Is Live 12 the future of MIDI?

Ableton Live 12 has new MIDI tools that are pretty awesome! Let's explore together what's possible.
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Content:
0:00 Ableton Live 12 MIDI tools
1:03 Humanise your MIDI
3:17 Time warp is the GOAT
4:19 Transform your MIDI
6:04 Harmonic transformations
7:16 Techno acid riff generators
8:22 Rhythm generators
11:47 Stacks are chords FYI
13:35 Time warp everything
14:12 A sneeze of notes
16:43 What's my take?

[@remperem]

Place a vocal on an audio track and slice it to a new MIDI track using any preferred setting, such as 1/16 notes. Once that's done, delete all the notes that were automatically created for you. Go to the "seed" function and select the slices you made earlier. Set the note length to match the slice size from your audio track (in this example, 1/16 notes). Then, hit "generate" to create some cool vocal chops. You can adjust the generated MIDI to fit your song, which can be helpful if you're stuck and need fresh ideas.

[@OscarUnderdog]

Niiiiiiice

[@marcellkovacs5452]

3:02 sounds pretty good to me. Reversing can be also used just to get inspired. I wrote one of my favourite melodies by reversing the top note of the voicing and laying it atop of the harmony.

[@divfae2792]

me too, when he said that he hated it I was shocked LOL

[@JoelLinus]

@@divfae2792 It's because it wasn't quantized to the start loop

[@iambadd]

Oscar reverses MIDI at 3:00 Me: Ohh I like that. Oscar: I hate it. Me: :(

[@bricelory9534]

I did like it better than the original, myself, lol

[@OscarUnderdog]

Hahahahaha sorrrrryyyyy didn't really give it much of a chance

[@tomphillpotts]

Then questions reverse in midi? Bach reversed melodies as a standard tool in counterpoint.

[@DielectricFailure]

No matter what you’re given, you have a gift to make it sound good.

[@cryptoholica72]

I have some old tracks from Reason 3 users in which the challenge was to use one grain table sybth to wrote a whole track and what some people were able to come up with was absolutely mind blowing. Today, we have so much packed into these days and peope still complain. Lol.

[@joechapman8208]

3:00 Reversing midi is great for recording audio of the sequence (mostly likely with effects that create extended trails: reverb is the obvious candidate, but it could be delays or other granular effects) and then reversing the recorded audio again. This gives you the intended melody but with a reversed envelope and a ghostly effect where each note rushes in. Invert is useful in multiple ways, too. You might like the gist of a melody and love the rhythm, and just decide to flip it to see if it's better. It's also useful when making harmonies.

[@marcellkovacs5452]

Do you mean you reverse the melody, apply the reverb, print to audio and then reverse the audio?

[@joechapman8208]

@@marcellkovacs5452 Yeah, or even route it so that you're only bouncing the effects and not the original audio if you like, and match them together as you wish

[@kraeter42]

Shape is my favourite, being able to draw in the rough movement of pitches and randomly generating off that gives me so many ideas when I have a block, especially for basslines

[@laurentgaumer5062]

oh !! This is crazy why we can do now with midi ! Thanks Oscar

[@guildem]

That's great to see Ableton catching up Bitwig on midi, lots of interesting improvements !

[@marcellkovacs5452]

Yeah, although I feel that they're copying the wrong stuff from Bitwig. For example, they could've copied the browser with the ability to preview changes to presets/samples without committing to it, or being able to open multiple projects in tabs, the routing, etc. Likewise, I wish Bitwig copied Ableton's scale-based workflow, people have been asking for that since the beginning.

[@guildem]

@@marcellkovacs5452 yes, each software has its pros and cons. But I really love Bitwig sound design capabilities, Ableton 12 is hardly approaching it, with lots of limitations. And on the random generative tools section, Reason is pretty good (its chord virtual pad generator is very intuitive), with a seeded randomization (something missing in Bitwig).

[@Hellemmm]

Will it handle PC midi messages correctly anytime?

[@jonasharp3]

@@Hellemmmis this what you mean, because if so the new beta just fixed it. kzbin.info/www/bejne/bHa9gIqepM2BiLMsi=95otNC369GKEdLZI

[@anvitsharma4885]

Great one again. Thanks man!

