MAXSCORE DOWNLOAD MANUALS PROJECTS AND PIECES REVIEWS BLOG ABOUT U
MAXSCORE DOWNLOAD MANUALS PROJECTS AND PIECES REVIEWS BLOG ABOUT U !
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LiveScore
LiveScore is a visual notation environment for Live based on MaxScore. It is thoroughly integrated into Live via the API
provided by Max and allows the transcription and editing of Live MIDI clips. There are two Live devices:
LiveScore.Viewer which displays, for each individual track, the content of a selected MIDI clip in standard music
notation. It also allows simple editing via
LiveScore.Editor which is the actual music editor. The LiveScore.Editor device has a graphical user interface that offers a
number of convenient tools; among them: intelligent transcription with key and clef finder, a percussion map, a set of
menus and palettes for easy navigation and interactive editing as well as microtonal notation and playback
via LiveScore devices.
We are going to walk you through the first steps of using LiveScore. Let’s start by opening a Live Set named LiveScore
Demo-9.7.als which you should find in User Library>LiveScore. This may take a while. (Use the earlier versions if you haven’t
upgraded to Ableton 9.7 or higher yet).
LiveScore Viewer
You just opened a pretty cheesy arrangement of What a
Wonderful World. In Live Session Viewclick on the track called
3-Keys-Acoustic-Piano. If everything went fine, you should be
able to see the transcription of the piano accompaniment.
The piece is in F major, so if it’s not already displaying it,
choose the proper key signature from the Key Signature
menu. You might find that it’s easier to read the line in bass
clef, so select bass from the Clef menu. There are also a few
quantization options ranging from quarter note-triplets to
32nd notes. In most cases, the default setting will yield a good
enough result. Now, grab the scroll bar and scroll through the
entire line. If you check the Auto Scroll button, the clip viewer
will scroll and flash its notes automatically when you play
back the piece.
The clip viewer updates its content dynamically, whenever
you
Change a clip’s loop or section marker
Add or change notes in Live’s Clip View manually
Record a new clip in Session View
Now we are ready to change a few notes in the ELEC.PIANO clip. First let’s switch to Live’s Clip Viewwith shift-tab. Grab the first note and move it up
an octave. When you go back to LiveScore, you’ll notice that the change you made is reflected in the score. If you copy the first three notes and
paste them at the beginning of sequence, those notes also immediately appear in the score.
Of course, you can also change or add notes just with LiveScore Viewer without having to even switch to Clip View. Select the notes you want to
alter and refer to Shortcuts for Editingfor a list of possible shortcuts (e.g. press “o” if you want to transpose your notes and octave higher). You can
also use the mouse to add new notes by double-clicking (Mac and Windows) or ctrl-clicking (Mac).
Let’s record a few new notes to a new clip. Right-click or ctrl-click on the track named “8 Kit-606 Classic-1” and choose Insert MIDI Track from the
pop-up menu. You should see a new track called “9 MIDI.” Copy LiveScore Viewerfor instance by alt-dragging the device from another track onto
the newly created track and right-click or ctrl-click on the first clip slot to insert a MIDI clip. You should see an empty MIDI clip which we’ll name
FUN-WITH-SCORES. Just type cmd-R and enter the new name. Double-click on the MIDI clip to open the MIDI Note Editor, set loop length to a
reasonable length, arm the track in the clip’s Mixer Section and start recording by clicking into the small triangle next to the clip name. Now use the
computer keyboard or an external controller to record music. During recording you can switch to LiveScore Viewerand watch the notes being
transcribed automatically. Once you’re done recording, you can quantize the music in the Live MIDI Note Editor. The quantize option in LiveScore
Vieweris for display purposes only and doesn’t affect the timing of the notes!!
What’s lacking in the Viewerare more advanced engraving capabilities such as adding dynamics or articulations. This is where the LiveScore
Editorcomes in handy. Clicking on the Arrange button will take you now to the editor and its Staff Manager which lets you select the clips you want
to include in your score (check the Add Staff toggle if you want to add the clip to an existing score).
Live Score Editor
New Score
In order to edit a clip you’ll need to create a score first. This
way, you’ll also be able to see the content of more than one
clip at once and keep working with a rich score which may
contain more expressions than the original Live clip (see
Known Issues for potential caveats).
To create a new score choose New Score from the File menu.
This will create a score with a single measure; then open the
Staff Manager by pressing the shift-2 or choosing Staff
Manager from the View menu.
Now lets choose “1 0 MELODY” from the Live Clip pop up
menu and click on the gray circle next to it. (The numbers in
front of the Live clip names refer to their position in the clip
matrix, the first number being track number, the second
being scene number; numbering always starts with 0.)
In an instance, the Live clip will be transcribed and appear in
the first staff. Press caps again to view the score.
Let’s add another staff to the score by choosing Insert Staff
from the Edit menu.
This time we’ll assign “7 0 DRUMS” to the second staff.
(Notice how the color of the Live Clip menu item reflects the
colors assigned in the Live clip matrix.)
Unpitched percussion instruments such
as bass drum or cymbal are usually
notated with a special clef and a variety
of noteheads which can be assigned and
edited in the Percussion Map editor (the
editor can be opened from the Edit
menu). Now select Transcribe Staff from
the Edit menu and, in the Staff Manager,
choose Percussion from the Stylemenu
after you’re done with transcription. The
second staff should now fill with the
notes and shapes assigned to “Bass
Drum 1,” “Side Stick” and “Closed Hi-Hat.”
