New Packs

Guitaritis
guitaritis
A deluxe suite including combo amp racks making the utmost of Live’s built-in Amp and Cabinet devices, “Stomper” effects designed like guitar pedals and guitar Chord presets.
Stuff it comes with…

Combamps a whole bunch (30) of combo amps which are crafted to optimize Ableton Live’s built-in Amp & Cabinet devices to their utmost. These racks make it much easier to dial in your sound (combination of preamp drive, tone, envelope settings, biasing, and gain structure) without having to constantly adjust the output level to match as well. They also optimize your timbre selection options by providing many “dual” and even three “triple” racks, which combine and balance the tone of multiple amps. In testing, these multi-combamps have been much-appreciated for an expanded range of unique amp flavors, as you now basically have 30 unique amp models, instead of 6. All combamps have been gain-staged at multiple points in the signal chain using both Peak and LU matching with both “Strat”and “Les Paul” styles, as well as bass electric guitars. The dual & triple combamps are gainstaged with a system resulting in relatively balanced levels at all gain settings when using wide panning (so that one amp is not way louder on one side than the other one). Since every guitar has its own tone & envelope character, these values are guaranteed to be imperfect, but it should result in you only needing to make miniscule volume adjustments to fine-tune your ultimate sound.
Post Amp Compressor a simple compressor with settings calibrated ideally for taming an amp output’s transients.
Guitar Chords 35 presets for Chord based on actual human guitar fingerings.
Stompers 18 racks set up like guitar pedals, designed for use with a Combamp akin to a physical guitar routing setup.  If you have a midi foot controller you can use them exactly as such. Includes…
Booster
Chomper
Comper

Dister
Dualay
Flonger
Gater
Glitcher
Phozzer
PitchDownDelay
PitchUpDelay
Smevel
Somber
Sproing
Swamper
Toner
Tremotary
Whamper

Groovification 2
groovenose
A robust collection of groove files which implement rhythmic “chop” effects in quarter, eighth, and sixteenth-note patterns.
Stuff it comes with…

Chopper Grooves 302 of them! Drop a Chopper Groove onto an audio OR a MIDI part, make sure your global groove amount is up, and hear it do its thing. Drop different Chopper Grooves onto different tracks… then when you turn global groove amount up… they all start chopping in their own way.

Harmonicality
harmo
Audio effect and MIDI racks designed for enhancing and manipulating harmonics by various methods.
Stuff it comes with…

Harmonic Colorizer enhance harmonics using various different methods. By using different amounts of each knob, you can set up your own unique boost texture to help a part stand out against its various song elements, or use it to subliminally add a particular color to a submix or mix.
Overtone EQ (3 versions) EQ racks set up to select a target frequency, and then manipulate the harmonics based on that frequency. The Even & Odd version allows separate control of even & odd harmonics. The Even vs Odd will boost Even or Odd and attenuate the other (useful for hearing the difference between those types of harmonics). The Sculptor version is useful for manipulating each harmonic interval individually.
Undertone EQ (3 versions) just like the Overtone EQs, but these manipulate lower harmonics instead (not as common of an operation). They include the same 3 versions.
Harmonic Chord Presets these will add in MIDI notes based on harmonic intervals. Simple, but useful. Includes 2nd through 4th harmonics which each add only 1 note and also CoarsePerfect, and Undertone versions which each add multiple harmonics.
Harmonics Extender (3 versions) MIDI racks which can be used to set (& automate) the amount of added harmonics. Includes CoarsePerfect, and Undertone versions.

Amplitude Operands
ampop
Utility presets allowing to divide or multiply level according to Sound Pressure Level, Acoustic Intensity Energy, and Perceived Loudness Sensation.
Stuff it comes with…

Sound Intensity by Energy (Utility Presets)
Sound Loudness by Sensation (Utility Presets)
Sound Pressure by Voltage (Utility Presets)
divide or multipy audio level by either “SPL”, “SIL”, or “Volume”. This is technical stuff. Check out http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-soundlevel.htm for more info. Basically…
-use SPL (voltage) division when you want to sum parts perfectly (i.e. 5 copies of something each divided by 5 SPL and recombined will equal the exact level of the original)
use SIL (energy) for acoustic energy calculations. Like, let’s say you’ve got a really small sound, like a pin drop. Multiply it by 100 SIL to estimate the level provided by 100 pins dropping at the same time.
use Volume (loudness) for the human perception of level.
So, to make something seem twice as loud, subjectively, multiply it by 2 Volume.
There are also included some racks to choose/automate which multiplier/divisor to use:
SPL Divisor

SPL Multiplier

Volume Divisor
Volume Multiplier

Note Range Setters
noterangemash
An assortment of midi racks, primarily for composers, which filter incoming notes according to standard instrument & vocal ranges, plus tools for making custom note ranges.
Stuff it comes with…

Note Range Setter (Absolute) define a playing range by setting the lowest and highest allowable notes
Note Range Setter (Relative) define a playing range according to distance from a root note
Note Range Blocker (Relative)
set a sub-range of notes to block from being played within a range

Includes individual MIDI racks for a vast range of classical and folk instruments, as well as standard vocal ranges:
Brass
36 instrument ranges
Exotic 2 instrument ranges
Guitar & Plucked 58 instrument ranges
Mallets 8 instrument ranges
Percussive 5 instrument ranges
Piano & Keys 14 instrument ranges
Strings 15 instrument ranges
Voices 35 vocal ranges
Winds 88 instrument ranges
Simply set a note range before a MIDI instrument to allow it to only play notes within that range.

