Ableton Forum

Hi,

Im not much of a keyboard player so draw my entries into Ableton.

Anyone tell me how I draw in my aftertouch?

Many thanks

kolakube wrote:Hi,

Im not much of a keyboard player so draw my entries into Ableton.

Anyone tell me how I draw in my aftertouch?

Many thanks

You mean pressure or aftertouch?

Open the midi envelope editor of the clip and draw it, simple as that.

Am I missing something here??? As far as i am aware Live doesn't recognise aftertouch????

lazyriverzz wrote:Am I missing something here??? As far as i am aware Live doesn't recognise aftertouch????

Pressure. We're talking about pressure.

There's a difference??????

In Live's it's called Channel Pressure (there is no support for polyphonic after touch)

You can automate it via a clip envelope, as LeifonMars suggested, but you can't access it via arrangement automation.

...there is no support for polyphonic after touch

...which is a shame and actually most amazing!
I mean: MIDI is MIDI is just MIDI!!! They just throw away almost a third of all possible MIDI-messages for no apparent reason.
Well, maybe the Abes are so frightened their engine may brake down by eventually heavy bombardment of poly-keypressure-events, they say: please stay out, no entrance here!
But hey: we have 2011! Computers have evolved, what is maybe 50 MIDI-events per second if you have multi multi-gigahertz processors!!

(...and not to speak of other shortcomings, did someone say mousewheel?)

It's much more of a ball-ache to me dude.... I bought Symphonic Choirs AND an extra keyboard that has aftertouch just use it.... But Live said NO...!!!!

dr_loop wrote:

...there is no support for polyphonic after touch

...which is a shame and actually most amazing!
I mean: MIDI is MIDI is just MIDI!!! They just throw away almost a third of all possible MIDI-messages for no apparent reason.
Well, maybe the Abes are so frightened their engine may brake down by eventually heavy bombardment of poly-keypressure-events, they say: please stay out, no entrance here!
But hey: we have 2011! Computers have evolved, what is maybe 50 MIDI-events per second if you have multi multi-gigahertz processors!!

(...and not to speak of other shortcomings, did someone say mousewheel?)

I suppose the problem is that they would have to make a special user interface just for editing poly aftertouch - or else have a separate clip envelope for every note.

There is also a problem with after touch in general when it comes to Ableton's way of assigning remote controls. eg click the parameter you want to program and then move the control that you want to assign to it. How can you send an AT message without first sending a note on? You would have to press a key, then select the paraneter with the mouse while still holding the key and then press down harder to generate an AT message.

lazyriverzz wrote:It's much more of a ball-ache to me dude.... I bought Symphonic Choirs AND an extra keyboard that has aftertouch just use it.... But Live said NO...!!!!

Yeah, it sucks.

Crumhorn wrote:
There is also a problem with after touch in general when it comes to Ableton's way of assigning remote controls. eg click the parameter you want to program and then move the control that you want to assign to it. How can you send an AT message without first sending a note on? You would have to press a key, then select the paraneter with the mouse while still holding the key and then press down harder to generate an AT message.

... i agree, the complexity of a program like Live is beyond my imagination, 'rocket science' must be easy by comparison.
But this one can't be that hard (pseudocode):

if *Current* MIDI-Msg = PolyKey AND *Previous* MIDI-Msg was NoteON then use Current instead of Previous

(looks manageble to me)

dr_loop wrote:if *Current* MIDI-Msg = PolyKey AND *Previous* MIDI-Msg was NoteON then use Current instead of Previous

The poly aftertouch message already includes the note number because it can arrive at any time relative to other notes going on and off.

There's very few keyboards that can send it (although it was standard on most Ensoniq boards as far back as 1988) and drawing it by hand is like brain surgery. Using it can clog up the MIDI pipeline...try using it on a ten note cluster

Ah right, so eve though it has been called after touch world wide since the 80s its now called pressure by ableton :]

Thanks for pointing this out. Id be looking for ages otherwise.


Appreciated.

To be fair to Ableton I think mono after touch was called channel pressure in the original MIDI specification - it all in here -> http://www.midi.org/techspecs/midimessages.php

dr_loop wrote:if *Current* MIDI-Msg = PolyKey AND *Previous* MIDI-Msg was NoteON then use Current instead of Previous

Good thinking! but you need to add a time window in case you actually intended to assign a parameter to Note ON. And then you'd have to be careful not to accidentally send after touch, which can be quite tricky on some keyboards.

@ Lifeonmars

Open the midi envelope editor of the clip and draw it, simple as that.

Not that simple, for me anyhow.

Where do I draw what mate? I have got three options 1 Pitch bend, 2 volume and 3 pan.

Cant find pressure anywhere or have I misunderstood you?