Converting MIDI to Audio

[tommytinker]

Hi

Is there a quik and easy way within live to convert midi to audio. Got my whole thing arranged and its still midi, would prefer it to be standard audio parts.

Thanks

[tlennon]

You can freeze the track or route the Midi track to an audio track and bounce it down. Freeze track is the easiest and fastest.

[tommytinker]

And what does that actually do?

cheers

[tlennon]

Freezing creates an audio file from your Midi track. Please see the PDF documentation for a in depth description.

[buzby]

you ll have to freeze the track and then drag the midi clip in the frozen track into an empty audio track to create an audio file

or freeze and then right click on the track title bar and choose "flatten" from the drop down menu - this will create an audio file

[buzby]

to elaborate

by freezing and either dragging the midi clip to an audio track or freezing and flattening - you ll be able to see the audio file within your live set

if you just freeze the track then you will find an audio file in your ableton project folder/sample/processed/freeze

[outershpongolia]

holy shit tlennon posted outside of the Link Your Music!

Just haven't seen that b4, welcome to this side of the forums! jkjk

[longjohns]

there's a link your music forum?

[tlennon]

I've just been busted!

[outershpongolia]

there's a link your music forum?

aka tlennon space.. do I detect some sarcasm?

I've just been busted!

Well shit, you do so much helpful critiquing over there I couldn't ask for more, and your still down to help with tech stuff, do it up my man.

[darkenedsoul]

So Freeze and Flatten creates x bars of an audio clip (and will loop properly)? I forgot about that as it would make recording passe IMHO for me and make my life a lot easier. I totally forgot about that. This way I can bang out a bunch of MIDI progressions and have the audio for me that much quicker. Then it's on to arrangement for popping them into place and finishing things off. Thanks for reminding me! Doh!

Mike

[longjohns]

yeah

i reckon most flattened clips will be 2x length, for looping reasons

[darkenedsoul]

Hmm, I hope not. I don't need it doubling the length of the clip for looping reasons. I will test this out in the morning to see if it is the # of bars I have drawn out or if it plays longer...hopefully it won't.

Mike

[buzby]

i reckon most flattened clips will be 2x length, for looping reasons

unless you take the loop off the sample then they wont be doubled but im not sure how this changes things if you have effects on the track

cant remember exactly but i think if you have effects on the track then the loop is doubled cos the effects are only applied to the doubled or second half of the newly made, flattened file

hope that makes sense

[darkenedsoul]

i reckon most flattened clips will be 2x length, for looping reasons

unless you take the loop off the sample then they wont be doubled but im not sure how this changes things if you have effects on the track

cant remember exactly but i think if you have effects on the track then the loop is doubled cos the effects are only applied to the doubled or second half of the newly made, flattened file

hope that makes sense

Hi, Ok. This is what I did and I'm not too happy about it:
1) Freeze the track (forgot to highlight both...doh!)
2) Flatten track

What I originally had was 2 midi tracks, 1 with percussion (drum rack I think as that's what the name shows) and 1 with strings. All 4 clips were 8 bars long to keep everything at the same length.

What happened: The audio tracks were 16 bars long and the loop brace was on the last 8 bars and not entire clip.

what I don't like that happened was my MIDI tracks are now gone meaning I can't go back and edit these again to modify the progression(s). I would have expected Live to leave them alone and create the audio tracks as well. Is this the normal behavior of doing it this way? If so then I will have to save off the MIDI clips elsewhere. I am none too happy about finding out about this with the caveat that now that I know I'll have to export any/all MIDI clips before doing this and consider halving the clips since I know they'll be doubled. This isn't a problem if the progression is small (4 bars that is a duplicate of 2 bars).

Is there a way that Live will *keep* the MIDI clips when doing freeze/flatten?

And on another note, clips that go almost to the very end, i.e. 1 note left end in 1/32nd view in grid) leaves noticable dropout/sound at end of the audio clip. This isn't good if there is silence. The cymbal sound gets sort of cut off. In the strings there is more distance to end of the clip (like 2 1/32nds) for one of the clips, the other has noticeable dropout.

Mike