Am I able to use a regular QWERTY keyboard to make beats in Ableton Live, without using an actual keyboard?
Rightgo to Options, then Preferences, then MIDI Sync. Make sure Control Surface, Input and Output are all set to the brand and model of your keyboard. Next, click on the Audio tab within Preferences. The Driver Type should be set to Asio4All. The Audio Input and Output Device options should be set to whatever soundcard or interface that you're using. Close it and restart Ableton. All being well, if your drivers are installed properly, it should work. If not, feel free to add more details and I'll try to help.
The switch looks like a few notes on a piano keyboard in the top right corner. Alternatively toggle it on/off by selecting Computer MIDI Keyboard from the options menu.
Yes. There is a 'switch' on the main page to use computer keyboard. In fact a music keyboard would preferably be a midi controller as well. It can also be controlled by a Launchpad (like Novation). The clever thing about Live is that it can be mapped to many different controllers (Automap). It really depends what sort of music you want to make. Beats is pretty simple so the PC keyboard would be fine although I would think drum pads (velocity sensitive ) would be better.