[@chessmusictheory4644]

3:00 reverse or invert works well if you have a solid melody that consists of good tick duration integers like playing a chord progression for 2 bars consisting of 4 chords one after another, lets say e minor for 3/8 notes d major 3/8 notes c major 7/8 notes long and d major 3/8th notes long in that order in other words em, DM, CM, DM, for 3/8, 3/8, 7/8, 3/8 sounds good and if reversed to 3/8, 7/8, 3/8, 3,8 also sounds good. And most of the time when you reverse its not to play it back to back with the clip you just reversed from but would be used to add to the end of the second time around the rhythm or something like this. And there are plenty more melody's like this but auto generators have to much clutter in their logic to find them but they may find some after several clicks.

[@huntingghosts]

i was very amazed at first but so far I haven't used it much. probably takes a while to adopt and I might depend on more creative people than me to show me how to actually implement the stuff in tracks in a meaningful way

[@ProfessorSaibertin]

Awesome video, thx!

[@nicolasrouiller3885]

Oscar killing it as usual! Thx

[@turbochargedfilms]

Another banger from Underdog! I absolutely agree with your criticisms about some of the new features, the Stacks chord shapes/visualization/abstractions are more confusing than helpful and would've made me not even consider using it if it weren't for the written chord qualities and degrees that show up when you hover over it. The only thing I personally disagree with is Seed; its results definitely end up feeling more like the generative riffs they are rather than actual songwriting, but I've already seen it put to great use for not just ostinato-heavy techno, but pop, trap and similar genres that rely on cyclical, diatonic melodies; it is kinda crazy how good Seed's outputs can sound if you let it generate fairly long pieces and then slice chunks out of it for verses, bridges, choruses. That being said, it is definitely a very particular and peculiar tool, both in terms of use and output, but I do very much appreciate it being added to Ableton, just like the rest of 12's updates.

[@OscarUnderdog]

Great to hear, makes me wanna give it another chance! Definitely relies on your musical ear to select the usable bits though!

[@AFRoSHEENT3ARCMICHAEL69]

Try highlighting the first 4 beats for seed. It will only generate in a highlighted section if you highlight a section and generate for the first 4 beats rather than generating for the whole clip.

[@AFRoSHEENT3ARCMICHAEL69]

You can even highlight the middle section and just generate midi in the middle with seed. Seed works best by section rather than by clip.

[@JimJohnMarks]

While these new MIDI tools are interesting & almost certainly useful, it does feel very much like Ableton has created Live 12 to expand their user pool to include aspiring producers with zero musical background rather than focusing on new feature sets (like Atmos support, or being able to have different tempos on different channels) which would allow their existing, experienced producers who need some of these things to remain relevant in a rapidly changing industry. We are a long way from the DAW which was birthed to make live, real time electronic music production & performance a reality.

[@shawnmcandrew6923]

The reverse midi is great for flipping patterns that the random generators create also forgetting experimental

[@WaveRiderMusic]

I still miss the midi manipulation of the old midi programs like KCS, soundscape, bars n pipes et others... still unmatched

[@mysteriousstranger9496]

good lord that ending was surreal

[@Libellemusic]

If you please feel like it, would really appreciate an example video on the time wrap idea in ableton 11. If there even is an easier way (maybe you know a plug-in that does this too). If not, then handmade it is 🤓

[@ned_interrobang]

reverse midi, bounce to audio, reverse audio (making it forward again) = forward melody, reversed voice

[@raptor.1]

11:42 LOOOOOLL

[@tomphillpotts]

Reaper has had midi humanize for maybe 10 years now.

[@PavanMS87]

The midi tools generate some stuff, yeah. Im wondering how i can use them for specific genres like Tech House ? Please advise

[@AnomieDomine]

3:05 TENET

[@gianluigidautilia6417]

I love ableton , i quite liked your analysis. I have a question, surely you also Use and know the reason 12 counterpart of Ai generators (called by propellerhead “players”) i have now checked both. Whats your take on reason compared? To me their players seems i admit more usable, in terms of interface, and they provided more guidance to direct you obtaining musical oriented results. Live12 seems more complex to understand still how and what you can do with them. It opens possibilities but interface and results leave me a bit perplexed. So far scanning the web and youtube i only hear random generated progressions, which are becoming quite boring.

[@OscarUnderdog]

I like Reason's chord generator etc, but TBH I got out of the habit of reaching for reason recently - I'm relying on my piano for chords these days, so it's one thing I don't use. Plenty of cool things in Reason though!

