Transposing midi to selected keys...

[Pony Slaystation]

I'm wondering if there's a way in PT to transpose all midi notes that are out of key to a specified key. Here's an example, say I just hit random midi notes on my keyboard, is there a way to select them all and transpose them so they're all in the key of Am? Where the off notes would be transposed to the nearest note in that key? If not I think this would be a really fun, creative feature in PT, imagine the possibilities when you're stuck writing a bass line or chords.

I'm all about happy accidents, any time I can escape my normal way of playing is great. Let me know if you have any ideas.

[Stig Eliassen]

You can just slap your hands on white keys only, and then use MIDI Real-time properties to transpose in key. If the song is in a different key, you can transpose MIDI clips to the correct key first, and then use MRTP to transpose in key.

I've never won the lottery, but your milage may vary.

[soybalm]

That's a Cubase feature and possibly Logic on the mac. I wouldn't be surprised if Sibelius or Finale allowed that type of key limiting.

[soybalm]

Guess what? I found out how to do this. Record a bunch of random midi notes in the edit page. Make the key ruler viewable. place the start playhead before the midi notes you want to constrain to a key. Create a key change clicking the plus sign in the key lane. notice the tick next to Edit pitched tracks. Tick that and constrain to key. What's really cool is you can record in that same area again and just double click the yellow triangle in the key lane right where your key change is and the same dialog will allow you to re constrain or even change keys. Cool!! Plus you can change keys as you move through the song. Thanks for thinking up this idea. I was hoping Pro Tools had a way of doing this. Very elegant way indeed!

[soybalm]

Check the reference manual page 802-804.

[filosofem]

Originally Posted by Pony Slaystation

say I just hit random midi notes on my keyboard, is there a way to select them all and transpose them so they're all in the key of Am?

No, Pro Tools needs to know the Key before transposition.

[soybalm]

Originally Posted by filosofem

No, Pro Tools needs to know the Key before transposition.

You can play a chromatic scale, open the key lane on the edit page. Click the + to add a key signature. In the dialog box select Am and tick off "Edit pitched tracks." Tick that and constrain to key. It will slide all of the out of key notes up or down to Am. It's best to fix overlaps or merge overlaps at that point. This is huge. It's one of those things you think Pro Tools wouldn't implement but as usual, they found a very elegant way of handling this.

Edit: You can limit the range of notes affected by moving ahead and dropping another Am key change with no constraints. I haven't tried selecting a few notes and applying the constraints. I'm guessing the whole clip would shift and maybe other clips following that. Some more experimenting or closer manual reading needed here.

[Stig Eliassen]

Originally Posted by soybalm

You can play a chromatic scale, open the key lane on the edit page. Click the + to add a key signature. In the dialog box select Am and tick off "Edit pitched tracks." Tick that and constrain to key. It will slide all of the out of key notes up or down to Am. It's best to fix overlaps or merge overlaps at that point. This is huge. It's one of those things you think Pro Tools wouldn't implement but as usual, they found a very elegant way of handling this.

Edit: You can limit the range of notes affected by moving ahead and dropping another Am key change with no constraints. I haven't tried selecting a few notes and applying the constraints. I'm guessing the whole clip would shift and maybe other clips following that. Some more experimenting or closer manual reading needed here.

This does indeed work nicely. Thanks for sharing.

[soybalm]

I also want to add that the real time transpose does some cool modal transposing when selecting "in" instead of "by". It keeps relative accidentals but moves it to the next mode. If the first mode was C Ionian, then if you transpose up 1, it will shift up to the next mode, D Dorian or from the II so C, D, E becomes D, E, F. In 2 would be E, F, G. If you played say C, D, Eb, E, you would end up with a unison here and there. Pretty cool nonetheless but it seems you can't use the mouse wheel to change values, just click and scroll works.

[AutoTonic]

I know this thread is a few years old, but I just wanted to let you know that I've
just released such a software solution for modal MIDI transposing this summer – it's called 'AutoTonic' and my official homepage can be found here: https://www.autotonic.net
By completely reinterpreting the MIDI keyboard's keys I myself would describe it more as a 'new instrument' which with ease allows to play in any harmonic content (with AutoTonic there are actually 24,576 possible Scale/Tonic states to set) and in a complete linear way. Also AutoTonic reinterprets the black keys as function toggles to load mappings instantly to your white keys, allowing harmonic context to play that would've been physically impossible normally. I've also patented this new instrument's particular function technique and started selling it trough my own webshop, with great feedback so far. It's definitely something unusual, and some people might have to get used to it, but hey – which new invention wasn't that at all. I simply want you to know that it really works well (I am using it night and day myself since a long time already) and it can be an amazing delightful tool for writing/making music to any musician at any skill level!

Kindest regards from Vienna,
Clemens