Ableton Live 10 has some great new drum synth devices, as part of Max for Live. But that kick could be better. Max modifications, to the rescue!
The Max for Live kick sounds great – especially if you combine it with a Drum Buss or even some distortion via the Pedal, also both new in Live 10. But it makes some peculiar decisions. The biggest problem is, it ignores the pitch of incoming MIDI.
Green Kick fixes that, by mapping MIDI note to Pitch of the Kick, so you can tap different pads or keyboard keys to pitch the kick where you want it. (You can still trigger a C0 by pressing the Kick button in the interface.)
Also: “It seemed strange to have Attack as a numbox and the Decay as a dial.”
Yes, that does seem strange. So you also get knobs for both Attack and Decay, which makes more sense.
Now, all of this is possible thanks to the fact that this is a Max for Live device, not a closed-box internal device. While it’s a pain to have to pony up for the full cost of Live Suite to get Max for Live, the upside is, everything is editable and modifiable. And it’d be great to see that kind of openness in other tools, for reasons just like this.
Likewise, if this green color bothers you, you can edit this mod and … so on.
Go grab it:
http://maxforlive.com/library/device/4680/green-kick
Thanks to Sonic Bloom for this one. They’ve got tons more tips like this, so go check them out:
https://twitter.com/sonicbloomtuts