CHAPTER 13. ROUTING AND I/O
168
You can con gure which MIDI ports are made available to Live using the
MIDI Ports
section
of the MIDI/Sync Preferences. All available input and output ports are listed here. For Live's
tracks to receive/send MIDI from/to a speci c MIDI port, the corresponding switch in the
Track column must be set to
On
. You can use any number of MIDI ports for track input and
output; the mixer's In/Out choosers allow them to be addressed individually.
13.3.2
Playing MIDI With the Computer Keyboard
The computer keyboard can be used for generating MIDI notes from computer keyboard
strokes. To turn the computer MIDI keyboard on, use the Control Bar's Computer MIDI Key-
board button, or the
Ctrl
K
(PC) /
K
(Mac) shortcut to the Options
menu entry.
Activating the Computer
MIDI Keyboard.
The center row of letter keys on the keyboard will play notes corresponding to the white keys
on a piano, beginning on the left with the note C3. The black keys on a piano correspond to
the upper row of computer keys. The ve leftmost letters on the lower row of the keyboard
(Z,X,C,V, and B on a U.S.-English keyboard) are used to transpose the note range and to set
velocity, as follows:
The leftmost keys (Z and X) adjust the keyboard's octave range.
The next two keys (C and V) adjust incoming note velocity by intervals of twenty (20,
40, 60, and so on).
The fth key from the bottom left (B) places an accent on incoming MIDI notes. This
key boosts note velocity by 20 as long as it is held down. Once it is released, however,
velocity will drop back to its original value. If your keyboard is already set to input
notes at 120, holding this key will raise note velocity to 127.
As it happens, when the computer keyboard is set to send notes between C3 and C4, the
keys are mapped to MIDI notes such that the center row of the keyboard (ASDF...) addresses
the
Impulse percussion sampler's sample slots
. This means that you can play and record
drum patterns right off the computer keyboard.
Note that when the computer MIDI keyboard is activated, it will steal keys that may have
