Ableton has announced the release of MidiVolve.
Designed by UK electronic music legends Coldcut and inspired by Steve Reich's 'Music for 18 Musicians', MIDIVolve is a Max For Live arpeggiator, riff generator and pattern sequencer that automatically 'evolves' MIDI patterns into new riffs, melodies and grooves.
MIDIVolve instantly converts incoming MIDI notes (played live or imported) into an arpeggio or auto-generated riff, which in turn serves as the initial stage of the user-guided evolutionary process. Clicking the Evolve button instantly mutates various parameters (note Pitch, Velocity, Duration, etc), to create a new sequence; and activating Auto mode re-evolves the current or initial sequence on playback every 1-32 cycles. You can opt for subtle, organic shifts by evolving just one or two parameters, radical transformation of all of them, or anything in between.
Also included is a library of 11 unique Instruments (with 60 presets) and 8 Audio Effects Racks, developed in conjunction with Johannesburg musician and samplist Behr. The Instrument Racks are based on a 1GB library of sampled African instrumentation and sounds from the Coldcut archive, and built specifically for use with MidiVolve.
With an intuitive interface that lets you get as deeply involved in the auto-evolutionary process as you want, MidiVolve is aimed at every producer, from the fast-moving beat maker looking to quickly conjure up new basslines and riffs, to the high-concept electronic artist seeking a generative compositional system for multimedia installations and studio projects.
Coldcut's Matt Black sums his creation up as "a next gen warp drive sequencer for creating and mutating musical ideas".
Pack specifics:
- Powerful melody generation with no music theory knowledge required.
- Evolve sounds over time, subtly or dramatically.
- Conform notes to user-defined scales and modes.
- 12 Instrument and Audio Effects Racks included, built on 1GB of samples by Behr and Coldcut.
Pricing and availability
MidiVolve is a Max for Live device which can be purchased directly on Ableton.com for EUR 39 / USD 49.
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