By letting you get creative with audio, Ableton’s Simpler and slicing workflows have always opened up musical possibilities, and they got a lot more powerful in Live 9.5. But it could do even more. Developer Mark Egloff has released four clever Max for Live patches that let you slice without Push, chop in new ways, and more.
Mark’s site AZ-Labs is a platform for Max for Live patches that offer, in Mark’s words, “new or improved workflows that Live doesn’t provide.”
And kicking things off, here are four invaluable M4L patches:
Slice Control. Hey, I love Push 2. I also sometimes start a song idea at my desk or on a train. Slice Control gives you the display and slice workflows that normally work on hardware. You get an on-screen display, and you can map to third-party MIDI controllers (not just Ableton’s), or just use your mouse/trackpad. There’s some new functionality, too, like nudging slice start/end, and extra slice and selection modes.
Slices to Notes. This makes a new MIDI clip out of your slices, so you can reorder slices by changing the MIDI note pattern. I love this one, because it reflects how I worked in the days before Live 9.5.
Auto Slicer. Skip the transient detection, and chop based on equally-sized slices (from 1/32 to 1 bar). I’m not sure why this wasn’t already a feature, but now, here you go.
Pad Slicing Mode [Free]: Pad Slicing for all, not just Push 2 owners. Pad slicing lets you chop up samples as they play using the pads on a controller. Now you can use other controllers, too.
The whole set – and future updates – can be yours for 19€. Live 9.6 is required.
Looks like great stuff. I’m eager to give it a go, and look forward to whatever else he’s cooking up.
Check out the videos for a clearer view of how these things work:
First, here’s the pad slicing mode as seen on Push 2 (but now accessible to any controller, as it should be – you could even use keyboard MIDI input if you’re on your laptop):
And here are the other three patches in action:
Simpler Tools: Slice Control from AZ-LABS on Vimeo.
Simpler-Tools: Slices to Notes from AZ-LABS on Vimeo.
Simpler-Tools: Auto Slicer from AZ-LABS on Vimeo.