Ableton/Live/UG/31 Instrument Reference
- A reference entry for each built-in instrument, such as Analog, Drift, Operator, Sampler, Simpler and Wavetable.
- Analog is a virtual analog synth made with Applied Acoustics Systems. It doesn't copy one vintage synth; it combines features of several.
- It uses physical modeling: equations for analog circuits are solved in real time, with no samples or wavetables.
- Garden notes: Ableton/Instrument/Analog/106 Bass
- Two oscillators and a noise generator feed two multi-mode filters, each followed by an amplifier. The filters can run in series or in parallel.
- Two LFOs modulate oscillators, filters and amps, and each filter and amp has its own envelope.
- The interface is a central display surrounded by the shell. The shell holds each section's main controls; the display shows the selected section's visualizations and extra controls.
- A Global section holds volume, vibrato, polyphony and similar settings, and an MPE section maps pressure, slide and per-note pitch bend.
- Modeled oscillators, so no aliasing. Each has an on switch (Osc 1, Osc 2) and a level slider.
- F1/F2 — balance between Filter 1 and Filter 2; centered sends equally.
- Shape — sine, sawtooth, rectangular or white noise. Rectangular enables Pulse Width (100% is a square with odd harmonics only; low values sound thin), which an LFO can modulate.
- Octave, Semi, Detune — tuning; Detune moves in cents, up to 300 cents either way.
- Pitch Mod — LFO amount, and Key: how far pitch follows the keyboard. 100% is equal temperament, 0% ignores note pitch. C3 always plays the same frequency, so oscillators with different Key values move further out of tune with each other the farther you play from C3.
- Pitch Env — Initial pitch and the Time to glide to the final pitch.
- Sub/Sync — Sub adds an oscillator an octave down (square for saw or rectangle, sine for sine, off for noise) at a set Level. Sync restarts the waveform from a hidden oscillator whose rate rises with Ratio; 0% has no effect. Mapping Ratio to a mod wheel is a suggested use.
- White noise through its own -6 dB/octave low-pass filter, with an on switch and level.
- F1/F2 — balance between the filters.
- Color — the low-pass frequency; higher is brighter.
- Noise has shell controls only, so the display doesn't change.
- Two multi-mode filters with independent settings, flexible routing, saturation and modulation.
- Fil 1 / Fil 2 — on switches; the chooser beside each picks 2nd- or 4th-order low-pass, band-pass, notch, high-pass or formant.
- Freq and Reso — cutoff and resonance. With a formant filter, Reso moves between vowel sounds. Filter 1's Freq: Ableton/Instrument/Analog/Filter/1/Freq
- To F2 (Filter 1) — how much of Filter 1's output feeds Filter 2.
- Follow (Filter 2) — Filter 2's cutoff tracks Filter 1, including its modulation; Filter 2's Freq then sets the offset.
- Freq Mod and Res Mod — modulation of cutoff and resonance by LFO, note pitch and filter envelope; negative values lower them.
- Drive — saturation after the filter: Off, three symmetrical Sym modes, or asymmetrical Asym modes; higher numbers distort more.
- After each filter an amplifier sets level and pan, with its own envelope.
- Amp 1 / Amp 2 — on switches; Level and Pan knobs.
- Pan Mod and Level Mod — modulation by LFO, note pitch and amp envelope. With note pitch on Level, middle C stays the same and positive values make higher notes louder.
- Besides the oscillator pitch envelopes, each filter and amp has an ADSR envelope, all four with the same controls in the display, plus velocity and looping.
- Attack, with Att < Vel to shorten it at higher velocities; Decay; Sustain (fully left removes sustain, fully right removes decay); Release.
- Env < Vel — velocity scales the whole envelope.
- S.Time — lets the sustain level fall while the key is held; lower is faster.
- Slope — linear or exponential segments.
- Legato — a note played while another is held continues that note's envelope.
- Free — skips sustain and goes straight from decay to release, so notes have equal length; suits percussion.
- Loop:
- Off — plays once.
- AD-R — attack and decay repeat until release.
- ADR-R — attack, decay and release repeat while held.
- ADS-R — no looping, but attack and release play once more on key release, which can mimic audible dampers.
- With Free on, AD-R and ADR-R act as if the key is always held.
- Two independent LFOs that modulate oscillators, filters and amps.
- LFO 1 / LFO 2 switches, Rate in Hz or tempo-synced divisions.
- Wave — sine, triangle, rectangle, stepped random noise or smoothed noise. Width shapes triangle (toward up or down saw) and rectangle (pulse width); 50% gives a pure triangle or square.
- Delay — time before the LFO starts; Attack — time to full depth.
- Retrig — restart at the same phase on each note; Offset shifts the phase.
- Volume, vibrato, unison, glide, routing presets and keyboard settings.
- Volume — overall output.
- Vib — a dedicated pitch LFO on both oscillators with amount and Rate. Display adds Delay, Attack, Error (random variation per voice) and Amt < MW (mod wheel control of depth).
- Uni — stacks voices per note with Detune; the display picks two or four Voices and a Delay between them.
- Gli — glide with Time; with Legato, glide only on overlapping notes. Glide Mode Const keeps time fixed; Prop scales it with the interval.
- Quick Routing — four buttons set common routings without touching levels, tuning or waveforms: each oscillator to its own filter and amp; both oscillators split across both filters; everything through Filter 1 and Amp 1; or serial Filter 1 into Filter 2 and Amp 2.
- Keyboard section:
- Octave, Semi, Detune (±50 cents) for the whole instrument.
- PB Range — pitch bend range in semitones.
- Stretch — stretch tuning as on pianos: positive raises high notes and lowers low ones; negative does the reverse.
- Error — random tuning per note.
- Voices and Priority — polyphony, and which notes get cut when it runs out: High keeps higher notes, Low keeps lower, Last keeps the newest.
- The MPE switch in the Global display shows three MPE sources: Pressure, Slide and NotePB (per-note pitch bend).
- Pressure and Slide each have two destination choosers with amount sliders, and activity LEDs.
- Note PB — per-note pitch bend range in semitones.
- Collision models mallet percussion with physical modeling, made with Applied Acoustics Systems. It can model real objects or ones that couldn't exist.
- Two exciters, Mallet and Noise, feed two stereo resonators that can be independent or linked. The exciters start the sound; the resonators shape most of its character. With both exciters off there is no sound.
- The interface has Mallet and Noise sections; Resonator 1 and Resonator 2 tabs; an LFO tab with two LFOs; a MIDI/MPE tab for pitch bend, mod wheel, aftertouch and their MPE versions; and global settings for voices, retrigger, resonator structure and volume.
- Turning off unused sections saves CPU.
- Simulates a mallet striking a surface; the controls set the mallet's physical properties. The Mallet button turns it on.
- Volume — output level.
- Stiffness — soft mallets give fewer highs and a longer, blurrier hit; harder ones a shorter, brighter hit.
- Noise — impact noise in each strike, like the "chiff" of a felt mallet.
- Color — noise frequency; higher removes lows. No effect when Noise is 0.
- Volume, Stiffness and Noise can follow pitch and velocity through the Key and Vel sliders in the MIDI tab.
- A second exciter: white noise through a multimode filter with its own envelope, usable instead of or with the Mallet. The Noise button turns it on.
- Filter types LP, HP, BP and LP+HP. Freq sets cutoff or center; Res sets resonance, or bandwidth in LP+HP. Cutoff can follow note pitch, velocity or the envelope.
- Volume — output level, modulated by pitch and velocity in the MIDI tab.
- Env Amt with A, D, S, R — an ADSR envelope on the filter. S at 0 removes sustain; at 100 removes decay.
- The resonators define most of the sound. Each tab has an on switch; with both off there is no sound.
- Resonance Type:
- Beam — beams of various materials and sizes.
- Marimba — a Beam variant with the overtone tuning of arch-cut marimba bars.
- String — strings of various materials and sizes.
- Membrane — a rectangular membrane like a drum head.
- Plate — a flat rectangular plate.
- Pipe — a tube open at one end with an adjustable opening at the other.
- Tube — a tube closed at both ends.
- Quality — Eco to High, trading overtone detail for CPU. Not on Pipe or Tube.
- 1 → 2 / 2 → 1 — copy one resonator's settings to the other.
- X-Y Controller — horizontal sets decay, vertical sets Material or Radius.
- Decay — internal damping.
