Ableton/Live/UG/30 MIDI Effect Reference
- A reference entry for each built-in MIDI effect, such as Arpeggiator, Chord and Scale.
- Arpeggiator turns a held chord or single note into a rhythmic pattern.
- Style sets the order of notes in the pattern, and the display draws it. Previous and Next Style Pattern buttons in the display step through the styles.
- Most styles are the usual ones: Up, Down, Converge, Diverge.
- Play Order plays notes in the order they were pressed.
- Chord Trigger repeats all held notes together as a block chord.
- Random styles:
- Random — a continuously shuffled sequence
- Random Other — random, but no note repeats until every held note has played
- Random Once — one random pattern, repeated until the held notes change
- Rate sets the speed, in milliseconds or in tempo-synced divisions depending on the Sync/Free toggle.
- Distance and Steps transpose the pattern on each repeat. Distance is the interval in semitones or scale degrees; Steps is how many transposed repeats follow. With Distance +12 st and Steps 2, a pattern starting on C3 plays at C3, then C4, then C5. Negative Distance goes down.
- Root and Scale keep the transposition inside a scale. Use Current Scale in the title bar takes the clip's scale instead and disables those two choosers.
- Gate sets note length as a percentage of Rate. Over 100% the notes overlap for a legato sound.
- Hold keeps the pattern going after the keys are released, until a new key is pressed. Holding keys and adding more builds up the pattern; playing a held note again removes it.
- Pattern Offset rotates the start of the pattern by a number of steps. At 1 the second note plays first and the first note plays last.
- Groove adds swing from the groove library; the Global Groove Amount in the Groove Pool or Control Bar sets how strong it is.
- Retrigger restarts the pattern:
- Off — never
- Note — on each new note
- Beat — every bar or beat set by Interval
- An LED next to the Retrigger controls flashes on each restart.
- Repeats sets how many times the pattern plays; the default is ∞. Values of 1 or 2 suggest a strummed guitar, and combining Repeats with Retrigger gives patterns with rests between them.
- The Velocity toggle shows the velocity controls. Decay is the time to reach the Target velocity; a long Decay with Target 0 fades the pattern out. With Retrigger on, the velocity ramp restarts with the pattern.
- CC Control sends MIDI CC messages to hardware. It has three fixed knobs, one custom button, and twelve custom dials.
- Fixed knobs:
- Mod Wheel — modulation amount on the receiving device
- Pitch Bend — bends down with negative values, up with positive
- Pressure — channel pressure (aftertouch)
- Custom A is a button that sends on/off or minimum/maximum. It defaults to the sustain pedal (CC 64) and can be set to any other CC with its CC Type chooser.
- Custom B–M are dials that can be renamed and set to any CC. Names and assignments show on Push and are saved with presets. Automate them in lanes or turn the dials live.
- Title bar:
- two toggles switch between controls 1–8 and 9–16
- Send sends every current CC value at once
- Learn assigns a custom control from incoming MIDI, which also shows which CC a hardware controller sends
- If the clip already has automation for a CC that CC Control also sends, the two streams are merged.
- Chord adds up to six pitches to each incoming note.
- Shift 1–6 each set one added pitch, up to ±36 semitones from the incoming note. Shift 1 at +4 st and Shift 2 at +7 st make a major chord on the played note. Order does not matter. An LED next to each Shift knob flashes when its note plays.
- Two Shift controls cannot hold the same pitch; a duplicate is switched off.
- Learn in the title bar sets the Shifts from a played chord: the first held key is the root and is not stored, and each further held key fills the next Shift. Hold more keys to add pitches, then turn Learn off.
- With the Velocity or Chance toggle on, a slider under each Shift adjusts that note:
- Velocity — relative to the incoming note, 1% to 200%; 100% matches it
- Chance — probability, 0% to 100%, that the added note plays
- Strum spreads the chord's notes over up to 400 ms. Positive values play the original note first, then Shift 1 to 6; negative values reverse that. Play Duplicate Notes When Strumming in the title bar's context menu allows repeated notes.
- Tension — positive values start the strum slowly and speed up; negative values start fast and slow down
- Crescendo — a rising (positive) or falling (negative) velocity ramp across the strum
- Use Current Scale in the title bar changes Shift units from semitones to scale degrees.
- Send Per Note Events to Generated Notes, in the title bar's context menu, passes MPE data to the added notes. With scale awareness on, per-note pitch bends follow the clip's scale.
- Note Length changes the length of incoming notes, and can trigger notes from Note Off messages instead of Note On.