[@laurentbouchard6897]

Hello ...I'm asking you the question once again : Are your courses automatically translated with subtitles like your youtube videos ? Thanks for the answer

[@OscarUnderdog]

They are not 😅 sorry! If the English is too difficult i refund with no problem!

[@laurentbouchard6897]

@@OscarUnderdogI’m disappointed. Sorry but without the subtitles I can’t understand. It’s really a shame!

[@ettoremariotti4280]

can you midi-map those?

[@Sanny.V]

Here for your cuteness 😘 😂

[@OscarUnderdog]

🩵😊

[@greyaltaer8788]

There were moments of mild existential dread in this one

[@OscarUnderdog]

My life 💫🌚

[@boger5060]

Excuse me, sir. Are you that Underdog, who made remixes for Massive Attack?

[@OscarUnderdog]

Nope! Coincidence name 😊

[@boger5060]

@@OscarUnderdog Thanks!

[@N8oRMusic]

* giggles quietly in Logic Pro *

[@tangente00]

These are kind of like Reasons player devices.

[@teunrompa9690]

Hey Oscar love the vids will you ever do a hardgroove techno video?

[@fkknsikk]

It's more the other way around. MIDI is maturing and we're finally starting to see that propagate into the major DAWS now. FL Studio added MIDI scripting and support for more of the new additions to the MIDI spec for example. I wouldn't be surprised if new MIDI features are part of why CLAP works the way it does. I'm sure they'll all have moved over to the "MIDI 2.0" way of doing things before long and we'll have bidirectional communication and all of the other cool things MIDI can do now.

[@rnjsgmltjs9621]

I’ll be updating my own old one😂 Thanks all🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@frankiewylde7649]

I love you Oscar hahaha

[@Philmad]

You just sold one upgrade here, 😂😂

[@mescalinum]

Is Live 12 the future of MIDI? Consider a common feature request such as renaming midi ctrl names in pull down, I can find such a feature request in a forum post dated back in 2007. More than 16 years later, Ableton still hasn’t given a f@ck. This is only a drop in the ocean. If you want to see what’s the future of MIDI look into hardware (Squarp Hapax, Torso T-1, OXI One). Ableton is nice for many things. I use it for multitrack recording and arrangement. For MIDI, it is just above mediocre.

[@Rockky67]

Another issue that users have asked for that’s perpetually fallen on deaf ears is to not have MIDI produced by plugins always end up on MIDI channel 1. It’s the main reason I stopped using Ableton, I do a lot of MIDI creation in VCV Rack and this was a ball ache.

[@wusulu-yc7sl]

Can't you just quantize the Arp notes to triplets ?

[@jazzsong8566]

That doesn’t seem jet lag. You look kinda high 🎉😂❤

[@OscarUnderdog]

I get this a lot 😂 but I've always been 100% sober on camera. 😇

[@jazzsong8566]

@@OscarUnderdog 🙏🏻

[@MultiMam12345]

Doesn’t understand why people use invert/reverse on midi. Then shows features in random order because he is a a rebel. 😂

[@Wubslin]

Definitely jetlagged

[@Frbrdt]

Good bye modular system :D

[@clown134]

wait- yall dont get lifetime free upgrades? holy shit

[@videosvideos6243]

This is good to start a song but this is too unpredictable once you have an idea of where to take track.

[@OscarUnderdog]

I think I agree with this. Cool pseudo-random thing for generating ideas, but after that you're better off playing in notes intentionally.

[@rainerdietel6511]

A pianists is training hours and hours to play notes as equal as possible, a computer musician is working hard to get the stuff as unequal as a human being. But who is this human being? A trained pianist or nevertheless an ordinary middle class pianist? And why on earth has the pianist to revise over and over again, to play as equal as possible? 😂

[@marcellkovacs5452]

It's a matter of taste, I don't humanize kicks or anything that is a foreground element, but it works well on percussion or random background stuff. But to give you a piano example, I also _love_ the sound of the pedal movement on pianos, so I use libraries which capture that, I don't like sterile pianos.

[@ringofkaren]

AI is the future of everything, learning anything seems pointless

[@OscarUnderdog]

How about thinking of art as a process if self discovery? No AI needed there.

[@livake7771]

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