- Material — low values let lows ring longer (wood, rubber, nylon); high values let highs ring longer (glass, metal). Pipe and Tube use Radius instead: larger means longer decay and more sustained highs, and at extremes a pitch change.
- Ratio (Membrane, Plate) — proportion of the object's two sides.
- Brightness — louder highs at higher values. Not on Pipe or Tube.
- Inharm — negative compresses partials downward, positive stretches them upward. Not on Pipe or Tube.
- Opening (Pipe) — 0% closed at one end, 100% open at both.
- Hit — strike point, center at 0% toward the edge at higher values; Rnd randomizes it. Not on Pipe or Tube.
- Note Off — how much note-off mutes the resonance; 0% ignores it like a real marimba, 100% mutes at once.
- Pos. L / Pos. R — where vibrations are picked up on each side, center to edge. Pipe and Tube are always measured at the open end.
- Decay, Material/Radius, Inharm and Opening can be modulated in the MIDI tab.
31.2.4.1 Tuning Section
- Tune in semitones and Fine in cents, up to ±50.
- Key in the MIDI tab sets keyboard tracking: 100% is equal temperament, 200% makes each half step a whole step, negative values fall in pitch as you play higher.
- Pitch Env and Time — a starting pitch that glides to the final pitch; velocity can scale the start.
31.2.4.2 Mixer Section
- Gain and Pan per resonator; pan can follow note pitch.
- Bleed — mixes in the dry exciter signal, which helps restore highs lost at low tuning or quality.
- Two LFOs modulate Mallet, Noise and resonator parameters, and each other.
- Waveforms: sine, square, triangle, saw up, saw down, stepped noise and smooth noise.
- Offs. — phase offset, used when Retrigger restarts the LFO on each note.
- Two Destination choosers per LFO, each with an amount relative to the LFO's Amount.
- Rate in Hz or synced divisions; Rate can follow pitch and Amount velocity in the MIDI tab.
- Maps pitch bend (including per-note), mod wheel, pressure and slide to two destinations each, with amounts.
- Key and Vel sliders let note pitch and velocity modulate further Mallet, Noise, resonator and LFO parameters.
31.2.6.1 The Global Section
- Voices — maximum polyphony.
- Retrig. — retriggers a playing note instead of adding a voice, saving CPU.
- Structure — 1 > 2 (serial): both exciters feed Resonator 1, whose mono mix also feeds Resonator 2 while Resonator 1 reaches its own mixer in stereo. 1 + 2 (parallel): the exciter mix feeds both resonators.
- Volume — overall output.
- For a realistic marimba, follow the physical chain: the Mallet strikes a tuned bar (Resonator 1), and a tube (Resonator 2) amplifies it, in serial 1 > 2.
- For unrealistic sounds:
- Use the Noise exciter with long envelopes for washy, near-granular textures, or effects like bowed vibraphone and crystal glasses.
- Try the parallel 1 + 2 structure.
- Modulate with the LFOs and MIDI or MPE controllers.
- The models are idealized and can respond far more strongly than real objects. Some settings jump sharply in volume, so keep levels low while experimenting.
- Drift is a light-on-CPU subtractive synth with a simple interface and full MPE support.
- Six sections: oscillators, filter, envelopes, LFO, Mod and global controls.
- Subtractive synthesis starts from a harmonically rich waveform and carves it with filters. Drift adds modulation on top.
- The Drift control gives each voice small pitch and filter variations, so the tone wavers slightly out of tune.
- Two oscillators, pitch modulation, a waveform display, an oscillator mixer and a noise generator.
31.3.2.1 Oscillator 1
- Waveforms: Sine, Triangle, Shark Tooth, Saturated, Saw, Pulse, Rectangle. Shark Tooth is based on a classic Moog shape; Saturated suits bass.
- Oct transposes by octaves. Shape alters the harmonics, somewhat like pulse-width modulation, differently per waveform; the Waveform Display shows the result.
- Shape Mod Source — Env 1, Env 2/Cyc, LFO, Key (more modulation for higher notes when positive), Velocity, Modwheel, Pressure or Slide, with an amount of -100% to 100%. Shape Mod can move the waveform even when Shape is 0%.
31.3.2.2 Oscillator 2
- Waveforms: Sine, Triangle, Saturated, Saw, Rectangle. Oct in octaves, Detune in semitones.
31.3.2.3 Pitch Mod
- Two sources modulate both oscillators' pitch, chosen from the same list as Shape Mod, each with -100% to 100%. An LFO in Ratio mode on pitch can produce FM tones.
31.3.2.4 Waveform Display
- Shows the combined output of Osc 1, Osc 2 and noise as you edit.
31.3.2.5 Oscillator Mixer
- Switches and gain for Osc 1, Osc 2 and white Noise.
- With filtering on, raising gain drives the filter's two saturation points, before and after the filter, for analog-style distortion: the first engages above the default -6.0 dB, the second above 0.0 dB.
- Arrow toggles beside each gain send that source through the filter; off bypasses it.
- R — Retrigger resets both oscillators' phase on each note; off lets them run free.
- A switchable low-pass filter with key tracking and resonance, a high-pass filter, and two modulation slots.
- Freq — low-pass cutoff. Type — Type I, 12 dB/octave DFM-1 that feeds distortion back internally, from gentle sweeps to warm drive; or Type II, 24 dB/octave Cytomic MS2, a Sallen-Key design with soft clipping that limits resonance.
- Key — 0.00 ignores note pitch; 1.00 makes cutoff follow it.
- Res — low-pass resonance. HP — high-pass cutoff.
- Clicking the section shows an X-Y view: the left dot sets HP, the right dot sets LP cutoff horizontally and resonance vertically.
- Freq Mod — two sources for LP cutoff, each -100% to 100%.
- Envelope 1 shapes amplitude; Envelope 2 is for modulation. Click a section or the 1 and 2 toggles to show one in the display.
31.3.4.1 Envelope 1
- ADSR on the oscillator section's amplitude, set by knobs or in the display. Attack goes from start to peak, Decay from peak to Sustain, Sustain holds until note-off, Release returns to zero.
31.3.4.2 Envelope 2
- Another ADSR, not on amplitude by default, available as a modulation source everywhere in Drift.
- The switch left of Attack turns it into a Cycling Envelope, which acts like an LFO restarted by each note.
- Tilt moves the midpoint, and at extremes the slopes. Hold sets time at maximum. Time modes: Rate (Hz), Ratio, Time (ms) or Sync (beat divisions).
- One LFO with the same four time modes as the Cycling Envelope: Rate, Ratio, Time and Sync.
- Waveforms: Sine, Triangle, Saw Up, Saw Down, Square, Sample & Hold, Wander (S-curves between random values), Linear Envelope and Exponential Envelope (one-shot decays).
- R — retrigger on each note, or free-running.
- Amount — overall depth; a modulation source and amount can modulate the LFO itself.
- Three free slots route a source to a destination with -100% to 100%.
- Sources: Env 1, Env 2/Cyc, LFO, Key, Velocity, Modwheel, Pressure, Slide.
- Destinations: Osc 1 Gain, Osc 1 Shape, Osc 2 Gain, Osc 2 Detune, Noise Gain, LP Frequency, LP Resonance, HP Frequency, LFO Rate, Cyc Env Rate, Main Volume.
- Mode — voice mode:
- Poly — one voice per note, up to 32.
- Mono — one note at a time drawn with four voices; Thickness raises the three extra voices from silent at 0. A new note chokes a held one.
- Stereo — two voices per note panned apart by Spread.
- Unison — four voices per note detuned by Strength.
- Voices — total voices. At 32: Poly plays 32 notes, Stereo 16, Unison 8.
- Drift — scales each voice's own random offsets to oscillators and filter; more sounds more out of tune.
- Legato (Mono) — new notes change pitch without restarting envelopes; Glide sets the slide time.
- Volume and Vel > Vol — level and how much velocity affects it.
- Transpose — ±48 semitones. Note PB — per-note pitch bend on or off, so an MPE controller can be used without finger position changing pitch. PB Range — pitch bend range.
- Drum Sampler plays one-shot samples in Drum Racks, with start and length, an AHD amplitude envelope, pitch, a filter, modulation and nine playback effects.
- Load a sample by double-clicking it in the browser or dropping it on the waveform.
