Droplets is a Max For Live counter based note sequencer inspired by the excellent Meadowphysics patch/eurorack module from monome. Droplets is my attempt at repurposing a few of the ideas presented in Meadowphysics for use without a grid, while still trying to maintain an interface that invites experimentation and interaction.
Droplets is made up of four note events, each called a droplet. A droplet is dropped from a certain height, and when it reaches the ground that droplet is triggered. Each droplet is composed of a base pitch, velocity, duration and trigger probability. A droplet drops at its own clock rate (relative to Live’s tempo), and features an interval offset list processing section that enables each droplet to create a melody or chord centered on the base pitch. A single instance of Droplets can output four independent melodic sequences simultaneously.
A droplet’s height can be subject to one of four rules when that droplet is triggered (increment, decrement, positive random offset, negative random offset).
Outgoing notes can have their pitch quantized to a variety of scales. Each droplet can also be set to transpose its base pitch by incoming MIDI notes.
Requirements
Ableton Live 10 (it will work in Live 9 but it looks pretty terrible). Max For Live.
looking really beautiful and i occasionally pine for the pre-euro meadowphsyics days. thank you for sharing and looking forward to trying on mac live 9 suite antiquated os.
I guess I should have posted this before, but here’s a little clip I made while testing/debugging. This is Droplets controlling a single instance of Arturia’s Mellotron plugin with a bit of Valhalla Delay.
Thanks! I was at the trampoline park with the kiddo this morning and was brainstorming how I might work out a simple syntax for generating chord shapes in the interval offsets input area. It might be fun to have one (or more) drop outputting chords while the others generate melodies. Hoping to give that a shot later tonight.
Hey! I just updated the github repo for Droplets (and the first post of this thread) with some decent updates.It’s now at version 1.1
The biggest change is that each droplet can now output a sequence of chord shapes via a simple syntax in the Interval Offsets area. The chords are built on the base pitch set via the note and oct knobs for each droplet.
Here are the shapes currently implemented in the chord syntax:
Triads and Seventh chords are generated as Major chords. The Major/Minor qualities are handled downstream by the pitch quantizer. I know this is kind of goofy, but we’re sequencing notes with integers offsetting base pitches dropped from heights…it’s all kind of goofy in here and that’s ok.
Note that chords, intervals and rests can exist in the offset list at the same time, like so:
0 4 ti r t7iii 0 -5 r p
I added a detailed built-in help section above the Interval Offsets area that I’m hoping will make sense of how it’s intended to be used.
There’s also some slight UI changes. The most obvious being the addition of an “All” page to the middle editing pane. This gives a high-level view of the essential parameters for each droplet from one quick view. It looks like this:
Each droplet can have the base pitch transposed by incoming MIDI note via the “Key” button. This is set per droplet so you can have a melody transposing over a sequence of chords (or another melody) that doesn’t transpose.
Each droplet can have a lag applied to the trigger to keep things from feeling too rigid.
A droplet will display the currently active offset value that is being applied from the Interval Offsets area.
A droplet’s duration can now be set up to 10 seconds.
Minor OCD UI adjustments.
Fixed a few issues with the Interval Offsets area not processing in the correct order.
