Way's to use a MIDI keyboard, throw in your idea's.

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
r_kennico
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Way's to use a MIDI keyboard, throw in your idea's.

Post by r_kennico » Tue Feb 14, 2012 3:51 am

Hey, I'm simply looking for multiple ways to use a MIDI keyboard.
Hopefully I will gain a greater understanding of MIDI in the process.

Routing, creative application's for live performance, production etc.

Thanks! Look forward to reading your insight's!

oddstep
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Re: Way's to use a MIDI keyboard, throw in your idea's.

Post by oddstep » Tue Feb 14, 2012 8:22 am

Route same midi to multiple instruments. Use faders to control relative levels. Build up looping midi clips on the fly by switching in and out of recording mode. Map scene or clip launching to notes... Ideally on a separate channel. Use notes to control other parameters.. either toggling between two values or by mapping a range of keys to a parameter that has a range of possible values. The classic is grid size on beat repeat.

regretfullySaid
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Re: Way's to use a MIDI keyboard, throw in your idea's.

Post by regretfullySaid » Tue Feb 14, 2012 7:02 pm

Depending on the number of keys, you can split up the keyboard to have 2 or 3 different instruments sectioned (like bass, lead, pad), and if you can quickly switch through midi channels, then you can have different instrument sets for each midi channel. Even better is just to have instrument racks set up and you can just scroll through the chain selector to go through different instrument setups. This is handy to keep in a template so you already have a variety of your favorite sounds set up to quickly go through.

Also a lot of controllers let you store presets of what the ccs are for knobs, faders and pads, so you could set your whole kb to control Massive, then have a different preset (different cc's and midi channel for example) to control Imposcar, then have a different preset to control the drumrack and its macros, etc.
This is another quick way to switch instruments, just by storing different controller presets. If you can do that with your controller, take advantage of it. Then work on having a startup template with all the main instruments set up.

This way when you start up, you already have a number of devices (different synths, drums, fx) ready to play, they just need to be armed and have the controller preset loaded for whatever device you want to control, just like hardware.
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Tyko
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Re: Way's to use a MIDI keyboard, throw in your idea's.

Post by Tyko » Tue Feb 14, 2012 8:50 pm

Route same midi to multiple instruments.
Really? 8O how? Please elaborate.

oddstep
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Re: Way's to use a MIDI keyboard, throw in your idea's.

Post by oddstep » Tue Feb 14, 2012 10:50 pm

Vimid wrote:
Route same midi to multiple instruments.
Really? 8O how? Please elaborate.
midi track 1. monitoring in.
midi track 2. midi from. midi track 1. monitoring in (or auto with record enabled)
midi track 3. midi from. midi track 1. monitoring in
midi track 4. midi from. midi track 1. monitoring in

or just set the midi froms of the midi tracks to all be the same controller.

gromgrom
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Re: Way's to use a MIDI keyboard, throw in your idea's.

Post by gromgrom » Tue Feb 14, 2012 10:51 pm

Well i someone pisses you off you can always hit them with it. This works well with 49 Keys and more.

edit: if you live in europe, you could use it as a sledge! would probably work better with a workstation...

r_kennico
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Re: Way's to use a MIDI keyboard, throw in your idea's.

Post by r_kennico » Tue Feb 14, 2012 11:01 pm

c'mon, seriously now! lol

oddstep
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Re: Way's to use a MIDI keyboard, throw in your idea's.

Post by oddstep » Tue Feb 14, 2012 11:28 pm

most midi keyboards are so lightweight they'd disintegrate on impact.

Tyko
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Re: Way's to use a MIDI keyboard, throw in your idea's.

Post by Tyko » Wed Feb 15, 2012 3:24 pm

ahh thanks oddstep, that makes sense..


i thought about it after i posed it but would another way be using instrument racks?

Fugazi81
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Re: Way's to use a MIDI keyboard, throw in your idea's.

Post by Fugazi81 » Wed Feb 15, 2012 3:37 pm

oddstep wrote:
Vimid wrote:
Route same midi to multiple instruments.
Really? 8O how? Please elaborate.
midi track 1. monitoring in.
midi track 2. midi from. midi track 1. monitoring in (or auto with record enabled)
midi track 3. midi from. midi track 1. monitoring in
midi track 4. midi from. midi track 1. monitoring in

or just set the midi froms of the midi tracks to all be the same controller.
Or you could use an "Instrument Rack" and put instruments to a "Chain". Then you can play the "instruments" on one "Midi Track".

oddstep
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Re: Way's to use a MIDI keyboard, throw in your idea's.

Post by oddstep » Wed Feb 15, 2012 3:54 pm

racks and chains are good until you want to record a midi pattern for one instrument and leave the rest alone. you could just about do it with chain selectors but...

what I'm doing is playing something live that is a layered pad and bass line and maybe an arp.. fading them in and out of the mix with my right hand, then hitting record on say, the pad ... getting a loop of that and then getting out of record mode and playing something different on the bass and arp. I can't do that with a rack.

edit: usually I use racks instead - what I've described above is a performance thing.

pepezabala
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Re: Way's to use a MIDI keyboard, throw in your idea's.

Post by pepezabala » Wed Feb 15, 2012 4:02 pm

old school ableton trick :

assign an audio clip to a range of midi notes on your keyboard (go into midi assign mode, click on the clip, then press a low note and a high note on your keyboard simultaneously). You can then play the clip at various pitches. Even better when you set the clip into legato mode - you can change the pitch while the clip is looping seamlessly.

pepezabala
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Re: Way's to use a MIDI keyboard, throw in your idea's.

Post by pepezabala » Wed Feb 15, 2012 4:06 pm

another really old school keyboard-trick: take a piece of cardboard and stick it between two keys so one keeps down and you get that eternal midi note for tweaking away all those parameters on your synth with both hands. Some people use scotchtape (or gaffa-tape for clusters).

pepezabala
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Re: Way's to use a MIDI keyboard, throw in your idea's.

Post by pepezabala » Wed Feb 15, 2012 4:07 pm

and the last one for today: use the scale-device to avoid "wrong" notes and pretend you never hit a wrong note while twiddling like crazy on the keyboard with eyes closed. Geeky fakists go even further and use the schwarzonator.

oddstep
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Re: Way's to use a MIDI keyboard, throw in your idea's.

Post by oddstep » Wed Feb 15, 2012 4:20 pm

pepezabala wrote:another really old school keyboard-trick: take a piece of cardboard and stick it between two keys so one keeps down and you get that eternal midi note for tweaking away all those parameters on your synth with both hands. Some people use scotchtape (or gaffa-tape for clusters).
aah, those were the days... I used to use readily to hand bits of rizla packets or cigarette packets. I got the idea from watching Sonic Boom do it to a farfisa so he could use both hands to mess around with a phaser.

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