Musicians Institute instructor Joe “Computo” Caputo writes about three essential Max For Live devices every musician should be utilizing in Ableton.
The partnership of Ableton and Cycling74’s Max For Live has undoubtedly been one of the greatest innovations in music production. The extended functionality for Ableton Live allows anyone to use or create devices in the DAW, which has led to the development of thousands of new tools. Many of these can be found at the online device repository, maxforlive.com. However, there are a number of free devices available for download from Ableton.com, through their website or the Packs section of the Ableton browser.
Buffer Shuffler 2.0
Buffer Shuffler 2.0 is a multi-effects audio device, each controlled by an independent step sequencer. It can be found in the free “Max For Live Essentials” Pack from Ableton under the “Packs” tab in the Places section of the Browser. The effects include remix friendly tools like Beat Shift including independent shifting of the left and right channels, Stutter, Rhythm Gate (sometimes called a Trance Gate) Pitch and Frequency Shift, Pan and Amplitude. On the right hand side of the panel, the overall pattern and sequence lengths can be set for a more granular level of control.
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Buffer Shuffler is useful on all kinds of musical elements. Beats (or anything rhythmic) are certainly fun for quick and complex results, but Buffer Shuffler is just as happy on a Group or Master Track. The Freeze button can instantly lock into a beat repeat mode, which is convenient for quick remixing and beat mashing. Be sure not to miss the pattern Random functions at the bottom of the device as well. Along with the Reset button, these can be used in real time to create unique and constantly changing patterns, before resetting and returning to the original material.
Buffer Shuffler was developed by Cycling 74’s own Director of Education and Customer Service, Darwin Grosse, who recently passed away unexpectedly, but not before leaving an indelible mark on the Max community. A prolific creator, in addition to creating countless devices and objects for Max, releasing albums, writing books on Max and modular synthesis, Darwin also found time to create the Art + Music + Technology podcast, recently concluding on its 380th episode. His podcast features interviews with some of the world’s most iconic music technologists and musicians, including Herbie Hancock, Morton Subotnick, Pauline Oliveros, Robert Henke (inventor of Ableton) and so many others.
Buffer Shuffler was used by Skrillex and Deadmau5 among thousands of others in its early years, from around 2009 to 2014, when it was revamped by Matthew Davidson (also known as Stretta, developer of the modular synthesis environment BEAP within Max) with a more futuristic interface.
https://cycling74.com/tutorials/buffer-shuffler-2-0-video-series
Instant Haus
Instant Haus is also found in the “Max For Live Essentials” Pack, and is a specialized MIDI device that generates House and Techno style drum grooves. Imagine having a beat maker in the room with you, taking a lot of pressure off when you want to focus on other aspects of your production.
Designed to be used with any Drum Rack (and most drum focused plugins) Instant Haus generates Kick, Snare and Closed and Open Hi Hat patterns, along with an additional percussion pattern. Each section contains 11 to 23 independent MIDI drum patterns, selected by the Pattern knob. The MIDI patterns on each channel are set out to specific notes which correspond to established MIDI notes for drums, C1 for Kicks, D1 for Snares, F#1 and A#1 for Hihats, though these can also be customized.
Additional controls offer control over Swing, Note Timing Shift, and Velocity Range. There are also useful Randomize buttons in the lower right corner, for quick alteration of the beat structure while maintaining the style. Instant Haus can also be used for Hiphop, Drum n Bass and other broken beat grooves when switched into “Breaks” mode.
Max for Live: Alexkid Instant Haus
Emit
This instrument can be found in the free “Inspired By Nature by Dillon Bastan” Pack. Emit is a granular particle emitter, based on phase vocoding synthesis, allowing samples to be played back at any speed while maintaining pitch. Load a sample into Emit and hit Play on the Ableton transport to start Emit, which will constantly generate a number of grain bursts. The range and direction within which each grain can move is determined by the small clickable box in the Emit spectrograph, which can be dragged and resized.
Once Ableton is playing, the main controls are found under the two Emitter tabs. Each allows for an entirely separate window of grain bursts across the same sample, with up to 16 grains each. That’s up to 32 layers of stretched granular samples, ideal for deep and rich ambient textures. Combine Emit with a thick reverb or delay effect and things can get very space-y very quickly!
These are only three of the thousands of Max For Live devices available to Ableton users. Be sure to check out the “Packs” section in your Ableton browser for more devices, as well as www.maxforlive.com for many more user created tools.
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