This is because theres not necessarily a black key between every white key on a musical keyboard.

So, if you strike Q, R, or I on your computer keyboard, you wont trigger any note and therefore shouldnt hear anything.

As long as the Computer MIDI Keyboard switch is activated (see my blog post about navigating Live, or find it in the top right hand side of your Live window) you can easily check which octave is selected by a quick review of the status bar at the bottom of the Live window when striking the C or V keys.

This discovery demonstrates one of the limitations we can experience when playing notes from our computer keyboard the keys are not velocity sensitive.

However we can easily edit the velocity of any note in the velocity editor window inside any clip in Ableton Live, and at least with C and V we can change the input velocity if we are planning to enter some notes with a desired velocity that is high or low.

Just as we can check the note range in the status bar, we can also check the current velocity setting by striking these keys and taking a look at the status bar.

If youre using Drum Rack or Impulse, the way the keys work is different to devices such as Operator or Simpler, so making sense of it all requires some understanding of how things are laid out on these devices before working out which key to strike to play your desired note.

So, when using your computer keyboard, the keys A, S, D, F, G, H, J and K will play each of the pads from left to right.

If you cant trigger the sounds with these keys, check the octave to which your computer keyboard is set (and remember that you can adjust the octave by striking Z or X to transpose up or down).

Its also easy to use the Pad Overview on the left of your Drum Rack pads to navigate across many octaves (the Drum Racks pads are actually organized into groups of 16).

Dont forget that you can use Lives info view and hover over areas of the Drum Rack to find these items.

Simpler is a single-sample sampler, that normally plays back one sample at a different for each musical key or note selected.

That is, it will play the sample at its original recorded pitch if the note C3 is selected, but any move up or down the keyboard will alter the pitch accordingly.

Drum Rack is different, because it acts like a shelving unit for 128 different instances of Simpler, and each of these is set to play the sample at a single pitch.

Moving up or down the keyboard changes the Simpler to be triggered, rather than the pitch of the same sample.

Most other Devices or plugins will behave like a Simpler that isnt sitting inside a Drum Rack that is, they will change the pitch of a sample (if a sampler) or an oscillator (if a synthesizer) when transposing up r down the keyboard.

If youre confused about how Simpler works on its own compared to how it works inside a Drum Rack, try experimenting with both by dragging the Simpler in and out of the Drum Rack and then playing some different notes.

Drop me a line via the contact page and I can work through it with you.

I have the keyboard button in the top left selected but when i am in an instrument only the zxcv keys do anything.

Mac Keyboard To Pc Keyboard Keys