- Sample Start and Sample Length — as percentages of the sample;
Shift-drag Start for fine steps and a zoomed view. - Sample Gain — -70 to 24 dB.
- Attack, Hold, Decay — the envelope. Hold can be inf to play the whole sample, and is unused in Gate mode.
- Envelope Mode — Trigger plays through the Hold time after note-off; Gate fades by the Decay time at note-off.
- Transpose ±48 semitones and Detune ±50 cents.
- Hovering the waveform shows Swap to Next/Previous Similar Sample and the hot-swap button. Right-click for Show Similar Files, Return to Reference and Save as Similarity Reference. The title bar's hot-swap button replaces the whole instrument. Shortcuts: Ableton/Live/UG/42 Keyboard Shortcuts/23 Similar Sample Swapping.
- One effect at a time, turned on with the Playback Effect toggle and picked from a menu. Each has two parameters, on knobs or an X/Y pad (vertical first, horizontal second).
- Stretch — changes length without pitch, with grainy lo-fi artifacts; Factor and Grain Size.
- Loop — repeats part of the sample; Loop Offset and Loop Length.
- Pitch Env — pitch sweep; Amount ±100% and Decay back to base pitch.
- Punch — fixed-attack ducking that brings out the transient; Amount and Release.
- 8-Bit — filtering plus bit and sample-rate reduction; Sample Rate and the filter's Decay Time.
- FM — a sine modulates pitch; Amount and Frequency.
- Ring Mod — Amount and Frequency; low frequencies give tremolo, high ones the usual ring-mod artifacts.
- Sub Osc — a 30–120 Hz sub layer on the device's envelope; Amount and Frequency.
- Noise — a noise layer on the device's envelope; Amount and Color.
- Time and frequency controls in most effects follow the played note and global pitch. FM and Ring Mod modulation decays with the global Decay, so short decays touch only the transient.
- Filter On and four types: 12 dB low-pass, 24 dB low-pass, 24 dB high-pass and peak. Low- and high-pass have Resonance and Frequency; peak has Gain and Frequency.
- Volume -36 to 36 dB, Pan, and Velocity to Volume.
- Modulation Source — Velocity or Slide (MPE), sent to one destination: Filter cutoff, Attack, Hold, Decay, or FX1 and FX2 (the current playback effect's two parameters), with a Modulation Amount.
- Enable Per-Note Pitch Bend — on by default.
- Envelope Follows Pitch — scales the envelope with pitch so it covers the same part of the sample when transposed.
- Drum Sampler > Simpler — swaps in Ableton/Instrument/Simpler, keeping start and length.
- In a Ableton/Instrument/Drum Rack, a pad's Save as Default Pad makes Drum Sampler load for every sample dropped on an empty pad.
- Electric is an electric piano modeled on 1970s instruments, made with Applied Acoustics Systems. Every component is physically modeled in real time, with no samples, and parameters reach beyond what the real instruments allow.
- Garden notes: Ableton/Instrument/Electric/E-Piano MKI Simple
- A key drives a hammer into a fork, and a magnetic pickup amplifies the fork, much like an electric guitar. The fork has a tine bar, which the hammer strikes, and a tone bar, a tuned resonator. It rings for a long time until the key's release brings a damper down.
- Four sections: Hammer, Fork, Damper/Pickup and Global. Click a section, or its icon, to show all its parameters.
- Stiffness — harder hammers sound brighter, softer ones mellower; follows velocity and pitch via Vel and Key.
- Noise — impact noise, with Pitch (center frequency), Decay and Key (pitch scaling of noise volume).
- Force — how hard the hammer hits; Amount plus Vel and Key.
- Tine — the struck part. Color balances low and high partials; Decay sets fade while held; Key scales level by pitch.
- Tone — the fork's secondary resonance, with its own Decay.
- Release — fade after key release, for both tine and tone.
31.5.4.1 Pickup Parameters
- Symmetry — vertical position; 50% is in front of the tine and brightest, lower is below, higher is above.
- Distance — farther is cleaner; closer overdrives more.
- Type — R is electro-dynamic, W is electro-static.
- Input and Output — signal into the pickup sets distortion; output sets level. Low input with high output is cleaner than the reverse. Key scales output by pitch.
31.5.4.2 Damper Parameters
- Dampers make a small noise when they leave and touch the fork; these simulate it.
- Tone — soft to hard dampers, mellow to bright.
- Level — amount of damper noise.
- Att/Rel — -100 only on attack, 100 only on release, center both.
- Volume and Voices — more voices cost more CPU.
- Semi and Detune (±50 cents).
- Stretch — stretch tuning. Real tines and strings don't behave like the ideal model, so equal temperament can sound off on pianos; stretching sharpens high notes and flattens low ones. Negative values do the reverse.
- Pitch Bend — global bend range; Note PB — MPE per-note bend range.
- A routing utility, not a sound source: it sends MIDI to a hardware synth or a multitimbral plug-in and brings its audio back.
- MIDI To — two choosers. The first picks a MIDI port or a track holding a multitimbral plug-in; the second picks the MIDI channel.
- Audio From — for hardware, the audio interface inputs wired to the synth's outputs, as set in the Audio Settings; for a plug-in, its auxiliary outputs. Main outputs play on the plug-in's own track.
- Gain — level of the returning audio; set it to avoid clipping.
- Hardware Latency — manual delay compensation for the external device, in ms or samples. Use samples for digital connections so the count survives sample-rate changes, ms for analog ones; samples allow finer tuning, but switch back to ms before changing sample rate. Disabled for internal routing, which is compensated automatically, and when Options → Delay Compensation is off.
- Routing details: Ableton/Live/UG/17 Routing and IO. Related: Ableton/How To/Record MIDI and Audio from external device
- Impulse is a drum sampler with eight slots. Each sample can be time-stretched, filtered, saturated, enveloped, panned and leveled, mostly with random and velocity modulation.
- Drag samples into slots from the browser or the Session and Arrangement Views, or hot-swap them;
Delete (Mac) / Backspace (Win) removes one. - Slots map to C3 through the octave above, leftmost first. With Fold on, the MIDI Editor lists all eight slots. A Pitch device transposes the mapping; a Scale device rearranges it.
- Each slot has its own parameters, shown when you click it. Changes, including automation and clip envelopes, apply only from the next note; for continuous changes during a note use Ableton/Instrument/Simpler.
- Slot 8's Link button ties it to slot 7 so each cuts the other off, as a closed hi-hat silences an open one.
- Hovering a slot shows play, solo, mute and hot-swap.
- Start — offset into the sample, up to 100 ms.
- Transp — ±48 semitones, modulated by velocity or random.
- Stretch — -100% to 100%; negative shortens, positive lengthens. Mode A suits low sounds like toms and bass; Mode B suits high ones like cymbals. Modulated by velocity.
- Several filter types with Frequency and Resonance; Frequency can follow velocity or random.
- Saturator — fatter, rounder sound; Drive adds gain and distortion, so lower the slot's volume to match. Heavy drive on low sounds gives overdriven analog drum tones.
- Decay — up to 10.0 seconds. Trigger mode decays with the note; Gate mode waits for note-off, which suits hi-hats with varying lengths.
- Volume and Pan per slot. Pan follows velocity and random; Volume follows velocity.
- Global controls right of the slots: Volume, Transp for all samples, and Time, which scales stretch and decay for all samples between short and stretched.
- Meld layers two independent macro-oscillator engines. It can do classic analog patches, but its strength is mixing unusual synthesis and filter types.
- Each engine has its own filter, envelopes, LFOs, MIDI- and MPE-aware modulation matrix, and two macro knobs that change with the oscillator type, from overtone control to noise-loop fragmenting, chiptune pulse width and raindrop density.
- Up to two polyphonic engines, in four sections: engines, modulation, filters and global mix.
- Starting points: combine different oscillator types, move each engine's macros, map parameters in the Modulation Matrix, or automate the macros with an LFO device.
- Toggle Expanded View in the header shows every modulation source and target. A and B switch engines; Copy to A / Copy to B copy modulation values; X clears all modulation.
- Each engine has its own on switch; turning an engine off also turns off its filter, but a filter can be turned off alone.
- Octaves, Semitones, Cents per engine. With Use Current Scale on, semitones (st) become scale degrees (sd).
- 24 oscillator types per engine, six of them scale-aware (marked ♭♯), from plain sine to wave swarms, FM, noise loops and ambient generators. Choose from the menu or step with the arrows.
