Palette Sequencer by the duo KOAN Sound uses color palettes to generate sequences for melodies and modulation. It’s gorgeously designed and available now for Ableton Live and Max for Live.
I missed that this came out last month but happened upon it looking for other generative music stuff today. And it’s just beautifully designed, featuring some of the best of Live’s step sequencer with a literal color palette you use to generate values. I’m looking forward to haveing time to play with new Tuning System support in Max for Live, but you could still use the output MIDI devices with other tunings – and you can map to modulation.
It’s a really nice demo, too:
While there are some other tools with similar ideas, the color element is irresistible and the compact, straightforward design is wonderful. (There is some great stuff out there that I don’t use, frankly, because I just can’t get past another overdesigned Max for Live UI. So a bit of minimalism wins for me every time – I’m sure I’m not alone in that.)
Find it on the KOAN Sound store for just a few bucks:
https://store.koansound.com/products/palette-sequencer
KOAN Sound is also playing live – actually, it’s funny to watch as it’s a bit like watching a pianist generate patterns as if they were a generative device (but maybe that’s the point – translating between mind, hands, machine). It’s all a bit more good-natured than my uh, usually dark, destructive tastes, but the musicianship and ideas are totally on point – and I love how they move between sections in this silky-smooth way:
And they talk about their technique in this documentary, alongside a full-length sci-fi audiobook:
I can’t recommend Manifest Audio enough if you’re into this kind of thing. I’ve written about founder Noah Pred’s generative tools here and there, but a great place to start getting a taste for his devices is on the free page – that’s already a ton of stuff:
https://manifest.audio/free-tools