Live's new audio to midi feature.

[kent_sandvik]

Maybe we all should make new music instead of ripping off MIDI info from existing tracks...

[crashedthecar]

Nah we should be ripping midi off anything.
Was it john Lennon who said all the best things are lifted?

I'm sure its a balance. But if you worry about plagiarism you'll get nothing done?
Changing one note could make all the difference

[agent314]

I'm eager to see what kind of non-traditional uses the audio-to-MIDI will have

Like, what kind of melody is it going to find if I put found sounds through it? What kind of a drumbeat is a train on tracks going to sound like?

Also, artpunk, haven't noticed you around much before but you seem to have a really positive attitude on here, which is sometimes unfortunately rare on forums - I for one hope you stick around

[justchris86]

I think this is a really cool idea. I my self have very little music theory out side of percussion. Sometimes i have an idea in my head that i just cant get out into midi. i think its awesome that i could hum it into the mic and get the notes i need.

This will be huge for remixing as well. like the video says this is the new way of sampling. Might not be an add on that every one will use but i think i think its awesome

[H20nly]

I Havnt done much of the drum replacement thingy bit I'll have a go. So what ate the rules if you extract to midi Ringo on drums? Copy right etc

they wait about 20 years and then come after you for all the money. ever.

[andydes]

Expect a lot of electronic dance music with a very guitary feel to be released next year.

I'd like to bagsey the names Strumstep and Strum & Bass

[crashedthecar]

Ha the poisoned chalice of making the charts.
But hey what's life if you don't have a 20 million plagiarism law suit at least once.

[re8]

I'm sure people have discussed this somewhere and will do again, but I was just watching the video by Rob Jones at producer Tech demonstrating it and it looks wicked! I've already got a basic audio to midi but never used it much. This one can cope with pretty much anything, including drums, so if you've not seen the video, here it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... hd2eFNM8vU

Thanks for pointing this out!

[CarlSeleborg]

Hi guys,

There have been some awesome points made in this thread. We're already thrilled that
Audio to MIDI is helping our early testers in their creative work - but the suggestion
that this feature could help people with disabilities just made my day!

Here are a few points to clarify (although most of what's been said about the
feature so far in this thread has been correct.)

- Harmony to MIDI will perform a polyphonic analysis and give you MIDI with
chords and overlapping notes. The default preset is a simple piano sound, which
we chose because it is a rather neutral sound that people are used to.

- Melody to MIDI will perform a monophonic analysis, fishing out the most prominent
note and giving you back a MIDI melody. The default preset allows you to listen to this
melody in various contexts quickly: there is a "Synth to Piano" morphing macro to
choose between two rather different sounds, and an "Octave" macro to quickly transpose
the instrument. This makes it a breeze to listen to the result either as a fat bassline or
as a smooth melody. Glides are handled by splitting them into short notes. As somebody pointed
out, using Pitch-Bend for this often yields annoying results that are not always musically
useful, so we chop the notes instead.

- Drums to MIDI tries to recognize 4 different percussive sounds in the audio and produce
corresponding MIDI notes. It starts by trying to recognize a snare, kick and hi-hat to
play with the loaded drum kit. However, if it didn't recognize those, it will still try
to "separate" the sounds, meaning that even if you beatbox or bang on the table, it will
still be able to produce separate notes for each of the 4 sounds.

All 3 features use the transients in the audio, which you can see and edit in the audio clip
(that's the gray little bars or triangles right below the warp markers.) If e.g. you think
the algorithm missed a note at some point in the audio, you can add a transient there
to tell it to look harder.

All 3 features are velocity-sensitive, meaning that the velocity of each MIDI note depends
on the "loudness" of the corresponding note in the audio.

Hope this answers most of your questions about Audio to MIDI. I'm super excited to hear what music
you guys come up with using it!

Best,

Carl

[H20nly]

thanks Carl!

*bookmark*

[agent314]

If e.g. you think
the algorithm missed a note at some point in the audio, you can add a transient there
to tell it to look harder.

This is awesome.

Is there any kind of sensitivity threshold that we can adjust, or is it more of a matter of adding/removing transient markers?

Also, does detection work ONLY with transients? i.e. if there is a continuous tone that rises and rises, will it identify changes in the pitch even if there aren't visible transients?

[CarlSeleborg]

Hi agent314,

Except for the transients, there is no additional parameter for the detection.

The transients will pick up a change in pitch in most cases, so natural slides, like those
produced by the human voice, will usually get detected correctly.

Best,

Carl

[artpunk]

Hi guys,

There have been some awesome points made in this thread. We're already thrilled that
Audio to MIDI is helping our early testers in their creative work - but the suggestion
that this feature could help people with disabilities just made my day!
....
Best,

Carl

@Carl, glad I could make your day! Being a registered nurse for over 30 years, and working with people with various disabilities over that time, it was one of the first things that occurred to me.
Thanks for that helpful explanation on the way audio to midi functions. I'm looking forward to checking all the new features of 9 out, but especially this one.

Also, artpunk, haven't noticed you around much before but you seem to have a really positive attitude on here, which is sometimes unfortunately rare on forums - I for one hope you stick around

+1

@agent314 & funken - Thanks people, yes I'm new to the forum as it has only been the last few months that I have actually had much time to start using live to any productive/creative extent, I hope to stick around!
btw to all concerned about lack of originality, creating our own music, copyright etc... I found this TED talk interesting:
http://www.ted.com/talks/kirby_ferguson ... remix.html

[OzWozEre]

I am pretty sure that using audio to MIDI technology is still a copyright infringement, but harder to identify

Yea Ableton ripped chord directly from a recording of Bill Evance's live in their preview event.... I hope its copyright has already expired.

Chords & chord progressions aren't copyrightable, neither is the music theory its based on.

If it where, there would only be 10 songs in the world

[Tone Deft]

anybody can be sued for anything. I could sue you for having a handle with three capital letters in it. doesn't mean I'd win but it'd be annoying. plus it's not like cases always go as planned, people make mistakes, loopholes are found.

just make music. if you want to sell a tune worry about that later.