00:00In this video, we will explore
Live's MIDI probability tools.
00:05Introducing elements of chance to
your patterns can be a great way
00:08to explore and develop your ideas,
and Live comes with a selection
00:12of features with which to explore
probability from within the note editor.
00:18Let's take a simple arpeggio being
played by an instance of Meld.
00:22At the bottom of the note editor
are lanes which can be toggled or
00:26hidden via the menu and button.
00:28Let's show the chance lane
and hide the velocity lane.
00:32Dragging the lane up for a better view,
I'm met with a series of probability
00:36markers, and I can drag the markers up
and down to set the chance, expressed
00:40as a percentage, that the notes will
play when triggered during playback.
00:46If we zoom in by pressing Z,
we can see that the note with
00:49probability attached now has a
small triangle in the upper left.
00:55I'll select all my notes by
pressing Command + A on a Mac or
00:58Control + A on Windows, and change
all of the probability to 50%.
01:04Let's have a listen.
01:14As we can hear, every note has an
equal probability of playing or not.
01:18You can also randomise the chance
of the selected note or notes, and
01:23dial in the range of randomisation
using the percentage slider.
01:27Notes with a higher probability
are very likely to play, and
01:30notes with a lower probability
are more likely to remain silent.
01:42Every time you trigger
the randomise button, the
01:44percentage values are shuffled.
01:54Let's explore this in the
context of a drum beat.
01:58In this clip, my snare drum pattern
is focused on the 2nd and 4th
02:02beats of the bar with some extra
incidental notes to add variation.
02:07I've applied probability to the
incidental notes so that they only
02:11have a 40 percent chance of occurring.
02:18The problem is, sometimes many notes
play in one loop, but sometimes
02:22none of them play at all, so
it feels a little unorganized.
02:26I'm going to select them and put
them into a probability group
02:29using the buttons at the bottom.
02:32I have two options, play all or play one.
02:36I'm going to choose play one and set
the group's probability to 100 percent
02:40so that every loop one incidental
snare hit will always happen.
02:45Let's take a listen again.
03:02Now I'm going to add a percussion fill.
03:15This time I would like to
control the probability that the
03:18entire pattern will play or not.
03:21So I'll choose Play All and set the
chance of this probability group to 65%.
03:39Now we can hear that each time the
pattern loops, the entire fill is
03:43either played or remains silent.
03:47Finally, I'd like to add an
offbeat percussion hit, played by
03:50a different instrument every time.
03:54I'm going to create a
vertical stack of notes,
04:01select them all, and choose Play
one from the probability groups.
04:05Now, a randomly selected sample is
played every time the note is triggered.
