Ableton Forum

just wondering if there is a max for live device out there that does something like after you hit a note down and activate it it holds your chord down indefinitely. anyone know of anything like that? kinda like a hold function

You mean like a sustain pedal? I think it's CC64

i want something like a sustain pedal, but only for the certain notes, like i would like to hold down a chord, have the chord hold/freeze/sustain indefinitely, and then be able to play notes on top of that without having the new notes hold/sustain/freeze

hmmm, chinscratcher....

Might look into that tonight.

A midi mappable toggle or momentary button that would hold notes that are either currently playing or held down, and only those notes....

If I wanted something like that I'd probably prefer to just have one device to stick somewhere to set-&-forget than deal with having multiple ones in certain tracks...
and then be able to choose which midi activity or channel to choose from...

yea its for performance- if you hit a nice chord that sounds nice you could have it stretch out infinitely and play some melodies on top. kinda simple, but nothing that really permits this to do easily, i believe a hold/sustain pedal will hold and sustain every note played while engaged. this would just be momentary

yeah, it makes sense; another thought is what if you had another midi track dedicated to the chord you wanted to sustain? Then you could use a sustain pedal just for that chord...
you can always send that midi to another track...

For ease of use and programming I would go with a multiple track approach for sure.
Have the chord playing instrument on one track and the melody playing instrument on another track. Do keyboard splits if you'd like.
You could automate this with a midi effect. It could grab and hold notes for a defined amount of time (200 ms?) and then the next note on after that would kill all previous notes, and start holding the notes for the next defined amount of time.

Buts that's just me spitballing.

I suppose you could always get an actual pedal like the EHX Freeze (I have one & they are pretty cool) and pop it in an external audio effects chain? That way you can use it with other stuff away from the computer too.

Was just thinking if it was all coming from one controller then it makes it more complicated; 2 controllers would make it a lot easier.

hold a chord down- then press a button/pad on a midi controller, and its frozen. then you can free a hand up and continue playing... not too difficult i would imagine?

it's always going to sound simpler than it is, but for one, imagine if you're holding a chord and then playing on top of it, and you hit a same note as one that's sustaining. the device needs to be able to keep a note sustained while having the same note turn off as usual.

that may not be a big deal when you get to programming it, but it's an example of something that may be unexpected you come across when you think you're making a 'simple' device.

i found a "latch" plugin that almost works this way however when it is engaged all the following notes are held indefinitely

Just to be clear before I dive into this, you'd like a midi sustain, not an audio freeze. Correct?

right just a button for an indefinite midi sustain for whatever chord is being held (but only that chord) when the the effect is engaged and then- another press of a button would release the chord.

Got it. I'll try to whip something up.