Melodies
Play in Live's own scale, change key on the pads, and sequence melodies and chords step by step.
- Play in key: 40 pads in Live's scale
- The scale page: root and scale under Shift
- The melodic sequencer: steps on top, a keyboard below
- Gate and latch: how long each note lasts
Play in key
Press User on any MIDI track without a Drum Rack. All 40 pads play, in the scale and root Live shows in its clip view (here D Dorian). Change the scale in Live and the pads follow, change it here and Live follows.
1 The bottom left pad is always a root. Each row is a fourth above the one below, so chord shapes stay the same everywhere. 2 Played notes light green on every pad that has them.
- ocean: the root
- white: in the scale
- dark: not in it
Up / Down: octave, remembered per track (a bass stays low).
Left / Right: Live's scale, through 16 favourites.
Shift+Left / Shift+Right: Live's root, a semitone at a time.
The APC's pads always send full velocity and a script can't change that for notes you play. For dynamics while playing, put Live's Velocity device on the track. The sequencers are different: they write their notes themselves, with the velocity you pick.
The scale page
Hold Shift in a melodic layout: the pads show Live's key instead of notes. Everything you tap changes Live's own Scale settings at once.
The top two rows are a keyboard, C to C: tap a key for Live's root. Ocean is the root, white the scale's notes.
The bottom two rows are 16 scales, Live's current one bright amber. Tap one to use it.
1 The top scene button is In Key (white: only the scale's notes) or Chromatic (dim: every semitone, the scale still coloured).
Hold a scale pad: its name scrolls across the pads and the scene buttons, starting with a little pause. Let go and the page is back.
The melodic sequencer
On a MIDI track press Shift+User: the pads turn into a step sequencer in the style of Novation's Circuit. The top row is the bars, as on the drums; rows 2–3 are the 16 steps; rows 4–5 a keyboard in your scale.
Tap a key (it turns amber), then tap steps: the note goes on each of them. Hold a key and tap others for a chord.
Hold a step and tap keys: they are added to that step (the step's own keys light red), or removed when already there.
Hold a step and tap a later step: the held step's notes last until there.
Velocity, step length, bars, Nudge + and Nudge −: all as in the drum layout. Up / Down move the keyboard an octave.
- amber: what a step tap places
- red: a note of the held step
- ocean: the root
- green: playing now
Gate and latch
In the melodic sequencer User swaps the keyboard for the Gate view: rows 4–5 show how long notes are, one pad per step.
1 Hold a step: its length lights green. Tap pad n to make it n steps long; tap the last lit pad again to take off a sixth of a step. With nothing held, the bar shows the note playing right now.
2 For notes longer than a bar: when the held step's note starts exactly where an earlier note of the same pitch ends, the top scene button lights amber. Press it and the two become one long note.
Give bar 1's step 1 a note of 16 steps, put the same note on bar 2's step 1, hold that step and press the amber button: one note of 20 steps, bar 2's step is free again.
User again brings the keyboard back. Without a clip there is nothing to measure, so the Gate view waits for your first note.