25 Live MIDI Effect Reference

Live comes with a selection of custom-designed, built-in MIDI effects. The Working
with Instruments and Effects chapter (see ‘Working with Instruments and Effects’)
explains the basics of using effects in Live.

25.1 Arpeggiator

The Arpeggiator Effect.

Live’s Arpeggiator effect takes the individual MIDI notes from a held chord (or single
note), and plays them as a rhythmical pattern. The sequence and speed of the pattern
can be controlled by the device, which also provides a full complement of both classic
and original arpeggiator features.

Arpeggiators are a classic element in Eighties synth music. The name originates with
the musical concept of the “arpeggio,“ in which the notes comprising a chord are
played as a series rather than in unison. “Arpeggio“ is derived from the Italian word
“arpeggiare,“ which refers to playing notes on a harp.

25.1.1 Style and Rate Sections

Arpeggiator’s Style chooser determines the sequence of notes in the rhythmical
pattern.

“Up“ and “Down“.

 “UpDown“ and “DownUp“.

“Down & Up“ and “Up & Down“.

“Converge“ and “Diverge“.

“Con & Diverge“.

“Pinky Up“ and “Pinky UpDown“.

“Thumb Up“ and “Thumb UpDown“.

Play Order places notes in the pattern according to the order in which they are played.
This is therefore only recognizable when more than one chord or note has been
played.
In addition to the Arpeggiator styles above, there is a Chord Trigger mode which
repeats the incoming notes as a block chord, as well as three settings for creating
random arpeggios:

• Choosing Random will produce a continuously randomized sequence of the

incoming MIDI notes.
• Random Other creates random patterns from incoming MIDI notes, but will
not repeat a given note until all other incoming notes have been used.
• Random Once creates one random pattern from incoming MIDI notes and
repeats that pattern until the incoming MIDI changes, at which point a new
pattern is created.

Arpeggiator will play the pattern of notes at the speed set by the Rate control, which
can be calibrated in either milliseconds or beat-time using the neighboring Sync/Free
button. With Sync chosen, Arpeggiator will be synced to the song tempo.

A Gate control to the right of Rate determines the length of notes played by
Arpeggiator as a percentage of the current Rate setting. Any setting larger than 100%
will therefore play notes that overlap (i.e., are legato).

The rhythmic pattern generated by Arpeggiator does not necessarily have to be

straight; a selection of groove patterns can be applied with the respective control just
beneath the Mode chooser. Grooves in Arpeggiator behave similarly to grooves in
clips, and the intensity of the groove is determined by the Amount slider in the
Groove Pool (see ‘Groove Pool’).

With the Hold parameter active, Arpeggiator will continue to play the pattern even
after the keyboard keys have been released. The pattern will be repeated until any
other key is pressed. When Hold is active and any of the original keys also remain
physically held, notes can be added to the pattern simply by playing them. Notes can
also be removed from the pattern in this scenario by playing them a second time,
allowing the gradual buildup and rearrangement of the pattern over time.

Tip: If you want the pattern to stop playing, momentarily deactivate Hold.

The Offset parameter shifts the sequence of notes in the pattern by the number of
places selected with the control. This is best illustrated with an example: A setting of
“1“ makes the second note in the pattern play first, and the first note last. If you
imagine the pattern as a circle of notes that is played in a clockwise direction from a
set start point, the Offset parameter effectively rotates this circle counter-clockwise
one note at a time, changing where in the pattern play begins.

With the Repeats parameter, the pattern can be set to repeat a specified number of
times until it is retriggered. A setting of “inf“ will repeat the pattern indefinitely. Hint:
This feature provides an excellent way of emulating the strum of a guitar or playing a
chord as an arpeggio once or twice. Another interesting effect can be achieved by
combining this feature with the Retrigger parameter, which we will explain in a
moment. This can be used to create rhythmically generated arpeggios separated by
pauses.

The Retrigger parameter resets the pattern so that it starts again from the beginning.
Retriggering can be deactivated (Off), set to occur when new notes are pressed (Note)
or set to occur at a specified song position or beat-time (Beat). Beat retriggering can
be specified in terms of notes or bars and is aligned with song position. An LED in
the upper right corner of the section indicates when the pattern has been retriggered.

25.1.2 Transposition and Velocity Sections

The pattern generated by Arpeggiator can be transposed; the device’s transposition
controls allow forcing this transposition into a specific major or minor key or (using
the Transpose chooser’s Shift option) doing it in semitones. The distance between
transposition steps is set in scale intervals (for Major and Minor transposition) or
semitones (for Shift transposition) with the Distance control. Using the Steps
parameter, you can choose the number of times the sequence is transposed. When
Distance is set to a positive value, a setting of 8 Steps will transpose the sequence a
total of eight times, playing it in higher notes each time. (When Distance is set to a
negative value, the sequence will transpose lower each time.)

