Ableton/Live/UG/19 Recording New Clips/10 Capturing MIDI
- Live keeps listening to MIDI on armed or monitored tracks. Capture MIDI turns what you just played into a clip, for when you forgot to record or were improvising.
- On Push 1 and Push 2, hold Record and press New; Push 3 has a Capture button.
- What it does depends on the state of the Set.
- When the Set has no clips and the transport is stopped:
- every monitored MIDI track gets a clip with the phrase, in whichever view has focus;
- Live sets the tempo (within 80–160 BPM), the loop and the notes' grid positions. Ending on the downbeat of the next bar helps it find the phrase;
- the transport starts and plays the loop, ready for overdubs;
- notes played before the phrase stay in the clip ahead of the start marker, so the loop can be moved. Crop Clip discards the rest.
- If the first capture is a single note, the loop spans that note and the tempo is set to make it one, two, four or eight bars.
- When the transport is running, the Set has clips, or tempo is automated, Capture MIDI keeps the tempo and finds a phrase within it.
- Playing over a clip on the same track and pressing Capture MIDI adds the new notes on top, for building a pattern in layers.
- Earlier notes are kept ahead of the start marker here too.