- Each engine's two macro knobs change with its oscillator type. All four can be mapped to a MIDI controller, driven by an LFO device, or modulated in the matrix.
- Macros by oscillator type:
- Basic Shapes — Shape (sine → triangle → saw → square), Tone (pulse width).
- Dual Basic Shapes — Shape, Detune (adds a detuned copy).
- Noisy Shapes — Shape, Rough (noise distortion).
- Square Sync — Freq 1, Freq 2 of two synced squares.
- Square 5th — 5th Amt (morph to a square a fifth up), P Width.
- Sub — Tone (sine toward square), Aux (adds a lower subharmonic sine).
- Swarm Sine / Triangle / Saw / Square — Motion (modulates the swarm), Spacing (moves through more complex chords).
- Harmonic Fm — Amount, Ratio.
- Fold Fm — Amount, Shape (carrier shape).
- Squelch — Amount (FM depth), Feedback.
- Simple Fm — Amount, Ratio.
- Chip — Tone (pitch and pulse width), Rate (speed of the chip interval).
- Shepard's Pi — Rate (below 50 falls, above 50 rises, 50 still), Width (octaves used).
- Tarp — Decay, Tone.
- Extratone — Pitch, Env Amount.
- Noise Loop — Rate (how often noise-loop fragments change; high values become plain noise), Fade (graininess).
- Filtered Noise — Freq, Width.
- Bitgrunge — Freq (square frequency), Mult (number of sub-octaves; maximum gives none, minimum many).
- Crackle — Density, Intensity (spread of loudness and brightness).
- Rain — Tone (resonance of drops and wind, making it pitched), Rate (drop density).
- Bubble — Density, Spread (randomness of bubble size).
- Chord — four saws; Shape (intervals), Inversion. With Use Current Scale it builds chords from the set scale, otherwise from a major scale on the played note.
- Every envelope has Attack, Decay, Sustain and Release, set by number fields, typing, or dragging breakpoints. Red Attack, Decay and Release Slope values, or the diamonds between breakpoints, shape the curves.
- Loop modes for Amplitude and Modulation envelopes: Trigger plays every segment once and ignores sustain; Loop repeats the whole envelope; AD Loop repeats attack and decay.
- The Modulation envelope adds Initial, Peak and Final levels.
- Link Envelopes ties the engines' envelopes together so they act as one instrument.
- Two LFOs per engine, each in Hz or synced, with Phase Offset and Retrigger.
- LFO 1 types: Basic Shapes, Ramp, Wander, Alternate, Euclid, Pulsate, each with Rate and two macros. The LFO 1 FX panel chains two of 18 effects (FX1, FX2) onto it, each with a macro. LFO 1 and LFO 1 FX are separate sources in the matrix.
- LFO 2 — Sine, Tri, Saw Up, Saw Down, Rectangle, Random S&H; a third matrix source.
- Routes sources (columns) to targets (rows) within an engine, such as LFO 1 to Volume or the Modulation envelope to filter frequency. Drag a cell up or down to set the amount.
- On envelope and LFO timing targets, negative values speed them up and positive values slow them down. Some targets add modulation; others multiply.
- Click a parameter to add it to the current engine's matrix; an unmodulated row disappears when you click another parameter.
- MIDI and MPE data become modulation sources:
- Velocity, Pitch — the note's value, held for its duration.
- Random — a new value per note.
- Pitch Bend, Press, Modulation Wheel — standard controller sources.
- Note Pitch Bend, Slide, Press — MPE sources. Without a controller, clip envelopes can drive them.
- Per-engine settings: Osc Key Tracking, Scale Awareness and Glide.
- Osc Key Tracking — off plays C3, or the scale root in that octave, for every note; useful for drones and percussion.
- Phase Reset — fixed start phase per note. Phase Spread then spreads start phase by the matrix's Spread source; off starts at zero.
- Oscillator Scale Awareness — keeps scale-aware oscillators in scale: Dual Basic Shapes, the four Swarms and Chip.
- Filter Scale Awareness — keeps Plate Resonator and Membrane Resonator in scale.
- Glide — Glide Time for overlapping notes, in Mono or Poly. Porta slides smoothly; Gliss steps, by scale degree when scale-aware. Needs Glide Time above zero.
- Filter A and Filter B have their own on switches, a Frequency knob, 17 types and two macros per type, most often Q (emphasis at cutoff) and Drive (input saturation).
- Types:
- SVF 12dB / 24dB — state variable; L-B-H-N morphs low-pass, band-pass, high-pass and notch.
- MS2 — low- and high-pass from a Sallen-Key design in a well-known Japanese semi-modular mono synth, with soft clipping on resonance.
- OSR — band-pass from a rare British mono synth, resonance limited by a hard-clipping diode.
- LP Crunch 12dB — feeds its own distortion back in.
- LP Switched Res — resistors replaced by fast switches for downsampling artifacts; Lofi high is crushed, low is smoother.
- Filther — low-pass with hard diode clipping in and soft saturation out.
- Eq Peak / Eq Notch — Boost or Cut around the cutoff.
- Phaser — six-stage with Feedback and notch Spread.
- Redux — resampler and bitcrusher; Crush sets bit depth, Lofi mixes filtered downsampled signal with raw artifacts.
- Vowel — formant filter; Morph moves between vowels.
- Comb + / Comb - — feedforward and feedback combs with Feedback and Damp.
- Plate Resonator — 32 modes of a rectangular plate; size, resonance and ratio. Scale-aware.
- Membrane Resonator — 32 modes of a round membrane; size, resonance and high-frequency damping. Scale-aware.
- Per engine: Volume, Pan and Tone Filter, which cuts lows at positive values and highs at negative values.
- Limit — a per-voice limiter after both engines are mixed and Drive is applied.
- Mono/Poly — Mono offers Legato (new notes continue the held note's envelope); Poly sets 2 to 12 voices.
- Spread — range of the matrix's Spread source: an offset between stacked voices, or across a chord's notes when stacking is off. Does nothing unless routed.
- Stacked Voices — duplicates both engines per note, filters and modulation included; heavy on CPU.
- Mixer Drive — per-voice saturation after the mixer and before the limiter.
- Volume — output.
- Use Current Scale — follows Live's Scale Mode, so transposition, including the Pitch Quant target, moves in scale degrees.
- Operator combines Synthesis/Frequency Modulation with subtractive and additive synthesis. Four multi-waveform oscillators can modulate each other's frequencies, and it adds a filter, an LFO, global controls, and envelopes for each oscillator, the filter, the LFO and pitch.
- Garden notes: Ableton/Operator
- A central display sits between two sides of shell. The left shell has the four oscillators; the right has LFO, filter, pitch and global. Touching a shell control shows that section in the display, so levels and frequencies are reachable together while envelopes and waveforms sit in each display.
- The triangle at the top left folds the display away.
- Each oscillator either outputs audio or modulates another. Eleven algorithms, picked in the global display, set the connections; signal flows top to bottom in each icon. The algorithm can be mapped, automated and modulated.
- Beyond the usual FM sines, Operator offers other waveforms, two noises and a drawable partial editor. Ableton suggests exploring FM without the filter first, since many classic FM synths had none.
31.9.2.1 Built-in Waveforms
- From the Wave chooser: pure Sine, the usual first choice for FM; Sine 4 Bit and Sine 8 Bit for a C64-style sound; Saw D and Square D digital shapes for bass; resynthesized square, triangle and saw whose number (e.g. Square 6) is the harmonic count, with lower numbers mellower and less prone to aliasing; Noise Looped, a noise loop; and Noise White, true random noise.
31.9.2.2 User Waveforms
- User, or any built-in wave, can be edited by drawing harmonic amplitudes with the pencil;
Shift locks to one harmonic. The status bar shows harmonic number and amplitude. - Edit the first 16, 32 or 64 harmonics. Repeat extends them upward with a fade: low values are brighter, high values roll off more and favor the fundamental; Off truncates.
- The context menu limits drawing to even or odd harmonics and toggles Normalize, which keeps level constant; with it off, output can get very loud.
- Export as Ableton/File/.ams to Samples/Waveforms in the User Library; drop .ams files back on an oscillator, or into Simpler or Sampler. The Osc Preview's context menu copies waves between oscillators.
