Hey everyone, I’m Juan. I didn’t plan to make this for Ableton, but it turned out to be a very natural (and fun) fit.

Forever Machines is a collection of strange little sound machines that live on a website: a tree-ring synth, a speech chopper, a Euclidean drum ratchet, a planetary sequencer, a bubble wrap you pop into melodies… Every week a new one is born. An AI invents it from a single prompt and it’s tested automatically, and nobody (including me) chooses what it becomes. Nothing is ever removed, so the collection just keeps growing.

You can play them all in your browser, but the reason I’m posting here is the free Max for Live device. Drop it on a MIDI track and every machine runs inside Live:

• Follows Live’s tempo and transport, so steps land on your grid
• Play it from MIDI clips or your keyboard
• 8 macros you can automate
• Each device remembers its machine and settings in your set, so you can layer a few on different tracks
• New machines show up in the device every week, no re-download
• Build your own machine in the browser (or with an AI agent) and load it into Live with the + button

You need Live Suite, or Standard with Max for Live.

Forever Machines is free, with no account and no email. I’ve built several commercial audio plugins over the years (AUv3, VST), but this one is just about having fun and exploring what’s technically possible.

Feel free to share any feedback, I’d love to hear what you think.

Ableton, please let us DRAW MIDI expression. Why is this still not built into the DAW?

I think there's a fundamental gap in the way we interact with MIDI in modern DAWs, and I'd love to see Ableton address it.

We should be able to draw what we want a sound to DO, instead of manually programming the MIDI messages required to make it happen.

Here's a simple example: I want to play a note, keep the same voice alive, and smoothly glide its pitch upward into another note — without retriggering the envelope or opening a new gate.

Why does this still require workarounds, specific synth settings, overlapping notes, pitch-bend automation, or external tools?

And this is just the beginning.

Imagine right-clicking a MIDI note and opening a simple expression canvas where you can draw:

• Pitch: smooth glides, vibrato, bends, and complex pitch movements.
• Timbre / oscillator shape: draw how the waveform or oscillator character evolves throughout a single note.
• Filter and modulation: shape the movement of a sound over its lifetime.
• Pressure and other per-note expression: draw dynamics and articulation exactly where you want them.

Think of each MIDI note as a tiny, self-contained canvas for sound design.

Instead of opening a synth, finding the right parameter, creating automation lanes, editing curves, and trying to make everything line up, you simply draw the musical gesture you hear in your head.

Tools like MIDISketch are already exploring this direction. They demonstrate the potential of treating MIDI expression as something visual and intuitive, rather than forcing musicians to think in terms of low-level MIDI events.

I'm not asking Ableton to reinvent synthesis or make every plugin support every feature. Start with MPE-compatible instruments and proper per-note expression. Let compatible instruments receive the data, and let unsupported instruments continue working as they do today.

The underlying technology already exists. What's missing is a truly intuitive, integrated workflow.

Ableton has always been about making music creation feel immediate. This feels like a natural next step: a piano roll where you don't just draw notes — you draw the evolution of the sound itself.

Imagine what this could unlock for expressive synth lines, evolving timbres, experimental sound design, and musical gestures that are currently tedious or awkward to program.

So here's my public request to Ableton: please take this idea seriously and bring visual, per-note MIDI expression drawing into Live natively. No external plugin required.

I genuinely believe this could change how people compose and design sounds inside a DAW.

Would you use this? And if so, what would you want to be able to draw inside a single MIDI note?

English is not my native language, so I used GPT for assistance—but the idea, and the frustration that led to it, are entirely my own.

I record most of my stuff alone: vocals, sometimes guitar. And in Ableton, every time I moved to a new part of the song, grab the mouse, drag the loop brace, set the start point, then get back to the mic. Half the time, the vibe was gone before I even pressed Record.

Locators helped, but jumping to a locator doesn’t set the loop. So I ended up building a Max for Live device to fix it for my own workflow.

