Import accurate MIDI from Live?

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Level 1

10 points

Import accurate MIDI from Live?

Hi folks,

New to Logic Pro X as of today, I had been testing out Ableton for a few weeks but decided to go this route for my new hobby. But now I'm hitting a surprisingly frustrating wall: I had created some MIDI stuff in Live that I don't want to lose, and while I'm happy to recreate the instrument and pan/volume settings, I don't want to have to redo the actual MIDI compositions, which I would think would be the most universal part of what I created.

And yet, no matter what I have tried, the exported/imported MIDI files are completely useless — the drum track beat positions are off even though I have the same tempo set in both apps, and the composition is bizarre, the hi-hat voice is absent for a long time before it comes in, and none of the velocity nuance is there at all.

Any idea what's going on here? From a tech-savvy but music-neophyte standpoint this makes no sense, it seems like this should be super simple, straightforward data. Help!

Posted on Oct 11, 2020 12:28 AM

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Answer 1

Whitfield G Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 11, 2020 4:28 PM in response to Whitfield G

I figured it out! Turns out you have to use the 'Consolidate' command on each clip in Live before exporting, after which it exports the finalized MIDI data instead of the data from the original recording of the clip. Still makes zero sense to me that I should have to do that, but at least I found the work-around!

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Answer 2

Pancenter

Level 6

14,782 points

Oct 11, 2020 8:16 AM in response to Whitfield G

Chances are Logic's realtime quantize is messing with the MIDI data, this a realtime function the track is not altered.

In the graphic I posted, look at the upper left see where is says Quantize "1/16 Note". If your tracks have any quantize settings click/hold and set to Off.em to off.

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Answer 3

Whitfield G Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 11, 2020 10:03 AM in response to Pancenter

Thanks for the tip! But I'm starting to get a better handle on the problem, and it's emanating from Live. Clearly Live is exporting "historical" versions of each of these tracks, as in the original, unquantized, unperfected versions as they were originally recorded, I have no idea why (I don't even see how it still has that data, it's not represented in the composition). I'm going to migrate this question over to a Live discussion board instead, I suspect that if I can get Live to truly export what I'm asking for then Logic will work just fine.

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Import accurate MIDI from Live?

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