Make an Ableton Step Sequencer without Max for Live, Pt. 2

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:32:42 +0000

Brought to you by: http://www.theabletoncookbook.com Step sequencers truly divide the people. Some people consider them to be a crucial part of the electronic music workflow. Some people (like, myself) don’t really see what all the fuss is about. Correction: DIDN’T see what all the fuss was about. Now that I’ve figured out how to make a Melodic Ableton Step Sequencer without Max for Live, I have to admit that I’m pretty taken. My goal for this exercise was to make the step sequencer using only Live’s inbuilt MIDI FX and be able to rack it up for easy usage with any instrument I’d like. I’m glad to say that I’ve accomplished my goal and the results are in this here video here. I’m splitting this baby into two posts because people lose it when I post something over 10 minutes. So, the other half of the video will be forthcoming (tomorrow). Here was my strategy: I had to make one MIDI FX Rack chain for each step and I had to trigger them in sequence. Once I had one note playing in each chain, I needed to be able to pitch them up or down. I did this using a Scale effect on each Device Chain. Full Text Step by Step Tomorrow: Here’s the steps 1) Make a seed clip, a MIDI clip with one whole note. NOte doesn’t really matter, but I use C. 2) Drag an Arpeggiator onto the track to subdivide this MIDI Seed clip into steps as you see fit. Use the “Sync Rate” to change the step size. 3) Put a Random effect on the track. Set the mode to “Alt” and the Sign to “Add.” Make the Chance 100% and the Choices correspond to how many steps you want to have in your sequencer. I use 8. 4) Create a blank MIDI FX Rack. Create a new chain in the chain view. In each chain, put one Scale effect and one Note Length effect. 5) Set the Scale effect so that all of the LEDs are in the bottom row. This will force any incoming note into a C. 6) Duplicate this chain (Cmd+D) as many times as you’d like. The number of chains should correspond with the number of steps in the sequencer. 7) Change each Chain’s Key Region (in the Chain view of the MIDI Effect Rack) to correspond to just ONE note. These should be consecutive. This way, each chain is triggered one by one in sequence. 8) Map either a macro or a MIDI controller to the “Transpose” parameter of the Scale effects in each chain. This will now control which note plays on each Step of your sequencer. 9) For bonus points, map a MIDI knob to the “Note Length” effect in each chain. This will allow you to change the length of each step. 10) I also like to put a Scale effect after the Step sequencer to make sure that things dont’ get too free jazz up in this! I hope that you found this helpful and be sure to check out the Ableton Live Course for all kinds of tricks like this one!

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Make an Ableton Step Sequencer without Max for Live, Pt. 2