← Live 12 Power Tools
Mission 65 · World 8
MIDI Transformations
Connect, Arpeggiate, Strum, Recombine, Ornament.
Live 12 puts a studio of MIDI tools directly inside the Piano Roll.
+80 XP🏅 Transformer
// WHAT IT DOES
MIDI Transformations are tools that appear in the Piano Roll when you select notes. Instead of editing notes by hand, you choose a transformation and Live does the work. Strum makes a chord sound like it's being strummed on a guitar. Pitch Shift moves notes up or down in scale steps. Arpeggiate turns held chords into sequences. Recombine shuffles rhythm and pitch separately. Ornament adds grace notes and trills.
Think of it like → MIDI Transformations are like Photoshop filters for notes — you apply one and the selected notes transform according to musical rules.
▸ WHY YOU CARE
- • Writing a realistic guitar strum by hand requires precise timing offsets for each note — Strum does it in one click.
- • Recombine lets you break the link between which rhythm uses which pitch — generate unexpected melodic variations from existing material.
// SEE & HEAR IT
Fill gaps between notes with stepwise motion.
BEFORE
AFTER · CONNECT
▸ Commit is destructive in real Live too — duplicate your clip first if you want a safe before/after.
▸ LISTEN FOR
- • How Strum changes a static chord into something that feels performed rather than programmed
- • The rhythmic interest Recombine creates by decoupling pitch from timing
▸ COMMON MISTAKES
- ✗ Committing transformations before previewing all parameter options — always explore first
- ✗ Applying Strum to monophonic lines — it only makes musical sense on chords of 2+ simultaneous notes
// QUIZ (QUICK)
Question 1 / 30 correct
Transformations operate on…