Listen to “Falling” Sound Design Experiment with Live 9 + Max for Live Convolution Reverb Pro Using IR Made with Pitch-to-MIDI Absynth Patch

I was experimenting with Live 9’s new pitch-to-MIDI and Max for Live Convolution Reverb Pro a few days back and come up with this idea.

Here is the process I followed.

1. I started with a vocal sample by the wonderful artist Snowflake (CC-BY-NC faccmixter.org/files/snowflake/37827). BTW I remixed one of her tracks last year – click here to give it a listen.
2. Use “Convert Melody to New MIDI Track” to convert her Melody to MIDI. This creates a new MIDI track with an Ableton instrument.
3. Swap the Ableton instrument on the MIDI track with Absynth 5.  You could of course stick with Ableton instruments here. I used a dissonant bell preset with major reverb decay.
4. Create an audio clip from the Absynth patch. You could resample it or  freeze the track,  insert a new audio track and drag the frozen clip to the new audio track to create an audioclip.
5. Insert the Max for Live Convolution Reverb Pro on the original vocal track.
6. Apply the Absynth sample as the Impulse Response file for the Convolution Reverb by dragging the audio clip from step #4 and dropping it I on the waveform display of the Max for Live device.
7. Play the original sample through the Convolution Reverb

What’s great about this process is since the Impulse Response was derived from pitch-to-MIDI of the original sample, the resultant reverb follows the phrasing of the original vocal track – but of course is also slewed and torqued in an organic way by using the Absynth patch with more sustain and bigger reverb and space. I also love how this creates new harmonics.

I also want to point out that while each of these discrete processes are available in separate tools already, having this all integrated in Live 9 with Max for Live makes for a rapid and creative sound design workflow. It’s taken me way longer to explain it her than id did to think this up and execute the idea (which only took about 5 minutes).

It’s also worth mentioning you don’t need to be a programmer to use Max for Live as an artist. Just drag in the devices that come with Max for Live essentials and use them like any native live device.

Links:

• More articles on Live 9
• More articles on Max for Live

Mark Mosher
Synthesist, Composer, Performer
Boulder, CO
Artist Site & Album Downloads: www.markmoshermusic.com