1. Ableton Live

    This requires Ableton Live 8.2.2 or higher.  You can get a 30 day free trial here.

    The dubkinect project is an example of how to use Synapse to control Ableton Live. You can find it on the Download page.

    There are a series of user-friendly Max For Live patches included in the dubkinect project that can be used to control Ableton via Synapse:

    • Max Kinect Dial - This allows you to map a joint’s position to a Live control.
    • Max Kinect Event - This allows you to use an action (moving a joint in a certain direction quickly) to toggle or set a Live control.
    • Max Kinect Double Event - This is like the Max Kinect Event, but it requires you to perform two events simultaneously to fire it.
    • Max Kinect Tuner - This tunes how much a joint is required to move before it triggers an event.

    I’ve also included three helper patches to allow you to use these patches to do certain things in Ableton:

    • Max NoteDial - This plays a MIDI note depending on the position of a Live dial.  You can specify which notes in a scale are played.
    • Max Clip Launcher - This uses a Live button to launch a clip, which allows you to use Max Kinect Event to launch and record clips.
    • Max And Button - This allows you to have two things controlling a single remote object, and have the output only be active when both inputs are true.
    • Max Chord Create - This takes an incoming MIDI note and turns it into a chord of your choosing.
    • Max Looper Control - This allows you to control a Looper with Live buttons that Max Kinect Events can map to.
    • Max Radio Button - This allows you to choose multiple Live toggle-ables and have only only active at a time.
    • Max Many Toggle - This allows you to have a single button control many toggle-ables.  Combine with Max Radio Button to allow you to do things like swap between which tracks you’re recording easily!
    • Max OSC Control - Listen for arbitrary OSC input on port 22345 to control Live parameters.

    Here’s a video walkthrough of how to use all of these patches. You may want to full-screen the video or watch it on YouTube to view in higher resolution.

    If you want to play with dubkinect, the included example Live Set, here are the controls:

    • Hit both hands outward (left and right, like a conductor silencing an orchestra) to turn the note on and off.
    • Kick your left knee up to use the low scale, and your right knee up to use the high scale.
    • Left hand:      x: note       y: freq cutoff    z: resonance
    • Drop left hand to stop note (use this to play individual notes without gliding)
    • Right hand:    x: reverb    y: LFO rate      z: LFO amount
    • Bang your head forward, left, and right to queue different samples to play on the next downbeat.

    14 years ago