31.9.2.3 More Oscillator Parameters
- Coarse and Fine set frequency relative to the note. Fixed ignores note pitch and uses Freq times Multi, down to 0.1 Hz; only the timbre changes across keys, as for drums.
- Osc < Vel shifts frequency with velocity; Q quantizes the shift to whole ratios, otherwise it detunes into inharmonic tones.
- Amplitude comes from Level and the oscillator's envelope, scaled by Vel and Key.
- Phase, and R to restart the phase per note or run free.
- When modulating, the modulator's level and the frequency ratio set the result. An oscillator nothing modulates can modulate itself with Feedback.
31.9.2.4 Aliasing
- Digital synthesis aliases at high frequencies, and FM, with its many harmonics, does so readily; complex waves like Saw 32 more than sines. A little can be useful; too much makes high notes fold to unrelated pitches.
- Antialias mode, on by default for new patches, reduces it. Tone in the global section also tames it, sometimes like a low-pass filter. To hear aliasing, turn Tone up and play very high notes.
- The LFO runs up to audio rate, so it works almost like a fifth oscillator modulating the others' frequency.
- Dest. A buttons send it to each oscillator and the filter, with one amount; Dest. B adds another target with its own amount.
- Waveforms: classic shapes, S&H for random steps, and band-pass filtered Noise. The manual's tip: LFO noise is the key to FM hi-hats and snares.
- Rate with a Low, High or Sync range; Rate < Key makes it follow pitch; R retriggers.
- LFO Amount scales both destinations, modulated by Amt < Vel and the LFO's envelope.
- Seven envelopes: one per oscillator, plus filter, pitch and LFO. All can loop; filter and pitch envelopes have adjustable slopes.
- Oscillator envelopes have three rates and three levels: from Initial (often -inf dB) at the attack rate to Peak, at the decay rate to Sustain, and after note-off at the release rate back to silence. Drag breakpoints or nudge selected ones with arrow keys. Copy shapes between oscillators from the context menu.
- Slopes (filter, pitch) — positive moves fast then slow, negative slow then fast, zero linear.
- Loop — an envelope that reaches sustain while held restarts; Loop Time sets the return. Fast loops give effects you wouldn't expect from an envelope, and are the key to endless evolving FM sounds.
- Beat — restarts after the Repeat beat time without quantizing the first note. Sync — quantizes the first repeat to the nearest 16th so repeats follow the song; acts like Beat when stopped.
- Looped envelopes restart from their current level at the attack rate, so they don't click.
- Trigger — ignores note-off; good for percussion.
- Global Time scales all rates except Beat and Sync times; Time < Key speeds envelopes for higher notes; Time < Vel per envelope.
- The pitch envelope has Destination A–D and LFO buttons with an amount, an on switch in the shell, and a Dest. B target with Amt. B.
- Pitch and filter envelopes add End, the level after release.
- Tip from the manual: a looping pitch envelope routed only to the LFO acts as a second LFO on its rate, and the LFO's own looping envelope as a third on its depth.
- The filter shapes the oscillators' output; with classic waveforms Operator can work as a subtractive synth.
- Types: low-pass, high-pass, band-pass, notch and Morph, at 12 or 24 dB, with circuit models made with Cytomic:
- Clean — efficient, same as EQ Eight's filters; all types.
- OSR — state variable with a hard-clipping diode, from a rare British mono synth; all types.
- MS2 — Sallen-Key with soft clipping, from a famous Japanese semi-modular; low- and high-pass.
- SMP — a custom design between MS2 and PRD; low- and high-pass.
- PRD — a ladder with no resonance limiting, from an American dual-oscillator mono synth; low- and high-pass.
- Frequency and Resonance; non-Clean low-, high- and band-pass add Drive.
- Morph sweeps low-pass → band-pass → high-pass → notch → low-pass; its context menu snaps to each.
- The display switches between filter envelope and response curve; drag the curve to set cutoff and resonance.
- Cutoff modulation: Freq < Vel, Freq < Key, Envelope, and the LFO via Dest. A "FIL" or Dest. B. Play by Key in the Frequency context menu sets Freq < Key to 100% and cutoff to 466 Hz.
- Shaper curve with Shp. Drive and Dry/Wet after the filter; 0% wet bypasses it.
- Voices — up to 32; 6 to 12 is practical for CPU. At 1, overlapping notes play legato without retriggering envelopes, as for a flute.
- Volume in the shell; Pan in the display with Pan < Key and Pan < Rnd.
- MIDI routing: Velocity, Key, Aftertouch, Pitch Bend and Mod Wheel each reach two targets with amounts. Time < Key and the pitch bend range are fixed, though those sources can still take another target.
- Glide — polyphonic: new notes start at the last note's pitch and slide over Glide Time.
- Spread — two detuned voices per note panned left and right for chorus. It is read at note-on, so a sequence can make only some notes stereo. Costs CPU.
- Transpose — global.
- Turn off unused features, especially the filter and LFO, and keep voices at 6 to 12. Use Spread sparingly, and switch off Interpolation and Antialias if needed.
- Turning off oscillators doesn't save CPU.
- Operator comes from a love of hardware FM synths such as the Yamaha SY77, the Yamaha TX81Z and the NED Synclavier II.
- John Chowning first explored FM musically in the mid-1960s. In 1973 he and Stanford began working with Yamaha, which led to the DX7.
- Every parameter, grouped by where it sits; the Info View also explains any control under the mouse.
31.9.10.1 Global Shell and Display
- Time — scales all envelope rates. Tone — high-frequency content; brighter means more aliasing risk. Volume. Algorithm — oscillator connections.
- Voices — oldest notes are cut when exceeded. Retrigger (R) — retrigger a playing note instead of adding a voice.
- Interpolation — off sounds rougher, especially noise, and saves CPU. Antialias — off saves CPU.
- Time < Key — faster envelopes for higher notes. PB Range.
- Pan, Pan < Key (low notes left, high right, as for pianos), Pan < Random.
31.9.10.2 Modulation Targets
- For MIDI routings, the LFO's Dest. B and the pitch envelope's Dest. B: Off; OSC Volume A–D; OSC Crossfade A/C and B/D; OSC Feedback (only unmodulated oscillators); OSC Fixed Frequency; FM Drive (level of all modulators); Filter Frequency; Filter Q (Legacy); Filter Res; Filter Morph; Filter Drive (not with Morph); Filter Envelope Amount; Shaper Drive; LFO Rate; LFO Amount; Pitch Envelope Amount; Volume; Panorama; Tone; Time.
31.9.10.3 Pitch Shell and Display
- Pitch Envelope On — off saves CPU. Pitch Env — ±100%; 100% follows the envelope's levels, negative inverts.
- Spread, Transpose (affects playing notes), Glide (G) and Glide Time; legato glides don't retrigger envelopes.
- Destination A–D and LFO switches with Amount A; Destination B with Amount B.
31.9.10.4 Filter Shell and Display
- Filter On (off saves CPU), Filter Type, Circuit Type, Freq, Res (resonance for low- and high-pass, width for band-pass and notch).
- Freq < Vel; Freq < Key, where 100% doubles cutoff per octave around C3; Envelope, where 100% can shift about nine octaves.
- Flt. Drive, Morph, Shaper, Shp. Drive, Dry/Wet.
31.9.10.5 LFO Shell and Display
- LFO On (off saves CPU). Waveform — all band-limited to avoid clicks.
- Range — Low covers 50 seconds to 30 Hz, Hi 8 Hz to 12 kHz, or Sync to tempo.
- R, Rate, Amount, Destination A–D and FIL with Amount A, Destination B with Amount B.
- Rate < Key — at 100% the LFO doubles per octave like an oscillator. Amt < Vel.
31.9.10.6 Oscillators A-D Shell and Display
- Osc On. Coarse — whole-number ratios for harmonic relationships. Fine — fractions for inharmonic ones.
- Fixed, Freq and Multi — a constant frequency, Freq × Multi in Hz.
- Level — on a modulator, higher levels usually mean brighter or noisier sounds.
- Envelope/Oscillator display switches; 16/32/64 partials; Wave; Repeat.
- Feedback — self-modulation of an unmodulated oscillator, also shaped by its level and envelope.
- Phase (one full cycle), R.
- Osc < Vel with Q; Vel and Key for level, centered on C3. Velocity on modulators makes timbre follow touch.
