes under 100% show a small triangle at the top left when key tracks are tall enough.
- Randomization Amount in the Clip Content Toolbar randomizes probability around each note's value, for example 50% with 25% gives 25 to 75%. It applies at once to selected notes, or to all notes after
Enter or Randomize. 10.5.13.1 Probability Groups
- A group of notes shares one probability: Play All plays them all or none; Play One plays one of them at random.
- Select notes and press Play All or Play One in the Clip Content Toolbar, or use the Group Notes commands in the context or Edit menu.
Cmd+G (Mac) / Ctrl+G (Win) makes a group of the last type used. - A group has one marker: a diamond for Play All, a triangle for Play One. Right-click it, or use the buttons, to change the type.
- Hovering a grouped note highlights the group, and the Status Bar shows the type. Grouped notes always show the triangle, even at 100%.
- Ungroup,
Cmd+Shift+G (Mac) / Ctrl+Shift+G (Win), or Ungroup Notes removes notes from a group; adding a note to another group moves it.
- Folding hides key tracks, for every MIDI clip in the Set.
- Fold to Notes, with the Fold button,
F, or the View menu, hides key tracks without notes, useful for drum kits that use a few keys spread over the keyboard. On a Drum Rack track with it off, pads that hold devices are shown. - With Scale Mode on, set in the Main Clip Properties panel or Control Bar along with Root Note and Scale Name, the scale's keys are highlighted in the piano ruler. Highlight Scale, with its button,
K, or the menus, also highlights the key tracks and marks the root; it applies everywhere. - New clips take scale settings from the foreground clip; with Scale Mode off, they inherit the last selected clip's scale, inactive.
- The piano ruler's context menu spells notes with flats, sharps, both, Auto (by the root's place on the circle of fifths), or MIDI note numbers. With Scale Mode on, it affects only notes outside the scale.
- Fold to Scale, with the Scale button,
G, or the View menu, hides key tracks outside the scale, except those already holding notes. A guide for writing melodies without much theory.
- Operations on a whole MIDI clip beyond those in Ableton/Live/UG/08 Clip View.
- Crop Clip deletes MIDI outside the loop brace; Crop to Time Selection deletes outside a time selection. Right-click the clip or press
Cmd+Shift+J (Mac) / Ctrl+Shift+J (Win). No new file is written.
- Cut, Copy and Paste act on notes; the "… Time" commands insert or remove time in the whole clip, without moving its start, end or loop brace.
- Duplicate Time copies the selected span and its notes into the clip.
- Delete Time removes it and closes the gap.
- Insert Time adds empty time the length of the selection, before it.
- Move the loop start and end markers, even during playback, to loop the passage you're editing.
- With the loop brace selected,
Cmd+D (Mac) / Ctrl+D (Win) doubles the loop with its notes, moving later notes along and zooming out to fit. - MIDI clips loop by default; the Clip Loop toggle turns it off and grays out the brace.
- With several MIDI clips selected, the editor shows their notes together, to compare and edit material across tracks and scenes, or successive variations in one track.
- Edit notes from all of them at once, or one at a time with Focus Mode.
- A loop bar per clip, in its color, sits above the editor. Click a clip's note or loop bar to switch to it; drag a loop bar's marker to change that clip's loop,
Cmd/Ctrl-click or Shift-click to edit several (not in Focus Mode); Cmd+D (Mac) / Ctrl+D (Win) duplicates them. Drag above the scrub area to resize the bars. - The title bar names the clip being edited, or its track if the clip has no name.
- Loop, time signature, groove and scale controls, and Fold to Notes and Fold to Scale, apply to all selected clips.
- Velocity and Chance edits apply only to the foreground clip.
- It works differently in Session and Arrangement View.
- Focus Mode edits one clip while the others stay visible. Toggle it with the Focus button or
N; hold N while editing to switch it temporarily. - On: the active clip's notes and loop bar are in color, the rest gray, with its name below the loop bars. Hover another clip's loop bar to preview it, click to switch. Edits and the displayed scale apply to the active clip; Fold to Notes considers all clips.
- Off: every note is active and colored. Clicking a loop bar turns it black so Velocity or Chance randomization targets that clip. Root and scale show only when shared, otherwise an asterisk. Edits apply to all selected clips; notes can be cut, copied and pasted across clips, and time selected across clip and loop boundaries.
- Up to eight looped clips; loop bars ordered by track, then scene.
- Clips of different lengths repeat until they realign; time outside a clip's loop is shaded darker. Hovering shows its loop start and end as black lines, shifted if its start marker comes before the loop.
- Clips from up to eight tracks within a time selection; loop bars ordered by track vertically and by time horizontally.
- Notes can be drawn across clip boundaries, except in Focus Mode. The editor spans from the first clip's start to the last clip's end. A mix of looped and unlooped clips shows the Loop button half colored.