Atoms
Pre-release working copy
Social Summaries
Ever wanted a delay where you can choose the pitch of each echo? Quarks is ready for your melodic explorations. #ableton #maxforlive
Atoms: regenerative granular audio tools for textures, melodies, and rhythms. #ableton #maxforlive
Bilbo: a creative real-time looping effect for those who know that not all sounds that wander are lost. #ableton #maxforlive
Generate melodies from the sounds of your drums, as you play them: meet Melodiös, a new #maxforlive tool for percussive melodists. #ableton
A dark forest of granular reverb: Old Growth, part of the Atoms #maxforlive effects series. #ableton
Atoms
Atoms is a collection of Max for Live devices built around regenerative granular synthesis. They are regenerative because each device constantly samples the incoming musical material, using the changes in the acoustic and/or electronic tones to change its own tone. They are granular because they use small, looped samples of the incoming sounds to create melodic and textural effects that take on the characteristics of the source audio.
Each Atoms device can take traditionally un-pitched instruments, like drums, and create melodic movement from the drums’ own timbres. An Atoms device can create lush ambience, complex interlaced melodies, overdriven chaos, rhythmic chatter, or a combination of each.
The controls are designed to offer plenty of customization, without being overwhelming. Being Max for Live devices means they are always built to play nicely (or rudely, if you like) with Ableton’s broad range of audio effects, MIDI effects, and instruments. They are easily mapped to Push, and to any MIDI hardware you might use.
Bilbo – There and Back Again Looper
Bilbo is time-varying sample playback device that creates real-time loops of varying lengths, tones, and directions from any incoming musical material. Timing is synced to the master clock so the loops, as chaotic as they grow in themselves, are still rhythmically sensible within the overall track. You can combine up to nine looping variations for simple phrase echoes, or a choir of intersecting rhythms.
Features
Nine loops, with dedicated on/off toggles: Eins through Neun
Two modes – Normal or Rhadgast (global speed shifted playback)
8 preset buttons
Visual-feedback mixer
Melodiös – Real-time Granular Step-Sequencer
Melodiös takes any incoming audio, and in real-time, pitches the audio grains according to a chromatic step-sequencer of up to 16 notes. The steps move along in order with each new incoming audio event, allowing the musical material itself to trigger each step. This is ideal for creating melodic material out of drums, desk tapping, or any percussive audio source.
Features
Decay for each step
Three parallel filters: low-pass, band-pass, and high-pass
Filter mixer
Sustain mode, Thump mode, Glass mode – deconstructive playback modes ideal for exotic and dissonant sound design
Old Growth – Regenerative Constant Reverberation
This is a reverb ideal for ambient layers, transforming acoustic instruments, and transitions between tracks. Old Growth not only creates reverberation from dense, randomized echoes, but also uses real-time sampling to constantly shift timbre and loudness alongside the incoming sound.
Features
Input Gain – can be used to overdrive the reverb and create more aggressive tones
A low-pass filter, with a dedicated LFO for optional modulation
Quarks – Re-Pitching Granular Delay
Quarks is a time-synced delay with up to six taps. You can choose the pitch for each delay tap, chromatically, across three available octaves. Quarks differs from traditional delays by using real-time granular generation of each tap. This allows for unique pitch control of each echo, making customizable arpeggios from any incoming audio, including un-pitched, percussive sounds. Since it is granular synthesis in action, each echo also takes its timbre from the incoming sound – shifting and breathing in real-time alongside the music.
Features
Eight note-subdivision options per delay tap
On/Off toggles for all six delay taps
Individual chromatic pitch control per delay tap
Built-in mixer for all six taps, with volume and panning controls
Age – a global filter control
Rudeness – a global resonance control