This Ableton Live tutorial covers converting MIDI clips to audio clips. This isn’t a new Ableton feature, but it is certainly useful.

So, the question to ask is this: Why do you care about coverting this clip to audio? There are several reasons, both creative and technical. FIrst off, using software instruments and effects drains you computers resources, meaning that you can’t run as many plugins, and that you may run into latency issues as you have to raise your hardware buffer size. Creatively, there are certian things that you can do with audio that you can’t do with MIDI, including using the reverse function, as well as warping. Sure, you can quantize MIDI, but you can’t mangle it the way you can with warping and audio.

Start with a MIDI track. Insert an instrument and record or pencil in some notes into a MIDI Clip, eiher in the Session or in the Arrange view.

To convert the MIDI clip to audio, simply right-click on the name of the track and choose “Freeze Track”. It will take a second to render, and the track will turn blue. The freeze function in a number of other programs (Logic, Digital Performer, Cubase, etc). It basically renders out an audio file that has all your effects printed in. Then, the plugins on the track (including any software instruments) are disabled, freeing up your computer to do other things. Pretty cool right? So, in the case of our software instrument , essentially you’ve already converted the audio to MIDI, and the instrument itself has been disabled. But, we want to go one step further. The last step is to create an audio track and drag the frozen MIDI clip over to it. This clip appears as an audio clip in the new track.

Clips on a frozen track can be moved, cut, and trimmed just like normal clips. In the case with out MIDI clip, the only hangup is that you can’t go in and move the notes around, or change velocity or any other of the MIDI data contained within the clip. No big, deal—just right=click and choose “Unfreeze Track”. The plugins will be turned back on, and you can make any adjustments, with the ability to refreeze again if you choose.

Check back soon for more info, Pro Tools tutorials, Ableton Live tips, Logic demos, and other audio engineering techniques.