MIDI Effects

How MIDI Effects Work

MIDI effects sit before the instrument in a track’s device chain. They don’t process audio — they transform MIDI data. A single note goes in; a chord comes out. A held chord goes in; an arpeggiated sequence comes out. The instrument downstream receives the transformed MIDI and plays it as though you’d performed it yourself.

This means MIDI effects are:

• Non-destructive — Your original MIDI clip is unchanged. The effect processes notes in real-time.
• Stackable — Chain multiple MIDI effects together. The output of one feeds the input of the next.
• Order-dependent — A Chord effect before an Arpeggiator produces a very different result than an Arpeggiator before a Chord effect. Experiment with the order.

Load MIDI effects from the Browser under the MIDI Effects folder. Drag them onto a MIDI or Instrument track, and they’ll slot in before the instrument automatically.

Chord

The Chord device builds chords from single notes. Play one key; hear up to six additional notes stacked on top of it. Each of the six Shift knobs sets the interval — in semitones — between the incoming note and the added note.

Building Common Chords

Since the Chord device works in semitones (not scale degrees), you need to count the half-steps:

• Major triad: Shift 1 = +4, Shift 2 = +7
• Minor triad: Shift 1 = +3, Shift 2 = +7
• Major 7th: Shift 1 = +4, Shift 2 = +7, Shift 3 = +11
• Minor 7th: Shift 1 = +3, Shift 2 = +7, Shift 3 = +10
• Octave doubling: Shift 1 = +12 (or -12 for an octave below)

The Chord device doesn’t know what key you’re in — it applies the same interval structure to every note. This is both its strength (instant transposition) and its limitation (not every chord will be diatonic). That’s where the Scale device comes in.

Creative Uses

• Thickness: Stack octaves (+12, -12) to fatten a thin lead sound.
• Power chords: +7 gives you a perfect fifth — instant rock.
• Wide voicings: Use large intervals (+12, +19, +24) for cinematic, spread-out harmonies.

Scale

The Scale device forces incoming notes into a specific scale. Every note you play gets mapped to the nearest note within the scale. Hit a wrong note? Scale catches it and nudges it to the nearest right one.

How It Works

Scale presents a grid: 12 input notes (the rows) mapped to 12 output notes (the columns). For each input pitch class (C, C#, D, etc.), you tell Live what output pitch it should become. The Base knob sets the root of the scale.

In practice, you almost never program this grid by hand. Live ships with presets for every common scale: Major, Natural Minor, Harmonic Minor, Melodic Minor, Dorian, Mixolydian, Pentatonic, and more. Load a preset, set the Base to your song’s key, and you’re done.

When to Use Scale

• Safety net — Put Scale before any instrument when you want to guarantee that every note you play is in key. Especially useful when improvising or performing live.
• Creative reharmonization — Drop one of the exotic presets (Whole Tone, Hungarian Minor, Blues) onto an existing MIDI phrase. The melody is instantly reinterpreted in a different harmonic context.
• After a Chord device — Since Chord doesn’t know your key, some of the generated notes may fall outside the scale. Place Scale after Chord to catch the strays and pull them back in key.

Additional Parameters

• Transpose — Shifts all output notes up or down by a set number of semitones. Unlike the Base knob, this doesn’t change the root — it shifts the entire output.
• Fold — If a mapped note would land more than six semitones from the original, Fold brings it down an octave to keep it close.
• Range / Lowest — Restricts which notes are affected. Notes outside the range pass through unmodified.

Arpeggiator

The Arpeggiator takes held notes — a chord, a single note, whatever you’re pressing — and plays them back as a rhythmic sequence. Hold a C minor chord and the Arpeggiator cycles through C, Eb, G in a pattern determined by the settings.

Key Parameters

• Style — How the notes cycle: Up, Down, Up/Down, Random, Converge, Diverge, and more. Each style gives a dramatically different feel. Up is the classic synth arp. Random is chaos. Converge plays from the outside of the chord inward.
• Rate — How fast the notes cycle, synced to tempo. 1/8 is a standard arp feel; 1/16 is busier; 1/4 is stately.
• Gate — How long each note sustains as a percentage of the rate. 100% means each note lasts the full step. 50% creates staccato. 200% means notes overlap.
• Steps — How many octaves the arp spans. Set to 1 for a single-octave cycle, 2 or 3 to sweep up and down across octaves.
• Offset — Shifts the starting point of the arp pattern.
• Velocity — Controls whether the arp uses a fixed velocity, the velocity of your input, or a decaying pattern.