What it does:

• Reads your Arrangement locators and turns them into loop sections, in pairs (1–2, 3–4) or in sequence (1–2, 2–3)
• Sets the loop and the playback start in one move, with optional pre-roll
• Next/Prev section, new audio track, track navigation, and Arrangement Record, all mappable to keys or MIDI

Here’s a full walkthrough: https://youtu.be/zxUBpyvNxYM?si=3Bcx0JssSCr_E30M

I’d really like some honest feedback:

• Would this actually be useful in your workflow, or do you already have a better way of handling this?
• What’s missing? Any feature you’d want for recording takes on your own?

Thanks for watching!

Ableton is obviously not willing to do it. So I'm wondering, with all this reverse engineered software. Is there any Ableton Note clone for Android out there?

Playing some Vital sounds from the RetroPop soundbank. Such a cool, free synth. 😏

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZgPiYW5688

I need your help. My setup consists of a standard laptop with Ableton and Rode NTH-100 headphones. I produce Boom Bap hip-hop. I am struggling to set the volume levels correctly and achieve a proper sound.
To be more precise: in my monitoring headphones, my beat sounds great and loud, but Youlean Loudness Meter shows only -16 LUFS and clipping at +0.9. Later, when I listen on AirPods Pro 2 or in my car, the beat sounds completely dull and lifeless; it lacks punch and fullness. It sounds flat and overloaded. If I try to increase the volume of the drums, it results in heavy clipping.
I am, of course, utilizing compressors, a limiter, and EQs in Ableton.
Could you recommend a reliable guide on mastering and gain staging? In addition to video tutorials, I would greatly appreciate any practical tips, techniques, or rules of thumb for achieving a rich, punchy sound. I would prefer to avoid overly complex, highly technical content. I simply want to understand the appropriate volume levels for different elements of a beat and how to ensure proper sound translation across various devices, rather than just in monitoring headphones.
Thank you in advance for your advice and comments.

Si compras un plantilla que sea royalty free y le cambias todos las melodías y demás midis, los presets y los vst's pero mantienen la batería de los samples en la misma estructura, se considera producción propia legal?

So, I prefer not to use pre-made templates since my current knowledge and hardware set me apart from many others who might be more experienced or own different/more hardware. I would like to ask anyone who has successfully built their own template for live performance, especially for dance music:

1. What is the most essential piece of equipment in your template and setup?

2. What approach did you take when building your template?

3. What limitations did you encounter, or what challenges are you still facing?

4. What is your setup/workflow today?

I’m familiar with MIDI mapping, but I have to admit I feel a bit overwhelmed. I don’t have a clear idea of what I want to achieve, possibly because I’m working with different gear or because my vision isn’t well-defined yet. It could be a combination of both!

using 8 'frames' 16 partials each - each partial can pan, wave shape, fm, onset delay etc. plus a multimode filter which can morph over time, effects etc.
details:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X46ljFYu2BA&t=313s

I need your help. I purchased Ableton Live 12 Suite Rent-to-Own and paid approximately $31.17. The problem is that the system says I purchased the EDU version, but I’m not a student. I wanted the regular commercial version, and now I don’t know what to do.

I saw a video by the great Julian van Straten (Bound To Divide) a few months back where he uses a stock sound to do this - but I can't find it now

A "sustained House music string" is basically a well known technique where you have one long string playing as you build (usually) towards your last chorus section

Does anyone know which of the stock sounds (in Standard) does this best?

I'm hoping Julian was using a Standard stock string, and not a Suite one

Thanks

I use an AKAI APC Mini MK2 with Ableton Live 12 Standard. Scrolling the Session Box works well, but using the SHIFT button is slower than I’d like.

I have another MIDI controller, and I’d like to use it to scroll the red box (or whatever color it is). Can anyone help me figure out how to set this up? Is it possible?

By the way, I’ve tried MIDI mapping and key mapping, but this function doesn’t seem to be mappable.

I think I have the correct MIDI messages, but my controller can only send one message at a time. From what I’ve figured out, a sequence of notes is required. Is that correct?

Thanks