Tag: Ableton Live

Chord Sender trick on Live 9

I recently got a copy of Live 9 and realised that Ableton introduced some new functionality that is of great use to nwdlbots. You can now apply automation envelopes to control parameters from within clips.

This offers the possibility of using the envelope view in a chord sender track to set the chord types while still using pitch values to set the root note of each chord-scale. This means you can see both parameters at once!

Here’s a picture of four bar II/V/I progression to show you what I mean:

chords_in_L9

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nwdl tracks?

A few people around the web have started to post mp3 tracks showing what they’re doing with nwdlbots (pronounced noodlebots). I’m very interested to hear how different people are using the bots and would like to post links on this site so that others can hear them too. Please get in touch if you’ve got something.

Here’s one track I found yesterday. It’s from devsound (“label, blog, and whatnot”) in Sweden and it features some bots talking to a Blok modular synthesizer.

http://devsound.se/tag/nwdlbots

I’ll also put some of my own tracks up soon.

nwdlbots tutorial 3: Chord Following

Here’s the third video tutorial for nwdlbots (pronounced noodlebots). This tutorial shows how to make Event Bots follow a sequence of chords.

In this example, a single guitar bot “gets down with its bad self (so to speak)” by noodling over an 8-bar “jazz” rhythm pattern. Thus demonstrating that nwdlbots are not just for ambient music.

This is the last tutorial for nwdlbots 0.1. More bots are coming in the next release.

(Ableton Live and Max for Live required).

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/28761169 w=533 &h=300]

nwdlbots tutorial 2: Just Listen

I’ve just finished the second nwdlbots tutorial.

This episode demonstrates the way in which nwdlbots can interact within a Live Set using two modules called noodle control and noodle send. By attaching noodle sends to each EventBot in a set, you can relay MIDI information to the control module, which collates the information and then feeds it back to the EventBots, informing their decisions regarding onset and pitch.

This allows the bots to work together controlling the density and harmony of the set.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/27156538 w=533 &h=300]

Video Tutorial: Building an Event Bot

Here’s the first of a series of tutorials about nwdlbots.This tutorial describes how to build an EventBot from three basic modules: Event Generator, ScaleBot and DynaBot. In future videos, I want to talk about making the bots interact, chord following and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Please let me know if you find this stuff useful.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/26426329 w=533 &h=300]

nwdlbots are go!

The first group of nwdlbots, my generative modules for Ableton Live are now available for download on this site. You can find the six modules (Event Generator, ScaleBot, DynaBot, Noodle Send, Noodle Control and Chord Sender) packed in single Ableton Live Pack on the download page.

Documentation for the various modules is available from the nwdlbots menu above.

I’m making a bunch of tutorial videos as well and hope to have the first of these online soon.

nwdlbots – first video

Here’s a first look at nwdlbots, my suite of generative music devices for Ableton Live. These devices include MIDI event generators, pitch and velocity choosers and others.

As well as generating events at random, nwdlbots can respond to activity on other MIDI tracks in Live, or to input from a MIDI instrument. In effect, nwdlbots control the density of a piece by reducing their activity when things get too busy. They also have some rudimentary ideas about harmony and can follow a chord sequence.

I am building nwdlbots as tools for writing my own music but I hope shortly to make some of them available to other composers through the max for live website.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/25549583 w=533 &h=300]

More info soon