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7. Embellishing a remix with new sounds and instrumentation

1 Sometimes you’ll get some remix parts you like, but perhaps they could use a little something more. Or maybe you like the chords, but you’d like to change the synth patch. Let’s use Ableton Live 9’s Audio-to-MIDI function to extract MIDI notes from a piano part, then build on the idea with fresh sounds. Start by loading piano.wav into a 119bpm session. 2 To extract MIDI notes from audio chords, we need Live’s polyphonic algorithm. Right-click on the piano clip and select Convert Harmony to New MIDI Track. This creates a new MIDI channel and a clip containing the notes of the chords. We’ll replace the default piano instrument with a synth. For tightness, head into the clip then right-click and select Quantize to snap the notes to the grid. 3 If you don’t use Live, load Piano.mid into a MIDI channel in your DAW. Load Dune CM onto it and select the Novachord Pad 2 IW preset. Head to the Amp Envelope section and change Attack to 0% and Release to 55%. It’s a bit bright, so bring the Filter Cutoff down to 35%, and expand the stereo image by turning the Spread dial to 100%. 4 Having chords as MIDI gives us flexibility, allowing us to automate synth parameters throughout the track. We can also reuse the new MIDI chord pattern for other purposes, like playing an arpeggio. Copy the MIDI clip onto a new MIDI channel, drop in another Dune CM and load up the Sweet Arp RL preset. 5 The arpeggio pattern would greatly benefit from some delay, so drop PSP cmDelay onto the channel. Load the Ping-Pong preset, then move the Sync switch to On to lock the delay repeats to your host’s tempo. Some reverb will make the arp sound bigger and dreamier, so drop in a reverb with a decay time of around five seconds. 6 One last time, create a new MIDI channel and copy in the MIDI clip. This time, enter the piano roll editor and shift all the notes up by one octave. Now load in SynthMaster CM and select the ARPAbyss preset. Move the PreGain control in the Distortion section to +30. Now try putting your own stamp on things by adding a new melody over the top!