>Step by step
3. Essential MIDI know-how
1 PROGRAMMING NOTES
When you add notes to a clip in Live, that’s MIDI. The notes are sent from the clip (which is itself in a MIDI track) to a software instrument, or another soundproducing device elsewhere. These notes can be recorded from a MIDI keyboard, or drawn into the editor grid.
2 VELOCITY
As well as the note pitch, the duration of the note and the velocity are captured. Velocity relates to how hard you hit the key or drum pad. If you’re drawing notes, you’ll still be able to set a velocity value somewhere. Velocity can also be assigned to instrument parameters.
3 SOUNDS ON DEMAND
Program and bank changes are MIDI messages sent to load presets. Live can send these messages within clips, and they can go to plugins, other software, or external hardware. This is a great way to automate preset changes during a live performance, so you can just concentrate on playing.
4 CONTROL AND AUTOMATION
Notes are just part of the MIDI experience – we can record or draw control change messages, or use MIDI hardware controllers during a performance. The controller could be a keyboard with knobs and faders, or a separate device without keys, or even an application running on a phone or tablet.
5 THE GAME
Some gaming controllers can be used with MIDI, to kill two birds with one stone. The Osculator application for Mac detects the Nintendo Wii remote control (that’s going back to 2012) as a bluetooth device and converts its messages to assignable MIDI commands, including the buttons, joystick, and orientation.
6 SYNC IT UP
MIDI is what lets us synchronise different software and hardware. Software like Ableton Live, seen here, can be the sync leader, where it sets the tempo that other gear locks to, or it can be the follower, and listen on the MIDI inputs for a MIDI clock signal coming from elsewhere.
7 STILL SYNCING
To get effective MIDI sync, you may need to try it in both directions to see which works best for the devices in question, and check the settings for the hardware to make sure the relevant sends and receives are on/off, so you’re not creating any unwanted MIDI loops.
8 MIDI IN THE MODULE
One thing that’s barely survived the transition to computer-based production is the MIDI sound module – hardware boxes that contain libraries of instrument presets. Roland still do a software version of their Sound Canvas for Windows, iOS and macOS, which originated in 1991, should you really want to experience that.
9 MIDI FILES
MIDI files used to be a thing too, back in the day, especially in the world of karaoke. These would be song files based on popular hits of the time, and would usually be compatible with the General MIDI format (an agreed standard sound set), and hardware sound modules.
10 MORE MIDI FILES
More inquiring minds would often adopt these files and customise them for remixes or other purposes. There are type 0 and type 1 MIDI files – type 0 merges the tracks, and type 1 keeps the instrument tracks separate, as you can see here when one is loaded into Ableton Live.
11 WIRELESS MIDI
As we said, MIDI is ‘portable’, meaning it can reside on many different platforms. It can also be wireless, for example wireless MIDI networking is built into Mac OSX. There’s also a healthy market in bluetooth-based wireless MIDI connectors, from Roland, Yamaha, and CME, arguably leaders of the pack.
12 MPE AND THE FUTURE
MIDI’s future perhaps lies with MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression), adding further control over compatible instruments. These expressions apply to individual notes, not the whole keyboard as is normally the case. A dedicated hardware controller’s ideal, but for now Live 11 users can draw in these values.