Creative Uses

• Duplicate a MIDI track that has a sustained chord progression. Add an Arpeggiator to the duplicate. Now you have the original pad plus an arpeggiated version playing simultaneously.
• Chain Chord → Arpeggiator → Scale to turn a single note into a full, in-key arpeggiated chord sequence. One finger, maximum output.
• Use very fast rates (1/32) for trance-style arpeggios, or very slow rates (1/2, 1/1) for evolving ambient textures.

Pitch

Simple and essential. The Pitch device transposes all incoming notes up or down by a set number of semitones (up to 128 in either direction). It also has a Range control that lets you restrict which notes are affected.

When to Use Pitch

• Quick transposition — Shift an entire MIDI clip up or down an octave without editing notes. Drop a Pitch device on, set it to +12 or -12.
• Keyboard splitting — Use the Range controls to only transpose notes in a specific region. This lets you play one instrument in the lower octaves and a transposed version in the upper octaves — all on the same track.
• Parallel harmony — Duplicate a melody track, add a Pitch device set to +7 (a perfect fifth up). Instant harmonization. Add a Scale device after it to keep everything diatonic.

Note Length

The Note Length device overrides how long notes last. It can be set to a fixed time value — ensuring every note is exactly one sixteenth, one eighth, or whatever you specify — regardless of how long you actually hold the key.

Key Modes

• Time mode — Sets a fixed note length. Every incoming note is trimmed or extended to the specified duration.
• Sync mode — Sets note length relative to the tempo grid. A note length of “1/16” means every note becomes exactly one sixteenth note long.

When to Use Note Length

• Cleaning up sloppy playing — If your 16th-note hi-hat pattern has notes that are too long or uneven, Note Length snaps them all to a uniform duration.
• Staccato effects — Set a very short note length to create tight, percussive playing from legato input.
• Gate control for Arpeggiator — Place Note Length before an Arpeggiator to control the input gate, or after to shape the arp’s output.

Random

The Random device adds unpredictability to note pitch. Each incoming note has a chance of being transposed by a random amount.

Key Parameters

• Chance — The probability (0–100%) that any given note will be altered. At 0%, nothing changes. At 100%, every note is affected.
• Choices — How many possible random values the device picks from.
• Scale — The range of the random transposition, in semitones.
• Sign — Whether the transposition can go up, down, or both.

When to Use Random

Random is not for melodies — it makes a mess of them. But for percussion and sound design, it’s a gem:

• Add subtle pitch variation to a hi-hat pattern for a more human feel (low Chance, small Scale).
• Create unpredictable, generative percussion sequences (high Chance, moderate Scale).
• Pair with the Scale device to keep random variations in key.

Velocity

The Velocity device remaps the 127 MIDI velocity values. It can compress, expand, randomize, or completely override the velocity of incoming notes.

Key Parameters

• Out Low / Out High — Define the output velocity range. All incoming velocities are scaled to fit between these two values. Set both to the same number for a fixed velocity.
• Drive — Adds a curve to the velocity mapping. Positive values emphasize louder notes; negative values emphasize softer ones.
• Compand — Compresses or expands the velocity range around the midpoint.
• Random — Adds a random offset to each note’s velocity.
• Operation — Choose whether the device affects Note On, Note Off, or both.

When to Use Velocity

• Evening out dynamics — Narrow the Out Low/Out High range to make all notes closer to the same volume. Useful for synth parts that shouldn’t have much dynamic variation.
• Humanizing — Add a small Random amount to quantized, robotic-sounding parts.
• Fixed velocity — Set Out Low and Out High to the same value (e.g., 100) for drums that need consistent level.

Chaining MIDI Effects

The real power of MIDI effects reveals itself when you chain them together. The order matters — dramatically. Here’s a classic chain:

Chord → Arpeggiator → Scale

1. You play a single note (C).
2. Chord turns it into a triad (C, E, G — a major chord).
3. Arpeggiator breaks the chord into a rhythmic sequence (C, E, G, C, E, G…).
4. Scale (set to C minor) catches the E and nudges it to Eb. Now your arpeggio is in key.

Another useful chain:

Pitch → Chord → Velocity

1. Pitch transposes your input up an octave.
2. Chord adds a fifth and an octave below.
3. Velocity compresses the dynamics so everything sits evenly.

Pro tip: To see the actual MIDI data that your effect chain produces, create a second MIDI track and set its MIDI From input to the track with the effects. Arm the second track and record. The resulting MIDI clip shows every note the effects generated — useful for fine-tuning or for capturing a happy accident.

Keyboard Shortcuts