The dynamics of Arpeggiator are controlled using the velocity section. With Velocity
set to “On“ and Target set to 0, for example, the sequence will gradually fade out,
eventually reaching 0 velocity. The Decay control sets the amount of time Arpeggiator
takes to reach the Target velocity. With Retrigger activated, retriggering of the
sequence will also retrigger the velocity slope.

Tip: The velocity section’s Retrigger option can be used in conjunction with Beat
retriggering to add rhythm to the dynamic slope.

25.2 Chord
 The Chord Effect.

This effect assembles a chord, as the name implies, from each incoming note and up
to six others of user-defined pitch. The Shift 1-6 knobs allow selecting the pitch of the
notes that contribute to the chord from a range of +/- 36 semitones relative to the
original. Setting Shift 1 to +4 semitones and Shift 2 to +7 semitones, for example,
yields a major chord in which the incoming note is the root.

The Velocity control beneath each Shift knob makes further harmonic sculpting
possible, given that the instrument allows for changes in volume or timbre as function
of velocity. It is a relative control, with a range of 1 to 200 percent (100 percent
defined as playing at a velocity equal to that of the incoming MIDI note). Use the
Velocity controls to do anything from adding slight overtones to washing out most of
the other chord elements.

The order in which pitches are added to the chord is inconsequential: The effect of a
+12 semitone shift added with the Shift 1 control, for example, is equal in effect to a
+12 semitone shift added with the Shift 6 control.

Note that no two notes of the same pitch can contribute to the chord, and that
selecting the same shift value twice (e.g., +8 semitones on both Shift 2 and Shift 3)
will result in the latter control appearing disabled, indicating that it is a duplicate and
therefore not in use. Actually, there is no such thing as two notes with the same pitch
playing at the same time within the entire Live universe.

25.3 Note Length

 The Note Length Effect.

Note Length alters the length of incoming MIDI notes. It can also be used to trigger
notes from MIDI Note Off messages, instead of the usual Note On messages.

When the device is set to trigger from a Note On message, only the timing controls
are available. The length of held notes can be adjusted in milliseconds or synced in
relation to the song tempo. Gate defines the percentage of the Length value that
notes should be held for. At 200 percent, the Gate parameter will double a note’s
length.

When the device is set to trigger from a Note Off event (the moment at which a
played note is released), the timing of an incoming note will be delayed by its length
(because it will be starting at the point at which it would have been stopping). Note
Length’s other settings will then determine the duration of the newly triggered note.

Three other parameters are available when the device is triggering from Note Off
messages:

On/Off Balance — This determines the velocity of the output note. It is a balance
between the incoming note’s Note On and Note Off velocities. If your MIDI keyboard
does not support MIDI Note Off velocity, you can just set this to zero.

Decay Time — This is the time needed for an incoming note’s velocity to decay to
zero. The decay begins immediately from the moment the device receives a MIDI
Note On message. The value at the time of Note Off will become the velocity of the
output MIDI note.

Key Scale — The pitch of incoming notes can be used to alter the length of the output
notes. With positive values, notes below C3 will be made progressively longer, and
notes above C3 will be made shorter. Negative values will invert this relationship.
25.4 Pitch

The Pitch Effect.

Pitch is a transposition tool that changes incoming note pitch by +/- 128 semitones.

The Range and Lowest controls act together to define a pitch range through which
notes are allowed to pass. Notes outside of the defined pitch range will be blocked,
and the effect’s LED light will flash when this happens.

Notes outside of the pitch range are limited based on their untransposed pitch, prior
to the transposition stage of the effect.

25.5 Random

The Random Effect.

Random adds an element of the unknown to the otherwise commonplace pitch

parameter. The Chance control defines the likelihood that an incoming note’s pitch
will be changed by a random value. You can think of it as being something like a
dry/wet control for randomness.

The random value that determines the pitch change is created by two variables: The
Choices control defines the number of different random notes possible, from a range
of 1 to 24; the Scale control value is multiplied by the Choices control value, and the
result dictates the pitches that random notes are allowed to have relative to that of
the incoming note.

For example, if you play the note C3 with Chance set to 50 percent, Choices set to 1
and Scale set to 12, half of the resulting notes will play at C3 and half will play at C4.
But with Chance set to 50 percent, Choices set to 12 and Scale set to 1, half of the
resulting notes will play at C3 and half will play at one of any semitone that is between
C#3 and C4.

