Play together with Ableton Live, pt. 1: playing in tune

Feeling the need to make music making a little less solitary? In this multi-part series, we’ll be exploring some resources for adapting Ableton Live to playing with others — playing in tune, in sync, sharing ideas, and producing together. So let’s start as instrumental ensembles do: by tuning up.

Pitch is political: learning Arabic maqams and decolonizing music

Sami Abu Shumays has uploaded his complete lecture on politics and maqams. He talks about how decolonizing music also meant decolonizing himself—reconnecting to his roots as a Palestinian American. This is essential context for Sami’s work, which includes the Arabic tuning section of Ableton Live 12’s tuning implementation and free companion site.

Peter Kirn - August 21, 2024

Analog Waveguide module uses 1971 theory to make a killer resonator

It’s 2024’s newest Eurorack module from CHAIR, The Center for Haptic Audio Interaction Research. But the inspiration dates back to some 1970s magazines and analog signal processing theory. What you get is an amazing physical modeling resonator for patching that sounds extraordinary. In a world of sound-alike gear, this is just the sort of experimental […]

Peter Kirn - May 15, 2024