Ableton Forum

I use Ableton to sequence the drums on my EMX-1. Each drum is assigned to a specific note and i currently sequence the EMX-1 with MIDI clip loops. I want to be able to mute a specific note/drum while the sequence continues just without playing the muted note/drum.

Can anyone help me out with how to do this and if there is a better way to sequence my drums?

1)how does it work routing a drum rack to an external instrument? drum racks have this sort of muting
2)you could make a midi rack with a single layer for each midi note you're using, the mute buttons could then be mapped to a controller.

How about a MIDI FX rack with one chain for each note you care about? You don't even need any FX at the end of the chains: Put any effect there to create the chain, and then delete it.

Then you can mute whichever chains you want to turn off.

If you don't need to do it instantly and don't mind a bit of clicking around, you can go into your Clip's piano roll, select the note(s) you want to mute, right click and select "Disable Note(s)". You can mute all occurrences of a note in a clip by right clicking it on the leftmost piano display in the piano roll and disabling them from there.

oddstep - when i put a drum rack in the track it seems that the mute button doesn't turn up until something is placed in the pad (ie: a sample). Is there a way to make bring up the mute button without loading the pad with something and still get it to send the specific MIDI note when sequenced by a MIDI clip? I just thought of the possible solution of loading an empty sample in the pad, will this work?

ark - can you be clarify how to set this up?

rbmonosylanik - I need the mutes to be instant. I plan on using Ruso's MIDITRIBE application to allow my use of the part mute buttons on the EMX-1 to mute sequenced notes. As such the physical act muting notes is going to take place on my hardware not from within ableton.

use a scale plug default preset in the chain, and simply click the notes "off" that you want to mute.

Blankman8503 wrote:ark - can you be clarify how to set this up?

In your Live library, look in the "MIDI Effects" folder for "MIDI Effect Rack" and drag that to a MIDI track. You now have something that takes MIDI in and puts MIDI out, and you can transform the MIDI as you wish along the way.

Now drag, say, a Pitch effect to where it says "Drop MIDI Effects Here." Do it a few times if you like. You now have a MIDI effect rack with several chains, each of which can be set to respond to specific ranges of notes. You can delete the Pitch effects if you like, and the chains remain.

Before I came to the form I tried everything mentioned here, but I am not able to produce a "MIDI mute" of selected notes either. I am playing on v-drums and like to layer kits with bells but I want on/off control over bell layers/notes on my snare and kick. I hardly ever use them on the hat but I still need my HH MIDI data.

Would some kind of MIDI Fx Rack with MIDI Velocity devices (set to a vel=0) for unwanted notes? I am NOT referring to the VEL tab found in chains for layering, fyi.

Is there a 3rd party VST for "MIDI mute"?

On the APC series videos by NativeKontrol, he does a note muting thing. I'm not 100% but ClyphX might do this. There is fer sure some way to alter, or create a midi remote script that would give you the exact funtionality you want. Max for Live can certianly to this and there are a few devices at maxforlive.com that already do.

However, there are a few tricks with Racks that have been mentioned that will work too, you just have to play around and get a better understanding of Racks to achieve it. Once you get it working with Racks you'll have learned how great racks can be for Live trickery.

For the bells trick (or same with open and closed hi hats), you can set up both pads on the drum rack to be a part of the same choke group.

Edit: Nevermind, I read again and realize this is not what is wanted.

edgessey wrote:For the bells trick (or same with open and closed hi hats), you can set up both pads on the drum rack to be a part of the same choke group.

Edit: Nevermind, I read again and realize this is not what is wanted.

In any case, I doubt OP was waiting for this solution for three years

You can put external instrument plugs on individual pads on a drum rack to send the MIDI out (remember to set them to channel 10). They will send to that drum only and you can mute or solo them in the rack. It would be nice if you could MIDI or key control the mutes in a rack - it seems you can't but IIRC with an EMX you have separate returns so as an alternative you can set up buttons or keys to control the gain on the ext inst audio returns to toggle between 0 and whatever volume you want.

There is also a M4L plug that will name the keys in the piano roll after the GM drum map (you can edit out the ones that aren't on your EMX).


This is how I have my Volca Beats set up (except I only have one return so I have an extra ext inst on a spare pad to handle the audio in). I also use the free Monolake 8cc plugins so I can control it from a MIDI controller with bigger knobs or automate the controls easily. I have the whole setup saved as a rack so I can use it in any project.

I think this is the kind of thing you want.