Ableton Forum

This feature was requested a few times probably - but a scale/key mode in the MIDI-editor would be such a great thing. A simple dropdown-menu w/ the most common scales. Keys that aren‘t in that specific scale get „invisible“ (was looking for another word ) ; otherwise the scale could be highlighted.
Drawing in chords/melodies without worrying about being in the scale would be such a relief for music theory beginners like me.

I know there‘s a scale-effect, but it‘s not really useful if you want to draw in your notes . And putting the scale‘s notes in to the negative timeline and folding it is a workflow-killer, imo.

Ain’t nobody got time for music theory lol


Have a great evening, lads!

+1

You can do a workaround by drawing in all notes of a scale in one beat and then selecting the Fold button. Easiest way is to draw notes on only the white keys, which is C major / A minor. To generate a different scale select all the notes and move them up or down to line up with the starting point of the new scale. For example, to have E major, shift the notes up so that the notes that were on C are now on E. For F minor, shift the notes down so the notes that were on A are now on F. Basically, paint in the white keys and you can make any major or minor scale by shifting the notes based on C as the starting point for major and A as the starting point for minor.

So this works, but... if you have an accidental anywhere, any note that is not in key, then the folding gets messed up. This needs a more elegant built-in solution so that we don’t need to muck around with drawing notes and folding.

InfluencaMusic wrote: ↑

Wed May 08, 2019 9:38 pm

And putting the scale‘s notes in to the negative timeline and folding it is a workflow-killer, imo.

Oops, just noticed you already referred to the method I described. Anyway, I completely agree with the need for this feature!

I've created a simple tool that automatically places "ghost notes" in the selected MIDI clip. You can use one of the 39 included scales or roll your own. You can trigger the ghost notes via keyboard shortcut or assigned MIDI, then click the fold button in the MIDI clip to only display those notes. More info here - http://tetmusic.com/scale_fold_features.html.