31.9.10.7 Envelope Display
- Attack — linear on oscillator envelopes, shapeable on filter and pitch. Decay — exponential on oscillators. Release — from the current level at note-off to End, or to -inf dB on oscillators.
- Initial, Peak, Sustain, and End (LFO, filter and pitch only).
- Loop mode — Loop, Beat, Sync or Trigger. Repeat — beat time for Beat and Sync. Loop Time — return from sustain to initial.
- Time < Vel — scales segments, not Beat or Sync times.
- A.Slope, D.Slope, R.Slope — filter and pitch envelopes.
31.9.10.8 Context Menu Options for Operator
- Copy parameters between oscillators; set all envelope levels to maximum, minimum or middle; harmonics editor options (even or odd, Normalize, export .ams); Play By Key; and Enable Per-Note Pitch Bend, on by default.
- Sampler is Live's multisampling instrument. It handles libraries of several gigabytes, imports common library formats, and has a modulation system that reaches nearly every part of its sound.
- Pick a preset from the folders under Sampler in the browser; imported third-party libraries appear in its Imports folder. Arm the track so you can hear what you play, then play.
- Multisampling records an instrument at many pitches and dynamics instead of transposing one sample, so the timbre changes the way the real instrument's does. A piano, for example, might have three or more samples per key for soft to very loud playing.
- Sampler works with multisample presets, imported third-party multisamples, your own multisamples, or a single sample run through its modulation.
- Title bar context menu entries beyond the usual Cut, Copy, Rename, Edit Info Text and Delete:
- Group — wraps Sampler in a new Instrument Rack.
- Fold — shows only the title bar; double-click to unfold.
- Show Preset Name — off titles the device "Sampler" instead of the top sample's name.
- Lock to Control Surface — keeps Sampler on a control surface set in Link, Tempo & MIDI, wherever focus goes; happens automatically when the track is armed. A hand icon marks it.
- Save as Default Preset.
- Use Constant Power Fade for Loops — on by default; off uses linear loop crossfades.
- Sampler -> Simpler — converts the preset, for sharing with Live editions that lack Sampler.
- Tabs in the title bar: Zone, Sample, Pitch/Osc, Filter/Global, Modulation and MIDI. Each tab except Zone shows its controls below; LEDs on a tab show it holds modulation.
- The Zone tab opens the Zone Editor above the Device View, for mapping samples across key, velocity and sample-select ranges.
- The sample layer list on the left holds every sample, or layer, of the multisample. Buttons above it:
- Auto — selects the layers that play each incoming note while it sounds.
- Lin/Pow — linear or constant-power zone fades.
- RR — Round Robin on or off.
- Key/Vel/Sel — which zone editor to show. Right-click an editor to zoom Small, Medium or Large.
31.10.5.1 Round Robin Sample Playback
- Plays a different sample on each note, cycling through layers that share a key zone; good for natural variation in repeated drums or notes, or for deliberate surprises.
- Round Robin Mode — Forward (top to bottom), Backward, Other (random, never the same twice running), Random (repeats allowed).
- Reset Interval — restarts the cycle at a set interval, such as each bar, from the first sample of the mode.
31.10.5.2 The Sample Layer List
- Layers can be named, for example by root key; hovering shows details in the Status Bar, and selecting one opens it in the Sample tab.
- Context menu: Delete, Duplicate, Rename; Distribute Ranges Equally (C-2 to G8) and Distribute Ranges Around Root Key; zoom; Show in Browser; Manage Sample; Normalize Volume (peaks to full headroom); Normalize Pan (an even stereo spread, not necessarily center); Select All With Same Range; and sorting by name, key, velocity or selector, ascending or descending.
31.10.5.3 Key Zones
- The note range, up to all 127, that triggers each sample. A sample stays accurate a few semitones around its root key, and other samples cover the rest.
- New samples span the full range. Move and resize zones like Arrangement clips; drag a top corner to fade across semitones and crossfade neighbors, linear or exponential per Lin/Pow.
31.10.5.4 Velocity Zones
- The note-on velocities, 1–127, each sample answers, so different dynamics can use different recordings. Edited like key zones.
31.10.5.5 Sample Select Zones
- A 0–127 filter not tied to any MIDI input, like a Rack's Chain Select zones. Only samples whose zone overlaps the sample selector can play.
- Moving the selector doesn't switch a sample already playing.
- Playback settings for the selected sample, around its waveform. Most values apply to that sample only; the Sample chooser switches layers.
Cmd-scroll (Mac) / Ctrl-scroll (Win) zooms. - Reverse — global and modulatable; plays from Sample End back through the Sustain Loop to Sample Start without writing a new file.
- Snap — snaps start and end points to zero crossings of the left channel to avoid clicks; a small Crossfade may still help. Right-click a loop brace for Snap Marker.
- RootKey, Detune (±50 cents), Volume (up to +24 dB), Pan.
31.10.6.1 Sample Playback
- These work with the global volume envelope. Envelopes here use Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release with A., D. and R. Slope; Initial, Peak and End levels; Time < Vel; Loop modes (Loop, Beat, Sync, Trigger); Repeat; and Loop Time, as in Operator.
- Times show in samples or min:sec:ms, switched from any value's context menu.
- Sample Start and Sample End — where playback starts and stops. A slow attack can delay the audible start.
- Sustain Mode — no loop; a forward loop between Loop Start and Loop End; or a back-and-forth loop, each while the note sustains. Link sets Sample Start to Loop Start.
- Release Mode, with a Sustain Loop active:
- Off — the release happens inside the sustain loop.
- Release — playback runs on toward Sample End.
- Release Loop — runs to Sample End, then loops from Release Loop to Sample End.
- Back-and-Forth Release Loop — the same, bouncing back and forth.
- Crossfade — smooths loop joins, constant-power unless turned off in the title bar menu.
- Detune — corrects the pitch shift that short loops can cause.
- Interpol — transposition quality; Good and Best cost a lot of CPU.
- RAM — loads the whole multisample into memory, which helps when modulating start and end points but eats RAM.
- The waveform's context menu repeats the layer list's file and normalize options and zooms to playing or loop regions. On the right, Vertical Zoom and B/M/L/R choose display height and channels.
31.10.7.1 The Modulation Oscillator (Osc)
- One modulation oscillator per voice performs FM or AM on the samples; it is never heard directly. Subsonic AM varies volume; audible AM creates composite waves.
- 21 waveforms in Type, a loopable amplitude envelope with the usual levels, and:
- Volume — modulation depth; Vol < Vel scales it with velocity.
- Fixed with Freq × Multi — a constant frequency.
- Coarse (0.125–48) and Fine (0–1000) — tuning when not fixed.
31.10.7.2 The Pitch Envelope
- A multi-stage envelope on the sample's pitch, and the modulation oscillator's; drag breakpoints or use sliders. Amount sets its range in semitones.
- Global controls on the right:
- Spread — two detuned voices per note; doubles CPU.
- Transp (semitones) and Detune (cents).
- Zn Shft — shifts which key zone plays without changing pitch, for interesting multisample artifacts.
- Glide — Glide is monophonic, Portamento polyphonic; Time sets duration.
31.10.8.1 The Filter
- A polyphonic filter with the same types and Cytomic circuits as Operator: low-pass, high-pass, band-pass, notch and Morph at 12 or 24 dB, with Clean, OSR, MS2, SMP and PRD circuits. See Ableton/Live/UG/31 Instrument Reference/09 Operator/05 Filter Section.
- Frequency, Resonance, Drive on non-Clean low-, high- and band-pass, and Morph for the Morph type.
- F. Env — a filter envelope with levels, ADSR, loop and slopes; its Amount must be non-zero to act.
- Shaper — Soft, Hard, Sine or 4bit, with Amount. An arrow sets whether it comes before or after the filter.
31.10.8.2 The Volume Envelope and Global Controls
- The global ADSR volume envelope. Loop and Trigger restart from Initial if a note outlasts Decay, taking Time to return; Beat and Sync restart after Repeat.
- Pan and Pan < Rnd; Time scales every envelope; Time < Key scales them by pitch.
- Voices up to 32. R retriggers playing notes instead of adding voices, saving CPU with long releases played quickly.
- One loopable Aux envelope and three LFOs, each able to modulate many parameters, including each other. LFOs can run free or sync, and LFOs 2 and 3 can modulate in stereo.
31.10.9.1 The Auxiliary Envelope
- Same design as the other envelopes, routed to two of 29 destinations through the A and B choosers, each with an amount.
