Ableton Forum

kent_sandvik wrote:Maybe it's time for us humans to play again instead of having all kinds of cheat tools to do things.

The art world once thought photography was 'cheating' too...
Anything that can facilitate people being able to create is a good thing as far as I am concerned. This feature also may be of benefit to individuals with disabilities that interfere with them being able to 'play' traditional instruments.
Lets think positively about these things!

Photography is an excellent example where the art form is very much no longer a personal art, no personal touch unless you are a *really* good photographer that actually bypasses all the auto setting and spend time composing.

Anyway, I applaud if someone gets help from tools writing melodies and they don't have the know-how to play instruments. But for us musicians to cheat and not use our fingers and talents and use such tools, sorry no fan.

yer chin up pencil. although to your defence the proof is in the pudding to how well the feature works. Vari audio in cubase works ok but after all the editing you have to do on the resulting midi the feel you were looking for has all gone. melodyne is better but the feel that you had in the audio signal doesnt seem to translate. If ableton can make something that really works then folks we are certainly rocking.<vent> On the other hand if it dont then my concern is that live does not go down the avenue of sonar that has all the ritz that works on their demonstration videos but a piece of shit otherwise. Thank God it was only $250 nz that i sunk into that piece of #%@&## </vent>



Ableton have managed to keep things simple. I hope that remains their strength.

funken wrote:I'm sure people have discussed this somewhere and will do again, but I was just watching the video by Rob Jones at producer Tech demonstrating it and it looks wicked! I've already got a basic audio to midi but never used it much. This one can cope with pretty much anything, including drums, so if you've not seen the video, here it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... hd2eFNM8vU

I agree with you Funken

The whole idea of audio to midi feature ,is another great creative tool,that helps you out of a rut,when youre stuck for ideas to

I like the idea of using a drum sound,and converting it into useable midi.There are going to be a lot of uses for these new features,Im sure of it

Thank funken, I work as a health professional so am reminded every day that there are people who do not have the benefit of what we think of as a fully functional physiology. Most of these individuals are incredibly inspiring to me, they rarely complain about their lot and find amazingly inventive ways to overcome any obstacles life has put in their way.

Ignoring the other aspects of audio to midi for the moment, the voice is regarded as an instrument in its own right. As well as the incredibly useful ability to get 'sound sketches' down quickly and translate them to other instrumentation easily, why shouldn't individuals be able to use their instrument (the voice) as a starting point for other sounds if the technology is available?
Its very exciting and I think (if it works well) it will be a brilliant tool.

I can play keyboard, but any tool that'll make me squeeze out a good tune without experimenting, practising and perfecting ramming a riff on keys for hours is a good thing in my eyes. After all, it's the result I care about, not improving my mad keyboard skillz. Otherwise I'd play in a band or something.

I do wonder how well it works in 'real world scenarios' though. The stuff you see in the demo videos are always well rehearsed and prepared, I hope it works as advertised outside these controlled conditions too. I'm also interested to see how it picks up stuff like tremolo or glissando - although I doubt it'll support that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhd2eFNM8vU

In this video, you can see more of the audio-to-MIDI function in action. You'll see that he processes a Rhodes loop in which the tremolo effect is ignored. But it does appear to capture velocity information, which is good. I'm guessing that pitch-bend information will also be ignored. This is because even slight deviations from standard tuning can cause lots of pitch-bend information to be created. This is the case with MIDI guitar processors, unless you turn it off entirely. Judging from that video, it seems that those slight pitch-bends in the flute loop are interpreted as separate notes. I imagine that this is because the audio-to-MIDI function utilises transient detection, so it probably bases its pitch detection upon each transient. That's my guess anyway.

gp23 wrote: Judging from that video, it seems that those slight pitch-bends in the flute loop are interpreted as separate notes. I imagine that this is because the audio-to-MIDI function utilises transient detection, so it probably bases its pitch detection upon each transient.

Hmm, but that would work pretty well with glissando - you just take the start note and end note, remove the notes in between and make the start note overlay over the second with a portamento-enabled patch

Napole0n wrote:

gp23 wrote: Judging from that video, it seems that those slight pitch-bends in the flute loop are interpreted as separate notes. I imagine that this is because the audio-to-MIDI function utilises transient detection, so it probably bases its pitch detection upon each transient.

Hmm, but that would work pretty well with glissando - you just take the start note and end note, remove the notes in between and make the start note overlay over the second with a portamento-enabled patch

Good point. I'm used to MIDI guitar and dealing with its idiosyncrasies. Things like string bends and hammer-ons are interpreted into MIDI as pitch-bend data, which can sometimes be a bit of a pain to edit satisfactorily, because what you see in the piano roll doesn't always match what you are hearing. But the upside is that those subtle pitch variations can add a pleasing 'analogue' feel to some stiff digital sequences.

funken wrote: Cheers. I did a thread on accessibility and Live users with disabilities or injuries, you might wanna find that. Also, have a google for Leap Motion, that looks very interesting. You control your computer by pointing your finger at it! And it's only $79 or something. We just need someone to write an app for Live.

I'll look that thread up, thanks! Leap Motion? put my details down for one back in May of this year. Looking forward to getting my hands on one when they come out (soon I hope) I think M4L will come in handy for writing apps to use the Leap, I'm anticipating a few users of Live and Leap coming up with some cool stuff. Maybe not me yet though, I still have to find time to learn some Max. (Maybe I should stop spending time on online forums!!) ha...

I like the idea of anything that will potentially speed up the process of getting the ideas from my head > reality in as few steps as possible . I think everyone has probably had the experience of getting a great riff in your head, then losing it as soon as you try to knock it out on an instrument and start on/hit a wrong note. I've always kept a mic to an audio track right in front of me when producing to do basically this trick. I just record the audio line of me singing/humming/whistling, then hammer out the midi by hand, so this is literally just one less step in that process.

I am pretty sure that using audio to MIDI technology is still a copyright infringement, but harder to identify

dysanfel wrote:I am pretty sure that using audio to MIDI technology is still a copyright infringement, but harder to identify

Yea Ableton ripped chord directly from a recording of Bill Evance's live in their preview event.... I hope its copyright has already expired.

Wow, if you can copyright a chord, then we're all in serious trouble!

Seriously, people get too hung up about copyright issues. The idea that someone can own a combination of frequencies in sequence is a bit ridiculous when you think about it.

Notes and chords are notes and chords. Doesn't matter if you obtained them by converting audio to MIDI or you played them in, the results are the same. OK, if you rip off an entire piece of music, then that's patently illegal - not to mention artistically redundant - but just acquiring a few chords is hardly major copyright theft! Anyway, if you have any kind of creative impulse, you'd transpose them or change the timing to put your own stamp on it.

Music copyright only benefits the songwriter anyway -- melody & lyrics -- the producer has always been fucked over, so I don't know what the problem is.

It's not like I'm gonna whistle "Nights in White Satin" into my DAW

In fact, this should HELP us with samples/copyrights.

i.e. You like that bassline sample? Opps the recording is copyrighted by the label... so just convert to midi and use your own sound patch and record it yourself.

Producers have been re-recording their selected samples since the 90's when they found out they earn jack-shit from their musicial creations...

Bitter Sweet Symphony anyone?