MIDI Arpeggiation in Ableton Live

I recenty had the opportunity to take a good long look at Ableton Live’s Arpeggiator MIDI effect. I have used it here and there in the past, but recently discovered how flexible it is. There are many more algorithms (labeled as styles) than I have seen on other arpeggiators (a total of eighteen styles) for a broad variety of patterns. This example uses the “Thumb UpDown” style. Imagine playing a sequence of notes on your right hand starting with your thumb, then index finger, back to thumb, then middle, etc. and that’s kind of what this particular style does to the notes fed into it. Other capabilities of the arpeggiator include a velocity ramp to manipulate the dynamics of the patterns, and typical parameters like retriggering, gate, and groove.

Solar Arpeggio

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About John CS Keston

John CS Keston is an award winning transdisciplinary artist reimagining how music, video art, and computer science intersect. His work both questions and embraces his backgrounds in music technology, software development, and improvisation leading him toward unconventional compositions that convey a spirit of discovery and exploration through the use of graphic scores, chance and generative techniques, analog and digital synthesis, experimental sound design, signal processing, and acoustic piano. Performers are empowered to use their phonomnesis, or sonic imaginations, while contributing to his collaborative work. Originally from the United Kingdom, John currently resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota where he is a professor of Digital Media Arts at the University of St Thomas. He founded the sound design resource, AudioCookbook.org, where you will find articles and documentation about his projects and research. John has spoken, performed, or exhibited original work at New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2022), the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2022), the International Digital Media Arts Conference (iDMAa 2022), International Sound in Science Technology and the Arts (ISSTA 2017-2019), Northern Spark (2011-2017), the Weisman Art Museum, the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Walker Art Center, the Minnesota Institute of Art, the Eyeo Festival, INST-INT, Echofluxx (Prague), and Moogfest. He produced and performed in the piece Instant Cinema: Teleportation Platform X, a featured project at Northern Spark 2013. He composed and performed the music for In Habit: Life in Patterns (2012) and Words to Dead Lips (2011) in collaboration with the dance company Aniccha Arts. In 2017 he was commissioned by the Walker Art Center to compose music for former Merce Cunningham dancers during the Common Time performance series. His music appears in The Jeffrey Dahmer Files (2012) and he composed the music for the short Familiar Pavement (2015). He has appeared on more than a dozen albums including two solo albums on UnearthedMusic.com.

4 thoughts on “MIDI Arpeggiation in Ableton Live

  1. The arpegiattor on the kawai k5000 is my fave. You can edit the styles and it’s polyphonic.

    The midi plugins in ableton are on a whole pretty crap. There were better midi effects on atari st’s 20 years ago. Tiction is the first midi tool to get me excited in a loooooong time.

  2. Pingback: Audio Cookbook » Blog Archive » Excerpt of New Music

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