31.10.9.2 LFOs 1, 2 and 3
- Type — Sine, Square, Triangle, Saw Down, Saw Up, Sample and Hold.
- Rate — Hz with Freq (0.01–30 Hz), or beat sync with Beats (64th notes to 8 bars).
- Attack — fade-in time, for delayed vibrato. Retrig and Offset — reset and starting phase. Key — rate follows pitch.
- LFO 1 has direct depths for Vol, Pan, Filter (0–24) and Pitch.
- LFOs 2 and 3 have A and B destinations and a Stereo mode: Phase offsets the right channel; Spin runs it up to 50% faster.
- Key, Velocity, Release Velocity, Aftertouch, Mod Wheel, Foot Controller and Pitch Bend each map to two destinations with Amount A and Amount B. Example: Velocity to Loop Length at 100 gives longer loops for harder notes.
- Pitch Bend Range — up to 24 semitones.
- Clicking the Sampler picture scrolls its credits.
- Formats: REX files (Live Standard and Suite only), ACID Loops and Soundtrack Loops. Their tags aren't available in Live.
- Drag a file from the browser into a Set to import it into the User Library; presets appear under User Library/Sampler/Imports. Some become Instrument Racks holding several Samplers to match the original.
- Simpler combines a basic sampler with classic synth controls: each voice plays a region of a sample through envelope, filter, LFO, volume and pitch.
- It can also warp, like audio clips: a warped sample plays at the Set's tempo whatever note you play. Clips dragged in keep their warp settings; see Ableton/Live/UG/09 Audio Clips Tempo and Warping.
- The Sample tab shows the waveform and the Controls tab the synth controls. A title bar button moves the sample view into Live's main window, leaving the Controls tab in the Device View.
- Drop samples from the browser, or clips from Session or Arrangement, which bring only their start/end or loop region. Replace a sample by dropping a new one or with the hot-swap button.
Cmd-scroll (Mac) / Ctrl-scroll (Win) zooms. - Garden notes: Ableton/Instrument/Simpler
- The mode switch, left of the Sample tab or along the bottom of the expanded view, sets how Simpler treats the sample:
- Classic (default) — pitched melodic and harmonic instruments, full ADSR, looping, polyphonic.
- One-Shot — monophonic drum hits or short phrases; simple envelope, no loop, plays the whole sample by default.
- Slicing — non-destructive slices played chromatically, set automatically or by hand; suited to drum breaks.
31.11.1.1 Classic Playback Mode
- The left and right flags bound the usable region. Start and Length are percentages of it; Length 50% plays half. Loop sets how much loops, when the Loop switch is on.
- Very short loops turn glitchy or granular, or pitched at audio rates, and can load the CPU heavily, especially in Complex warp modes.
- Snap puts markers on zero crossings of the left channel, so stereo samples can still click. Fade crossfades loop end into start, useful for long textures.
- Gain — sample level, separate from the final Volume after the filter.
- Voices — when exceeded, the oldest voices are stolen.
- Retrig — replaying a sounding note cuts it off; off lets copies overlap. Audible only with long releases and more than one voice.
31.11.1.2 One-Shot Playback Mode
- Flags set the region; no Loop, Length or Voices, and always monophonic.
- Trigger — plays on after note-off, so hold length doesn't matter. Gate — starts fading at note-off over the Fade Out time.
- Fade In — time to full volume; Fade Out — starts that long before the region end.
- Snap applies to the start and end flags only.
31.11.1.3 Slicing Playback Mode
- Slice By:
- Transient — at transients; Sensitivity sets how many, up to 64.
- Beat — at a beat Division.
- Region — a number of equal Regions.
- Manual — double-click to add slices.
- Playback — Mono plays one slice at a time; Poly plays several, with Voices and Retrig; Thru is monophonic but plays on to the end of the region.
- Trigger/Gate as in One-Shot. Fades span each slice in Mono and Poly, or from the triggered slice to the region end in Thru.
- Automatic slices are blue and manual ones white. Drag to move, double-click to delete; in Transient mode,
Option-click (Mac) / Alt-click (Win) toggles a slice between manual and automatic. Manual slices survive Sensitivity changes.
- Warp off plays the sample faster or slower with pitch, like a classic sampler. On, it follows the Set's tempo whatever the note, with the same Warp Modes as audio clips.
- Warp as… fits the sample to a number of bars or beats; ÷2 and ×2 fix a wrong guess.
- The same filter types and Cytomic circuits as Operator and Sampler (Clean, OSR, MS2, SMP, PRD); see Ableton/Live/UG/31 Instrument Reference/09 Operator/05 Filter Section.
- Frequency, Resonance, Drive (non-Clean low-, high- and band-pass) and Morph.
- The display switches between response curve and envelope; drag the curve to adjust. Cutoff follows Vel, Key, Envelope and the LFO's Filter slider.
- Three ADSR envelopes, for amplitude, filter and pitch, chosen with buttons and edited with knobs or handles. Filter and pitch have amount controls at the top right.
- The amplitude envelope can loop: Loop and Trigger restart from the start if the note outlasts Decay, taking Time to return; Beat and Sync restart after Rate.
- Sine, square, triangle, saw down, saw up and random, free from 0.01 to 30 Hz or synced. Runs per voice.
- Attack — time to full depth. R — reset to Offset on each note; Offset does nothing otherwise.
- Key — higher notes get faster LFOs; at zero all voices share a rate.
- Volume, Pitch, Pan, Filter — modulation depths.
- Pan, with Random > Pan and LFO modulation.
- Spread — two detuned voices per note panned apart, read at note-on, so some notes can be stereo and others mono.
- Volume and Velocity > Volume; LFO on volume gives tremolo.
- C3 plays the original pitch. Transpose ±48 semitones, Detune ±50 cents, pitch bend ±5 semitones; the pitch envelope suits percussive sounds.
- Glide (mono) or Portamento (poly) with Time.
- From the sample display or title bar:
- Use Constant Power Fade for Loops — off gives linear crossfades. Fade is unavailable while warping.
- Simpler -> Sampler — converts for multisample use; warping and slicing don't carry over, so such presets behave very differently.
- Manage Sample, Show in Browser, Show in Finder/Explorer (not for official Pack samples).
- Normalize Volumes — peak to full headroom.
- Crop and Reverse — non-destructive, working on a copy.
- In Slicing mode: Slice to Drum Rack replaces Simpler with a Ableton/Instrument/Drum Rack holding one slice per pad; Slice to New MIDI Track does it on a new track with a clip that plays the slices in order.
- Complex and Complex Pro warp modes cost much more CPU than the others.
- Turn the filter off if unused; 24 dB slopes cost more than 12 dB.
- Turning off the LFO helps a little.
- Stereo samples need about twice the processing of mono.
- Lower Voices, and set Spread to 0% if unused.
- Tension models string instruments with physical modeling, made with Applied Acoustics Systems; no samples or wavetables, so it responds to playing like a real string.
- Four exciters (two hammers, a pick and a bow), a string, finger and fret interaction, a damper and several soundboards, plus filters, LFOs, envelopes, MPE, keyboard modes, portamento, vibrato and legato.
- An exciter (hammer, pick or bow) sets the string vibrating. The fret or finger termination sets its length and so its pitch; a damper shortens its decay. The body, through the bridge or a pickup, radiates the sound. Tension adds a filter between string and body.
- String tab: Exciter, Damper, String, Vibrato, Termination, Pickup and Body. Filter/Global tab: Filter, MPE and global performance controls.
- Every section except String and Keyboard can be turned off, which saves CPU.
- The string's physical properties and how it is played.
31.12.2.1 The Exciter Section
- With the Exciter off, only the damper can move the string. With Exciter and Damper both off there is no sound.
31.12.2.2 Exciter Types
- Bow — sustained vibration from stick-and-slip friction, as on violin, viola and cello. Damping is unavailable.
- Hammer — strikes from below once and falls away, as in a piano.
- Hammer (bouncing) — dropped from above and may bounce, as on a hammered dulcimer.
- Plectrum — snaps the string, as on a guitar or harpsichord.
31.12.2.3 Exciter Parameters
- Type-specific: Bow has Force (more is scratchier) and Friction (more gives a faster attack); the Hammers have Mass and Stiffness; Plectrum has Protrusion (less is thinner) and Stiffness.
