#How to import midi files into ableton software#

Instead, you have just standard MIDI events, such as note value, velocity, duration, etc.ДЇor this part of the tutorial, weвЂ™ll create a standard MIDI file of sequence 2 of our вЂLIVEвЂ™ project вЂ“ so load up that project and select sequence 2 ( PT-FINAL).

So, no q-link events, no filter/attack/tuning/decay events, no program or effect bank changes etc. So what is standard MIDI file format? Well, itвЂ™s an MPC sequence file with all the MPC вЂ“specific stuff stripped out. Live will let you import MIDI data from any sequencer as long as it is in standard MIDI file format, and luckily, all MPCs give you the option to save individual sequences in standard MIDI file format. So how do we transfer this MIDI data directly to Live? Well itвЂ™s actually quite easy. NowВ select sequence 2 вЂ“ this sequence has bass, piano and fx MIDI events already recorded on tracks 4, 5 and 6, with drums provided on tracks 1-3 using an MPC drum sample program (PT-KIT.pgm). In your MPC, load up the вЂ LIVEвЂ™ project вЂ“ to do this, find the folder for your MPC model and either load up the LIVE.PRJ file (newer MPCs) or load up the APS and ALL files (MPC2000XL or older) or AKM files (MPC4000). In Live, load up the вЂ MIDI Tracking.alsвЂ™ session file from the вЂ Live Project FilesвЂ™ folder this is our 80 BPM project which contains three Live instrument tracks bass, piano, and fx, and an audio track containing the stereo drum clip we tracked over to Live as pure audio in chapter 5. So, rather than have the MIDI data played within your MPC, weвЂ™ll simply shift that MIDI data directly to the relevant instrument track in Live in the form of a self contained MIDI clip remember, a Live instrument track is just a MIDI track that outputs to an instrument plug in. To do this, we need to transfer the actual MIDI event data weвЂ™ve recorded on tracks 4, 5 and 6 in sequence 2 of our MPC вЂLIVEвЂ™ project вЂ“ these are the MPC sequencer tracks that trigger the Live instrument sounds, as set up in chapter 2 of this book. Basically now that weвЂ™ve used the MPC to initially create the MIDI performance, weвЂ™re now cutting the MPC completely out of the equation so our entire beat is contained within Live.

#How to import midi files into ableton software#

Throughout the book weвЂ™ve used the MPC to send MIDI messages to Live to trigger LiveвЂ™s software instruments вЂ“ now instead of triggering it from the MPC, weвЂ™re going to simply вЂextractвЂ™ the MIDI data from the MPC and store itВ withinВ Live MIDI tracks. Importing MIDI into Live as MIDI ClipsДЄs well as importing MPC sample based tracks into Live audio tracks (as covered in chapter 5 of the book), we can also transfer MPC MIDI data from any MIDI tracks you may have in your MPC song/sequence. Please note this tutorial requires Ableton Live 8.13 or greater to function correctly. At this point, IвЂ™ve already tracked the drum beat as audio into a Live audio track and now its time to transfer the MIDI. Please note that previously in the book, IвЂ™ve already created an MPC project (called вЂLiveвЂ™) which consists of a sequenced sample based drum beat and three MPC MIDI tracks that control three different software instruments in Live. In this excerpt from chapter 6 of my MPC & Ableton Live Tutorial book, вЂ Using The Akai MPC With Ableton LiveвЂ,IвЂ™m going to take a look at a method for bringing your MPC MIDI data into Live as an imported MIDI clip, which is an alternative to the method of manually tracking MIDI data via MIDI sync (which is covered in detail later in the book).