This is just so cool! And it’s so easy it almost doesn’t warrant an entire chapter. But being able to sing, beat-box, or record your instrument and have Live turn that into a MID rendition of your performance is just so super-fun that it deserves a place of it’s own.
First, watch this:
What Just Happened?! I recorded myself singing some beeps and boops. I right-clicked on the clip. I told Live to convert the recording of my voice into MIDI.
…It did.
Live handles the audio to MIDI conversion easily and elegantly. There are times you may need to preemptively clean up what you ask Live to convert, but for the most part, it just seems to work. Don’t be surprised if you find you have to change a thing or two in the resultant MIDI clip, but this is really not a big deal. Depending on the kind of audio you decide to throw at it, Live has three modes to choose from. You saw them above:
- Convert Melody to New MIDI Track
- Convert Harmony to New MIDI Track
- Convert Drums to New MIDI Track
These are somewhat self-explanatory, but in brief, we are telling Live what kind of material to expect. Consequently, Live is creating an instrument to place the generated MIDI clip. It should go without saying that this instrument is just a starting place and may be swapped out at will.
Melody
This is intended for single-line, monophonic, melodic recordings — in other words: vocals, bass, saxophone, whistle, etc. The new MIDI clip shows up (folded) and played through a specialized preset instrument (a non-editable instance of the Electric instrument included in Live Suite Edition). It lets you adjust the sound between a synth and an electric piano. But let’s be honest. It’s just for convenience. The sound will almost certainly be changed to something else.
Harmony
This mode is intended for polyphonic material. That means things instruments that play more than one note at a time: piano, guitar, a string section — anything that plays chords. The instrument that Live creates is the same placeholder that it creates with the Convert Melody to New MIDI Track function.
Drums
This mode is intended for drums. Although similar to the popular Slicing feature (Slicing Samples), in this instance, Live is going to make its best guess as to which sound is a kick drum, which sound is a snare drum, and which sound is a hi hat. Use this to approximate a beat by ‘beat-boxing’ and then convert it. Use this feature to replace the snare drum from an existing recording or to turn a drumlooop recording into a new MIDI clip with a different instrument.
When executed, Live creates a clip played through a new Drumrack instrument, preloaded with preset drum samples. Again, this should be considered a placeholder.
If you are looking to chop your existing recording onto pads that you can play, that’s something different. In this case you are looking for Slicing. And that’s what we are talking about next!
Search This Guide
This Course
- Welcome!
- Workflow and Glossary
- 1. An Overview of Live
- 2. Topology and Navigation Basics
- 3. Getting Stuff In There
- 4. Playback: Session, Scenes, and Arrangement
- 5. Recording Basics
- 6. Recording: Punching, Overdubs, and Looping
- 7. Clip Editing: The Basics
- 8. Warping
- 9. Quantize and Groove: Finessing Performances
- 10. Housekeeping
- 11. Instrument Basics
- 12. Synthesis
- 13. Sampling
- 14. Plug-in Basics
- 15. Racks and Chains
- 16. Audio to MIDI
- 17. Slicing Samples
- 18. Working With Effects
- 19. Effects: Specialized
- 20. MIDI Mapping, Key-Mapping, and Controllers
- 21. Automation and Advanced Arrangement Concepts
- 22. Advanced Session
- 23. MIDI Effects
- 24. Live Performance
- 27. Sources and Further Reading
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