Produced in Ableton using a Launchkey Mini by 7X3=21
So, I’ve never used MIDI before. And, even though I have been using Ableton for over 10 years, I only JUST very recently really learned about the drum and instrument kits in there, and how to use them (kind of). I just never bothered to look past the things I was doing in Ableton, which was mainly edits and recording vocals for radio, podcast, and now also raps.
But, since most of the new equipment I have is MIDI-based or compatible, and I also want to maximize Ableton and this Launchkey Mini I just got, I decided to try to learn how to use it, so I sat down last night to try.
Here’s a fun lil beat I came up with using all sounds from the Ableton Drum and Instrument Racks. It’s just an 8 bar loop with 4 different things I captured just messing around with the pads on the Launchkey. Well, actually the 4th sound is something I don’t really know what is happening, but my DDJ-200 DJ Controller isn’t set up for MIDI yet, or I didn’t think so, but for some reason when I touch the platters, it manipulates the MIDI sounds, so that 4th sound, which is some sort of piano, is just me slapping my fingers on the platter of the controller and those sounds just happened.
I’m assuming there’s a way to do an arrangement of a MIDI loop in Ableton, but I haven’t figured that out yet (except for just copying and pasting and adding an arrangement that way, which is what I did here, turning a 4 bar loop into a 8 bar loop). So, to get this arrangement, I set up Izotope to record Ableton, and I just did a live arrangement, clicking buttons on/of or soloing things.
This was fun. Now that I know how to do it decently enough, I can put some time into doing it better. This is the first stepping stone…
