Pulse Engine

A unique generative MIDI device, Pulse Engine is designed to easily produce melodic ornamentation and rhythmic augmentation of existing material — or complex musical expressions all its own…

At its most basic, you can think of it as not unlike Live’s Beat Repeat device, but for MIDI. Incoming notes can probabilistically be triggered to repeat at randomized intervals within a variety of constraints. Triggered groups of note repetitions are referred to as Pulse clusters.

The pitch of these notes can be transposed manually or via incoming MIDI and optionally randomized to produce diatonic ornamental flourishes, with all notes filtered through the specified outgoing scale and key. Additive per-repeat transposition offers cascading note runs. The base generated MIDI note pitch can also be guided along a contour by the built-in LFO.

PRESS FOR PULSE ENGINE:
ATTACK MAGAZINE

That same LFO can be used to control outgoing velocity, with an adjustable Phase to desynchronize it from note pitch LFO control. Velocity can also be randomized, within constraints, while an optional decay fades repetitions out until a new repetition is triggered.

A variety of playback modes allow Pulse Engine to be used in parallel with incoming MIDI, in conjunction with external MIDI, or simply on its own as powerful MIDI production tool.

WATCH OUR IN-DEPTH TUTORIAL WALKTHROUGH FOR v1.0...

NEW IN VERSION 1.6

• Pulse divisions and multipliers: Pulse rates can now be multiplied and divided for a wide variety of rhythmic possibilities; better yet, both can be randomized on a per-pulse cluster basis, with the value setting the maximum randomization factor - or if locked, remaining fixed at the current factor to allow, for example, base rates to continue randomizing - but always at a specified tuplet division.
• Pulse ramping: Apply positive or negative ramping to speed or slow the rate of pulses within each pulse cluster to easily create skidding patterns and accelerating rolls.
• GUI improvements: The user interface has been improved for consistency and better usability throughout.

NEW IN VERSION 1.5

• Fill mode: Added a new playback mode called Fill in which new rate variations are triggered by note offs and pulses only play between incoming notes, effectively filling the gaps between received notes.
• Note length decay: New note length decay can progressively shorten or lengthen the note duration of each subsequent pulse within a cluster for dynamic rippling output.
• Improved velocity decay: Added positive and negative values to the pulse velocity decay to either progressively increase or decrease the velocity of each subsequent pulse within a cluster.
• Pulse viewer: Added an optional output display viewer to clearly see generated pulse activity (in gold) contrasted with MIDI note input (turquoise).

Requires: Ableton Live 10.1.x or higher running Max for Live 8.1.x on Mac or PC.

Includes: Pulse Engine device, 16 presets, Utility Boost, manual.

Included with: Ultra Bundle, Max MIDI Bundle.