These examples assume that the Sign buttons are set to “Add“ and the Mode button
is set to “Rnd.“ The Sign controls decide whether the random alteration adds to the
original note’s pitch, subtracts from it, or does a little of both. The LEDs above the
Sign controls give you a visual idea of how output pitch compares with that of the
original.

The Mode button determines whether the alteration will be random or, when set to
“Alt,“ will cycle between the allowed output notes in a fixed order (sometimes known
as “cycle round-robin“). The Chance control behaves a bit differently in Alt mode - at
100 percent, the next output note will always be the next note in the series. At 0
percent, the next output note will always be the incoming note.

For example, with Chance set to 100 percent, Choices set to 12 and Scale set to 1,
playing C3 once will trigger C3, and each successive C3 will trigger the next semitone
higher until the device reaches C4, at which point it will start over at C3. But with
Chance set to 100 percent, Choices set to 2 and Scale set to 2, incoming C3s will
alternate between C3 and D3. This setting is perfect for simulating upbow and
downbow alternation with stringed instruments, or alternating right- and left-hand
drum samples.

Hint: Try using the Scale effect after Random to constrain the output values to a
specific harmonic range. Using Random’s Alt mode with the Scale device allows you
to create a simple step-sequencer.

25.6 Scale
 The Scale Effect.

Scale alters incoming note pitch based on a scale mapping. Each incoming note is
given an outgoing equivalent on the X-Y scale map of the effect: All incoming Cs, for
example, might be converted to outgoing Ds.

The X-Y scale map is 12 squares in length and width, corresponding to the 12 notes
in a full octave. Darker squares represent the black keys on a keyboard. The base of
the diagonal scale (the lower left square) shown on the map can be changed using
the Base control. The X-axis of the map shows incoming note values, and the Y-axis
their outgoing equivalents. Use mouse-clicks to move or delete the blue squares,
which define where an incoming note will be sent on the scale. (Deleting a note on
the scale map means that it will no longer play.)

The Transpose slider can raise or lower the pitch of incoming MIDI notes by +/- 36
semitones. You could, for example, shift a melody written in C major to G major by
setting Transpose to +7 st.

Fold makes it more convenient to create scales by automatically “folding“ back notes
if their offset to the original note is greater than six semitones. For example, if Scale
normally maps an incoming C3 to A3, enabling Fold will map C3 to A2 instead.

The Range and Lowest controls work together to define the note range within which
scale mapping will take effect. Outside of the range defined by these controls, the
Scale effect will be inapplicable, and the LED light will flash to indicate that some
notes are not being processed by the effect, but are playing at their unaltered pitch.

25.7 Velocity
 The Velocity Effect.

Velocity can alter incoming MIDI note velocity values (1-127) in either a controlled or
random manner. It can function on MIDI Note On (Velocity) or Note Off (Rel. Vel.)
messages, or both, depending on the setting of the Operation chooser.

The Out Low and Out Hi knobs control the outgoing velocity (from 1 to 127), which
is represented by the Y-axis of the X-Y display. Incoming velocities that are shown in
the display are within the range chosen by the Range and Lowest controls, and are
represented on the X-axis. The resulting curve shows how velocity is being altered by
the effect.

If Lowest and Out Low are both set to zero, and Range and Out Hi are set to 127, the
display will show a straight diagonal line that indicates the equivalent of an effect
bypass: Softly played notes are being output quietly, and vice versa. If instead, Out
Hi is set to zero and Out Low to 127, the slope of the line will be reversed, and softly
played notes will actually produce the loudest output.

What happens to incoming notes that are outside of the range set with the Range
and Lowest controls? This depends on which Mode is selected.

• Clip Mode does just what it says: It clips incoming note velocities so that they
stay within the range.
• Gate Mode removes incoming notes altogether if their velocities are outside
of the range. You will see the little LED below the X-Y display flash when a note
is blocked by gating.
• In Fixed Mode, the Out Hi velocity defines all outgoing note velocities,
regardless of incoming note velocity.

The Random function adds or subtracts a random value to the all velocities, and is
represented by a gray area on the display curve.
The Drive and Compand controls can be combined to create more complex curves.
Compand is a simultaneous expanding and compressing tool. When set to values
greater than zero, it forces incoming notes to the outer boundaries of the curve,
making them play either loudly or softly. Compand values of less than zero, on the
other hand, force outgoing velocity toward the mid-range. Drive pushes all values in
the curve to the outer extremes. Use these two controls together to sculpt or even
redefine the dynamic structure of a piece.