- Shared: Velocity — how fast the exciter hits. Position — 0% at the termination, 50% at the midpoint. Damping — how much impact force the exciter absorbs; for the bouncing hammer it sets the stiffness of its spring, and more makes a shorter, louder, brighter contact.
- Fix. Pos — keeps the contact point fixed regardless of string length, like a guitar pick. Leave it off for a piano, whose hammers strike about 1/7 of the length.
- Vel and Key modulate by velocity and pitch. Some combinations produce no sound.
31.12.2.4 The Damper Section
- Dampers mute the string, like felt in a piano or a player's fingers, and make sounds of their own.
- Mass — how hard it presses; more mutes faster. Stiffness — felt to metal. Very high values can shorten the string and change its tuning.
- Velocity — how fast the damper lands at key release and lifts at key press; very high values can make a loud release. Works only with Gated on; with Gated off the damper stays on the string.
- Position, Fix. Pos and Key sliders as in the Exciter.
- Damping — overall absorption. Above 50% the damper gets stiff enough to bounce, which lengthens decay again; try it on one repeated key.
The String Section
- Decay with < Key. Ratio — shortens release decay relative to onset decay.
- Inharm — real strings are inharmonic, more so when thicker; raising it detunes upper partials.
- Damping with < Key — more high partials at higher values.
The Vibrato Section
- An LFO on pitch: Delay, Attack, Rate, Amount, < Mod (mod wheel depth relative to Amount) and Error (random variation of rate, amount, delay and attack).
31.12.2.5 The Termination Section
- Models finger, fret and string, which set the string's working length. Finger Mass (with Vel and Key), Finger Stiff and Fret Stiff.
31.12.2.6 The Pickup Section
- An electromagnetic pickup. Position 0% at the termination is brighter and thinner; toward 50% is fuller.
The Body Section
- The body radiates and filters the string's energy; some, like guitars, have an air cavity that boosts lows.
- Body Type after real instruments, Body Size XS to XL (larger is lower), Decay, Str/Body (dry string versus body; fully left bypasses the body), Low Cut and High Cut.
- Volume sets the overall output and is also on the Filter/Global tab.
- A polyphonic filter with envelope, LFO and MIDI modulation, keyboard and portamento options, and a Unison effect.
- Filter — between String and Body, with its own on switch; 2nd- or 4th-order low-pass, band-pass, notch, high-pass or formant. Freq and Res (vowels for formant), each modulated by LFO, envelope and pitch; the LFO and Env sliders need those sections on.
- Filter Envelope — ADSR with Vel on Attack (faster at higher velocity) and Vel on Sustain (higher at higher velocity).
- Filter LFO — sine, triangle, rectangle, stepped random or smooth random; Rate in Hz or synced; Attack and Delay.
- MPE — Pressure and Slide each reach two destinations with amounts; activity LEDs; global Pitch Bend and per-note Note PB ranges.
- Keyboard — Octave, Semi, Detune (±50 cents), Voices, Stretch tuning (sharper highs and flatter lows, or the reverse when negative), Error (random tuning per note) and Priority (High, Low or Last).
- Portamento — Time, Legato (only overlapping notes slide) and Prop. (time scales with the interval).
- Unison — two or four stacked Voices, Detune from subtle chorus to wide, and Delay between voices.
- Volume — shared with the String tab.
- Tension's parts affect each other, so it is easy to find settings that make no sound, or very loud ones; watch levels.
- Think of the sections as one physical object: a slow bow can start an undamped string, but a heavy damper needs a faster bow.
- The presets show it can do much more than strings.
- Wavetable pairs two wavetable oscillators with two analog-modeled filters and a modulation system that is quick to start with and deep to explore.
- Three areas: the oscillators, each on its own tab; the two filters; and modulation across three tabs. The title bar's expand button shows more at once.
- A wavetable is a set of short looping waveforms. Holding one waveform gives a steady tone; moving through the table while a note plays changes the timbre over time, which suits evolving sounds.
- Without modulation, the raw oscillators are fully band-limited and don't alias at any pitch.
- Each oscillator tab has an on switch, Gain, Pan, Semi and Detune, relative to the global Transpose.
- Two choosers pick a wavetable category and table; the arrows step through all tables across categories.
- Drop any WAV or AIFF on the display to use it as a wavetable; the choosers then browse that file's folder. Wavetable cleans up imports unless Raw is on, which suits files made as wavetables or deliberately glitchy results.
- Drag in the display or use Wave Position to move through the table. The display is linear (waveforms stacked bottom to top, time left to right) or polar (loops from inside out, time clockwise).
- Oscillator effects, two parameters each; values carry over when switching effect:
- FM — Amt and Tune; ±50% is an octave up or down, ±100% two octaves, and values between give inharmonic, noisy overtones.
- Classic — PW pulse width on any table, not just squares; Sync to a hidden oscillator.
- Modern — Warp, similar to pulse width, and Fold, wavefolding.
- Sub on/off with Gain. Tone — 0% is a pure sine; higher adds harmonics. Octave — shift down one or two octaves from the played note.
- The same filter types and Cytomic circuits as Operator (Clean, OSR, MS2, SMP, PRD), with Frequency, Resonance, Drive and Morph; drag the filter dots in the display. See Ableton/Live/UG/31 Instrument Reference/09 Operator/05 Filter Section.
- Routing:
- Serial — all oscillators into Filter 1, then Filter 2; Sub to both.
- Parallel — the main oscillators into both filters; Sub to both.
- Split — Osc 1 to Filter 1, Osc 2 to Filter 2, Sub half to each. An oscillator stays audible if its filter is off. Good for layered sounds, or for treating only the Sub when the main oscillators are off.
- Routes internal sources (envelopes, LFOs) across the top to targets down the side; drag in a cell to set the amount.
- Additive targets sum their sources and add the result to the parameter; neutral is 0, and sources can be bipolar (negative and positive) or unipolar (positive only).
- Multiplicative targets multiply their sources together and then with the parameter; neutral is 1 and minimum 0. The manual marks which parameters work this way.
- Click a parameter to show it in the matrix; it stays only if modulated. Matrix and MIDI tabs share rows. Click a source header to jump to it in Mod Sources.
- Time — scales every modulator; negative is faster. Modulating Time doesn't affect the modulator doing it. Amount — overall depth; multiplicative.
- Settings for the envelopes and LFOs.
Envelopes
- Amp, Env 2 and Env 3, edited by value or by dragging the display.
- Attack, Decay, Sustain (multiplicative) and Release, each with a slope: positive moves fast then slow, negative slow then fast, zero linear.
- Env 2 and Env 3 add Initial (multiplicative), Peak and Final.
- Loop Modes — None holds sustain; Trigger plays all segments once; Loop repeats the whole envelope until the voice ends.
31.13.6.1 LFOs
- Five waveforms, each reshaped by Shape: Sine and Saw tilt the slope; Triangle morphs ramp to saw; Square sets pulse width; Random changes how often extreme values occur.
- Sync and Rate, or drag the display. Amount (multiplicative), Offset (phase, not modulatable), Attack (fade-in) and Retrigger.
- MIDI sources in their own matrix:
- Velocity and Note — held for the note. Note is centered on C3, so Note at 100% on Filter Frequency makes the cutoff follow the played note.
- Pitch Bend, Aftertouch, Modulation Wheel — controller sources, also reachable with clip envelopes.
- Random — a new value per note.
- Rows are shared with the Matrix tab.
- Transpose, Volume (multiplicative).
- Poly/Mono — Mono is one voice with legato envelopes and Glide; Poly uses Poly Voices.
- Unison modes:
- Classic — evenly detuned, alternating left and right.
- Shimmer — randomly jittered pitch for a reverb-like shimmer, plus slight wavetable offset.
- Noise — faster jitter for breathy, noisy textures.
- Phase Sync — Classic detune with phases synced at note start, for a phaser-like sweep.
- Position spread — wavetable positions spread across voices, plus slight detune.
- Random note — random position and detune per voice at each note.
- Voices — oscillators per wavetable oscillator; more is thicker, fewer clearer. Amount — unison depth; multiplicative.
- Toggle Hi-Quality from the context menu. Off computes modulation every 32 samples and uses lighter Cytomic filters, saving up to 25% CPU.
- Since Live 11.1 it is off for new instances and Core Library presets; older user presets and Sets still load with it on so they sound the same. Turning it on can change the sound slightly.
