User's Manual

46 Live Concepts
4.5 Audio and MIDI
Clips represent recorded signals. Live deals with two types of signals: audio and MIDI. In the
digital world, an audio signal is a series of numbers that approximates a continuous signal as
generated by a microphone or delivered to a loudspeaker. A MIDI signal is a sequence of com-
mands, such as “now play a C4 at mezzo piano.“ MIDI is a symbolic representation of musical
material, one that is closer to a written score than to an audio recording. MIDI signals are gen-
erated by input devices such as MIDI or USB keyboards
4
.
It takes an instrument (page 259) to convert MIDI signals into audio signals that can actually
be heard. Some instruments, such as Live’s Simpler (page 522), are for chromatic playing of
one sound via the keyboard. Other instruments, such as Live’s Impulse (page 471), have a dif-
ferent percussion sound assigned to each keyboard key.
Audio signals are recorded and played back using audio tracks, and MIDI signals are recorded
and played back using MIDI tracks. The two track types have their own corresponding clip
types. Audio clips cannot live on MIDI tracks and vice versa.
Information about inserting, reordering and deleting audio and MIDI tracks is found here (page
235).
4.6 Audio Clips and Samples
An audio clip contains a reference to a sample (also known as a “sound file“ or “audio file“) or
a compressed sample (such as an MP3 file). The clip tells Live where on the computer’s drives to
find the sample, what part of the sample to play and how to play it.
When a sample is dragged in from Live’s built-in browser, Live automatically creates a clip to
play that sample. Prior to dragging in a sample, one can audition or preview it directly in the
browser; the switch in the browser with the headphone icon activates previewing.
4 For an introduction to MIDI and digital audio, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midi and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_audio.