“Drum MIDI FX” Free Pack

A new free Live pack is available at Subdivizion.
It includes a handful of midi racks which are specifically designed for use before drum racks in Ableton Live.
Especially fun stuff for live performance if you like to play drum racks with a midi pad controller.
Also very useful for hastening studio production workflow.
Click the image below to learn all the details of the specific devices and to grab the pack.
Many thanks to Subdivizion for hosting. Enjoy!

Drum MIDI FX - Copy

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Controlling MIDI in Ableton Live with a Video Game Controller

joystick ableton
DO WHAT NOW?
Get your video game controller to do stuff in Live.
DO WHY? Because doing so is awesome. Duh!
DO HOW? This is where it gets tricky. But not that tricky.

MIDI or KEY mapping? Key mapping alone is groovy, but you are limited to toggling between two values. That’s no fun for a filter sweep! With 0-127 ranges you can map that analog joystick to control knobs and faders with full precision.

Continue reading

Free Ableton Live Pack: Midi Dynamics

Midi Dynamics BrowserPresenting Midi Dynamics, the latest PerforModule free pack.

It includes 4 simple yet useful devices specifically for controlling midi dynamics, and one silly device with various fun-ctions. Click image to grab!

Midi Dynamics

Included Devices:

Midi Compressor
Smooth out too-loud midi instrumentation.
Use this like you would an audio compressor, to attenuate midi notes which exceed a certain velocity. All notes exceeding the threshold will be attenuated. The further past the threshold it is and the higher the amount is set, the more a note will be attenuated. Notes below the threshold velocity will not be affected at all.
Example usage: Playing a synth instrument melody in which notes above a certain velocity become too harsh-sounding due to a filter resonance tied to the velocity. Use the midi compressor to soften only those too-harsh notes. 

Midi Expander
Smooth out too-quiet midi instrumention.
Use this like you would an audio expander, to boost midi notes which are below a certain velocity. All notes under the threshold will be boosted. The further below the threshold it is and the higher the amount is set, the more a note will be boosted. Notes above the threshold velocity will not be affected at all.
Example Usage: Trying out a melody with a different synth instrument, and the quietest notes are now much quieter than they were previously due to the new instrument’s velocity mappings. Changing the mappings or note velocities would take too much time so you just use the midi expander to lift up the quietest notes.  

[Midi Compressor and Expander Special Notes: You can use Live’s “Velocity” device by itself to attenuate or boost overall note velocity; however these devices are useful for more precise and careful dynamics control, by using the threshold to set a cutoff point. Notes nearby other notes do not affect each other’s response the way an audio compressor’s transients do, so imagine them as if they have perfectly fast & noiseless attack and release.]

VelociRaptor
Set the velocity to a specific value.
Use this when you want rigid control of the velocity of an instrument, to be able to use a knob or automation to set the level at any moment to an exact setting. This overrides input velocity and all velocity effects prior to it in the chain.

Velocity RNG
Add in a bit of random fluctuation to an instrument’s velocity.
At small amounts, this will add in a bit of “humanization” and make the playback of instruments less robotic sounding. At higher settings it will vary more sporadically, until at maximum, a note of any input velocity may result in an output of any possible velocity. Tip: record a midi track with little or no dynamic variation into another midi track, routed through this device at a low setting. The new midi track will now have random difference applied to each note.

Rad-omizer
This is a rack with various tools to quickly alter a midi instrument’s input. Macros include:
Mutant DNA: adds in a random chance that played notes will instead “improvise” and play a different note. The higher the control is set, the more chance of a mutant note, and the further away from its original value it might stray.
Force Scale? Key Major … Minor?: optionally implement a scale selector to force all notes to conform to a chosen major or minor key. Niftily see the choices in the macro control’s numerical box.
High Octave+ … Low Octave+: Blend in added octave notes (Make sure the instrument you are using has enough voices enabled to cover the added notes).
Random Velocity: adds in velocity flux just like the “Velocity RNG” device.
Dynamics: the default position for this is in the middle (63.5). Turn this up to drive overall note velocity; turn it down to soften overall note velocity.

CLICK HERE to grab the stuff!

New free GT-8 Impulse Responses by PerforModule at Bedroom Producers Blog

I got inspired one day and sampled a convolution for each effect i could procure out of my Boss GT-8 Guitar Multi-FX pedal. I sent them off to Bedroom Producers Blog, where they are now available for FREE download.
I also made a default “Convolution Reverb Pro” preset Ableton device for each IR and made them into a pack.
I sampled them at 96k 32 bit for no compromise of quality.
If you have Ableton Live 9 + MaxForLive, you can install the effects simply by dragging the .alp file into ableton and clicking “yes”.
If you do not own Ableton Live, do not fear! You can still use these convolutions with your preferred Convolution plugin.
Click the “Boss GT-8 Impulse Responses” image to teleport to Bedroom Producers Blog and grab them!

 

~`~

Oh and, if you didn’t catch it already, be sure to grab the PerforModule “Pitchbend Vibrato” midi rack over at subaqueousmusic.com! Click the image below to go there.

PitchBend Vibrato Image

Huge thanks to Bedroom Producers Blog and Subaqueous Music both for hosting my crafts and spreading the love. The worldwide creative community is so inspiring!
And a huge thanks to you, reading this. I never imagined this blog would become what it has, and every single visitor here is partially responsible and you have my personal gratitude.

much love
~animus