This lecture should give you a rough idea of what midi is and what it can be used for.

In this lesson, you will learn how midi data is represented in DAWs and how to read it.

It is important to understand the difference between audio and midi signals. In this lesson, you're gonna learn which is which and what the difference is.

The "pitch" effect transposes the midi notes into another pitch range.

The "note length" effect can be used to maniplate the lengths of all notes. They can get longer or shorter and will all have the same length.

The "velocity" effect changes the velocity parameter of all notes. This can be extremely useful if you used a midi keyboard to record the notes and played them very different from each other.

The "scale" effect can be used to set a connection between the key that should be played and the key that will be played. You can use it to set a composition into a specific key or to decrease the range of notes that a certain track can use.

The "chord" effect adds additional notes to the note that you play or that is played in the midi clip. With that, you can play chords containing up to 7 keys with just one key pressed.

The "arpeggio" effect plays multiple notes like chords one ofter another in a certain pattern. This can be used to get more movement into your composition.

Now it is time to use our new knowledge!

Within Ableton Live, it is easy to create a clip with basic notes and route those into each track. If your DAW does not have the routing ability, simply copy/paste your notes to the other tracks.

The "pitch" effect is used to transport the basic notes of our composition into a range that makes sense with a bass sound.

In this lesson, chords will be used to fatten up the sounds of the organ. Please note that you don't have to stick to major or minor chords, feel free to try out different values and use them, even if you don't know why they sound nice if they do.

Scales can be used to transpose the notes into a certain scale. Please note that you could have used it on the original track and route the midi notes "post fx" to get the scale manipulation on every track.

This lessons teaches you how to combine arpeggio and scale effect to trigger rhythmical drums sounds.

In this lesson, I use the arpeggio to play the chords taken from the organ channel in an "arpeggiated" way. It is important to understand that all that we hear comes from the four notes in the original midi clip.

Please experiment with combinations of effects, especially scales, chord and arpeggio. The order of the effects can play a major role, please keep that in mind!

If you want to arrange the order instruments get into play, use the arrangement view of Ableton (or the DAW of your choice). Please note the you might have to copy effects if you did not use the original notes but notes from a channel that already has midi effects on it.

If you want your composition to be heard in the internet or you want to play it from your cell phone or mp3 player, just create a mixdown of you work.

This lecture shows a simple walkthrough. All tracks in this example get unmuted one after another and all the MIDI FX get switched on one after another so you can see and hear what triggers what. Please note: I used only three notes in this example, one playing all the time and two alternating. I also used the "Gate" parameter of the Arpeggio to force certain rhythmical behaviors.