An introduction to MPE

MPE stands for MIDI Polyphonic Expression, and it allows you to add more feelings and movement to your music. We can add bends, slides, and pressure to each individual note we play (even if the notes are forming a chord!).

Figure 12.1 – Using MPE in Live 11

What does this mean exactly?

Let’s say you have a chord recorded and would like to change the pitch of the chord toward the end of the notes. For this, you can easily write the pitch change into an automation or modulation envelope (either by automating the device’s pitch parameter that is playing back the chords, or using modulation through clip envelopes). However, when you do this, the pitch change will be applied to all the notes within the chord/clip. What if you wanted to pitch down the root note of the chord but pitch up the top note? Well, that is one of the things that MPE allows you to do. With MPE, we can control multiple parameters of a single...