- Trigger Source chooses Note On or Note Off.
- With Note On, Length sets the base length and Gate scales it: 100% is the full Length, 200% doubles it, 50% halves it. The Time Mode toggles switch Length between milliseconds and synced divisions.
- With Note Off, each note starts when the key is released, so it is delayed by its own held length. Gate and Length then apply. Three more controls appear:
- Release Velocity — the mix of Note On and Note Off velocity used for the output note; leave at 0% if the keyboard sends no release velocity
- Decay Time — how long the velocity takes to fall to zero from the Note On; the value reached at Note Off becomes the output velocity
- Key Scale — positive values make notes below C3 longer and notes above C3 shorter; negative values reverse it
- Latch:
- with Note On, each note plays until the next Note On
- with Note Off, a note triggers when all keys (or the sustain pedal) are released and a new Note Off arrives
- in both cases Gate and Length are disabled; with Note Off, Release Velocity, Decay Time and Key Scale are disabled too
- Pitch transposes incoming notes by up to ±128 semitones, or ±30 scale degrees with Use Current Scale on in the title bar.
- Pitch sets the transposition.
- Step Up and Step Down change Pitch by the Step Width (1–48 semitones, or 1–30 scale degrees). All of these can be key- or MIDI-mapped for changes during a performance.
- Lowest and Range set the band of notes that pass. Mode decides what happens to notes outside it:
- Block — they are dropped, and an LED next to Range flashes
- Fold — they are transposed into the range
- Limit — notes below are raised to the lowest note and notes above are lowered to the highest
- Random changes the pitch of incoming notes at random.
- Chance is how likely each note is to be changed, like a dry/wet for randomness.
- Choices (1–24) and Interval multiply to give the spread of possible pitches above, below or around the played note. With Chance 50%, Choices 1 and Interval 12, repeated C3s play C3 or C4. With Choices 12 and Interval 1, they play C3 or any note from C#3 to C4. (Both examples use Random mode and Add.)
- Mode:
- Random — pitches in no order
- Alt — steps through the possible pitches in a fixed cycle. Chance 100% always moves to the next pitch; 0% always plays the incoming note. With Choices 12 and Interval 1, repeated C3s climb a semitone at a time to C4 and start over; with Choices 2 and Interval 2, they alternate C3 and D3 — useful for up-bow/down-bow or left/right hand samples.
- Sign:
- Add — only higher pitches
- Sub — only lower pitches
- Bi — either
- LEDs beside Chance flash +, 0 or - for a higher, unchanged or lower note.
- Use Current Scale in the title bar keeps random pitches in the clip's scale. Alt mode with a scale works like a simple, unpredictable step sequencer.
- Scale remaps each incoming note to an outgoing note through a matrix, so every C can become a D, for example.
- The Note Matrix is a 13 × 13 grid: columns are incoming notes in an octave, rows are outgoing notes. Black squares match the keyboard's black keys. Highlighted squares show the mapping, starting from the root in the bottom left.
- Base sets the root and Scale Name the scale. Use Current Scale in the title bar takes both from the clip and disables those choosers.
- Choosing User in Scale Name allows a custom mapping: drag highlighted squares to move them or click to delete them. A removed note is never output.
- Transpose shifts notes by up to ±36 semitones; +7 st moves a C major melody to G major.
- Fold, with User selected, folds any note mapped more than six semitones away back toward the original: a C3 mapped to A3 plays A2 instead.
- Lowest and Range limit which notes are remapped (and transposed); notes outside pass unchanged. Lowest C2 with Range +36 affects only C2 to B4.
- Velocity remaps incoming velocities (1–127) into a chosen output range.
- The Velocity Curve grid maps the input range (Lowest and Range, X axis) onto the output range (Out Low and Out Hi, Y axis). Out Low 80 with Out Hi 127 makes even soft playing come out loud. Lowest and Out Low at 0 with Range and Out Hi at 127 leaves velocities nearly unchanged.
- Operation applies the mapping to Note On velocity, Note Off (release) velocity, or both.
- Mode handles velocities outside the input range:
- Clip — clamps them into the range
- Gate — removes those notes; an LED under the grid flashes
- Fixed — every note gets the Out Hi velocity
- Random moves each velocity up or down by up to the set amount, inside the output range. A gray band around the curve shows the random spread.
- Drive pushes the curve toward one end: positive values make most notes loud, negative values soft.
- Compand spreads velocities toward the extremes (positive) or squeezes them toward the middle (negative).