Staff Manager
Transcription
You can switch to the Staff Manager by pressing shift-2, but you can also open it from the View menu. Lets now take a
closer look at the Staff Manager. There are red buttons beneath the Transcription, Clef and Key Signature labels.
There are two ways to trigger transcription: You can either perform a transcription affecting all staves that have been
selected from the Live Clip menu (for this choose the Transcription Staff from the Edit menu) or a per-staff transcription by
clicking in the grey circle next to the Transcribe button. When performing a “global” transcription, a clip will be excluded
from transcription, if its transcription button is off (i.e. grey). This feature is very useful in case you want to add staves after
you’ve already embellished one or several staves.
The other two buttons next to the Clef and Key Signature menus toggle automatic clef and key signature assignment by
gauging the distribution of notes in a clip. When percussion clef is selected, automatic assigment is off, even though the
corresponding button is still red. Clefs and key signatures can always be selected manually after transcription.
Transposition
In case of guitar or double bass, the instruments sound an octave lower than written. Therefore, you want to set
transposition to 12 (semitones) after transcription.
Sorting
Besides layout and scoring options (Spacing Above and Below as well as Staff Lines and Ledger Lines), the Staff Manager
also offers the possibility to rearrange staves. For this, enter the target staff numbers into the Staff number box and
select Sort Staves from the Edit menu.
Updating the Live Clip menu
If a MIDI clip is inserted into or deleted from a Live clip slot, the Live Clips menu needs to be updated. Click on the
underlined “Live Clip” label to update the menu.
Quantization
The result of transcription depends a great deal on the
quantization settings. There are two places to set
quantization, one in Live, the other in the MasterScore. For
successful transcription it is crucial that the correct
quantization has been set in Live first. For this, right-click
(Win) or ctrl-click (Mac) on the piano roll grid on Live’s Clip
View and make the appropriate choices.
Then experiment with MasterScore’s quantization settings.
Choose Preference from the View menu and click on the
Quantization menu.
The default setting offers a mix of n-tuplets including quintuplets and septuplets. If you prefer simpler
results, choose from the remaining quantization options: 4nt, 8n, 8nt, 16n, 16nt, 32n (with n meaning note
and t meaning triplet)
Playback
LiveScore Editor is sync’ed to Live’s transport, i.e. when you
start playback, notes will flash and pages will turn
automatically. You can turn this off by unselecting the
corresponding items from the Playback Settings menu. You
can also use LiveScore’s own playback engine which offers
several playback modes to be selected from the Playback
menu. This is particularly useful if your score contains
microtones (Live itself doesn’t have microtonal playback
capabilities).
Transcription of Loops
Note that LiveSore Editor only transcribes a clip once. This can lead to problems when clips of varying lengths are looping in
playback. There are several options to deal with this:
Either make loop lengths equal in Live’s Clip View,
Play clips once by turning Loop off in Clip View or
“Spell out” the loop in the actual clip.
Recreate the loops in the LiveScore Editor and use its playback.
Editing
Now we’re ready to edit our score. Duplicate the track “2 Lead-Square” and delete the MIDI clip. Click on the first slot and
press cmd-shift-M to create an empty MIDI clip. Press cmd-R and name the clip MELODY2. Click inside the first track and
switch to track view. Open the score editor, create a new score, update the Live clip menu by clicking on “Live Clip“, insert a
staff and transcribe clips “1 0 MELODY” and “2 0 MELODY2” to the first two staves. The first staff should be empty, the
second should contain the melody of What a Wonderful World. Copy and Paste Free Flow (see Edit menu) the first 8 notes
to the second staff so that we create an imitation by a half note (see below). The new clip will automatically be updated as
you add new notes to it, provided that Automatic Updateis turned on in Preferences (it’s turned off by default because
frequent updating of large scores might slow things down a bit).
Note: You’ll need to click on the first note and (with the shift key held) on last note of the selection (don’t try to shift-drag-
enclose the notes). Choose Fill Empty Measures with Restsfrom the Scorepions menu and start embellishing the music
by assigning dynamics, slurs, wedges and marks. Choose Commit to Live Set if you want the music to be included in the Live
set (you’ll still need to save the Set though).
Save/load/import a score
It’s time to save your work. Choose Save Score from the File menu and save the score to your favorite folder. When you
reopen the file by choosing Load File from the File menu, the corresponding Live clips will be auto assigned to their staves
and you’ll be able to continue working on the score in sync with Live provided that you haven’t changed the MIDI clips in
the meantime. Alternatively, you can commit the score to the Live set and enjoy being able to continue your work without
having to load the MaxScore file separately after opening the set.
If the score contains music that hasn’t been created in Live (e.g. by importing a MIDI file directly into the Editor; we
recommend importing MIDI files directly to the Live clip matrix), the staves have to be linked manually to the Live clip
matrix. Choose the clip slot into which to write the music from the Live Clip menu and click on update. Now the Live clips
contain the notes from the score and are perfectly in sync as long as their tempos match. (You can set master tempo in Live
in the upper left-hand corner.)
