Zack's Ableton Live Devices / Plugins

Knobbler bridges the gap between your fingertips and Ableton Live. Control any parameter, mix tracks, and launch clips with responsive touch sliders and XY pads that mirror your Live set's colors and names in real time. Build custom control layouts tailored to each project — your configurations save with the Live set, ready to go every time you open it.

Smoothly crossfade between any number of child tracks in a group or chains in a preceeding Instrument Rack or Audio Effect Rack device. Adjust width and shape of the pickup pattern, with even-power presets.

Play up to 10 filters with MIDI notes to reprocess sounds or build textural synths.

Plays a number of contiguous time segments of an audio file simultaneously, with a flexible crossfader control to select which segment(s) you want to hear. This allows you to scrub through time of a longer sample, while always playing the sample at 1x speed.

An innovative echo/delay effect that gives you visual control over inter-tap timing, pan, and volume. Up to 128 taps lets you make echo fields and reverb-like effects.

Decompose chords across multiple tracks. Add the device to each track you want to feed off the chord and set the desired voice/group. Play a MIDI chord into any track containing this device, and its notes will be distributed across the tracks sharing the same group.

Gives precise real-time control of note length. Crisco Note Shortening trades latency for convenience in being able to micro-tune note lengths, e.g. if you have notes in your piano roll that are legato but you want to shorten them to avoid the note release from interacting with the following note. Suggested by Marlon who makes Psytrance, where precise control like this is important.

This is a MIDI Effect device that will repeat notes, with each repeat delay following the Fibonacci Sequence. You can control the number of repeats, time scale, pitch, and velocity change.

This was my first Javascript-based M4L patch. It was a great learning experience to figure out how to code up both the logic and visualization in M4L's Javascript environment.

This is a MIDI Effect device that will trigger notes in a fractal pattern. The base fractal shape (in terms of timing between echo taps) can be defined, then number of iterations and iteration scale can be controlled. The kinds of textures you can get out of it are really surprising, and have been inspiring to me. There is a natural beauty and harmony to fractals, which can contribute a more natural feel to your sounds.

This device is mostly implemented in Javascript in Max For Live. Super fun to make.

A step sequencer that is advanced only via incoming MIDI notes. It supports pattern lengths of 1-32 steps, and with configurable pitch, velocity, and probability per step. Complex polyrhythms and shifting times are easily possible.

Len Stepper is a single-note arpeggiator that makes it easy to create rhythmic patterns with any measure division. Use it in conjunction with Key Stepper to reliably create polyrythms and fugues.

Allows you to use a control surface like Knobbler to send MIDI CC messages to outboard gear.

A note generator inspired by moire patterns. Set a base time interval, number of note layers, and an interval increment and hold a note. The ultimate polyrhythm weapon.

Put in your MIDI device chain to limit polyphony and/or enforce a minimum time between notes.

PitchPath is a tool that lets you draw melodies disconnected from a rhythmic pattern. Send it a MIDI note, and wherever the Pitch Path is at that moment will affect the note pitch that is output. It works with Scale Awareness and can be toggled between relative and absolute note modes. Surprisingly useful!

Gives you a mappable button to send all-notes-off, sustain-off, and pause MIDI communication for some period of time.

TriggerSeq is a performance-oriented sequencer. An incoming MIDI note triggers the sequence. The sequence can have 1-16 steps, and each step's duration is some multiple of a base duration. Pitch and Velocity can be absolute or relative, with optional scale awareness. Adjustable swing and note length percent. Toggle Thru or Choke mode to control how incoming notes interact with an already-playing sequence.

Use a stereo signal's left/right phase correlation as a modulation source.

It's a feedbacking echo effect for modulation data! Turn pulses into automated oceans!

Modulate two parameters in opposite directions, with real time control over deviation because sometimes you might want to do that.

This is a modulation utility that allows you to smooth out a modulation signal and map it to up to 8 other parameters, with independent control over rise and fall time.

This device constrains a modulation input value between a high and low boundary that you can control in real time.

This device combines two modulation signals using math, and outputs a signal you can then map to a parameter.

Turns continuous modulation input into stair-stepped output at your chosen frequency or note interval.

A polyphonic Karplus-Strong synthesizer. This was my first foray into [poly~] and can create a surprisingly wide range of sounds.

This is a sample-playback device with a focus on scratching or turntablism. Visually define up to 12 scratch gesture presets and trigger them with the keys C1-B1 while you use higher keys to trigger playing the sample. The scratch gestures affect the playback speed/direction of the sample that is playing.

This device was inspired by the Vestax Faderboard. It is an odd kind of sampler, with 10 voices to play back a sample at your chosen pitch. The thing that makes it unique is that each voice is played using a dedicated fader, and the sample is triggered when the fader leaves the silent position.

You can also control voice left/right pan position, loop start and end (with the ability to go backwards!), and trigger all voices to restart playing. The device outputs a stereo mix, but all 10 stereo channels are available independently too.

Gives you a knob to control which track or chain is soloed in a group or rack. It makes some workflows in mastering or creating albums easier by letting you map a hardware knob to track selection. Requires an options.txt workaround with Live 12.

Provides a button, that when clicked, changes all sends in all tracks to zero.

Allows you to control the position of the crossfader with a MIDI note off/on.

CurrentParamKnob lets you control the currently selected parameter in your Live Set with a MIDI CC and/or USB Human Interface controller.

Displays a grid of durations, in milliseconds, of various note lengths at the current song tempo.

Use a USB knob to scrub the playpack position in Arrangement view.

Lets you dedicate an octave of MIDI input notes to selecting Variations in an adjacent rack. Can optionally trigger randomizing the Macros in the rack with the last note in the octave.

Visualize the audio waveform at that point in your audio chain. Can be useful if placed before and after an effect.

An audio effect rack that wraps the Delay, Auto Filter, and Roar devices.

This effect rack device is two independent effects channels (chains) that have complete feedback capability, both per-channel and between channels! You can put any effects in either chain, and experiment with feedback and cross-feedback.

An audio effect rack that provides controls like an effects send, as well as a ducking feature for any effect.