Ableton Live 12’s new Generative and Transformation MIDI Tools (available in Standard and Suite editions) are a great way to add musical parts that we might not come up with on our own. They apply to MIDI notes only, and are divided into two distinct categories – generative (where entirely new notes are created) and transformative (where existing MIDI notes inside a clip are rearranged in various ways). These aren’t fully ‘generative’ in the sense of creating continuously evolving patterns, but they are very good for creating musical parts to use in compositions, and, if you really want something non-repeating for a song, you could try applying them to very long MIDI clips. As we see the growing use of AI, we have to ask ‘is this cheating?’, and the answer is ‘no more than using any other feature of a DAW is cheating’. They’re tools that we manipulate to get what we want; they’re not in control of us, and we really enjoy using them. Follow our walkthrough as we create a beat and a bass part using these tools. We recommend working at slower BPMs while you get familiar with the process, things can sound chaotic quite quickly.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Martin Delaney was one of the UK’s first Ableton Certified Trainers. He still teaches Live, and is currently playing bass for, and producing, The Witch Of Brussels thewitchofbrussels.co.uk