tl;dr: mutateful enables live coding in Ableton Live's session view. Set up transformations that trigger whenever a source clip is changed, including arpeggiation, shuffling, and ratcheting/retriggering.
With live coding being all the rage this looks like a groovy new idea to bring that excitement and its new possibilities to Ableton. I’m watching closely.
— Matt Black, co-founder of Ninja Tune & Coldcut.
Concept
mutateful transforms Ableton Live's session view into a live coding environment similar to a spreadsheet. It allows you to create formulas for shuffling, arpeggiating, constraining, scaling, retriggering, and transforming clips in various ways. These formulas use other clips and/or textual inputs to generate new clips. By utilizing Live's built-in sequencing functionality, mutateful allows you to use any existing MIDI clip as a starting point for new creative ideas.
Installing
Visit the latest release for installation instructions and download links for Windows and macOS.
See it in action
 Creating beat variations |  Demo #1: concat, constrain, transpose |  Demo #2: ratchet, shuffle, interleave |
A musical spreadsheet
The easiest way to understand what mutateful does is by comparing it to a traditional spreadsheet. Let's say you have two numbers that you'd like to multiply. You put one number in cell A1, another in A2, and in A3 you enter the following (very simple) formula: =A1 * A2. Cell A3 will then contain the result of this operation, and will update automatically whenever A1 or A2 changes.
Since the session view in Ableton Live presents clips in a spreadsheet-like grid, mutateful works the same way, only with more musically interesting commands. For instance, you could shuffle the contents of clip A1 using the contents of clip A2. The pitch values of the various notes in clip A2 would then be used to shuffle the order of notes in A1. Similar to the example above, we would like the result to be inserted into clip A3, but instead of using a spreadsheet command we will use a mutateful command, as follows: =A1 shuffle -by A2. In this example, A1 is a source clip (i.e. the clip that will be transformed), and A2 is the control clip (i.e. the clip that controls the transformation). The latter could be omitted, in which case clip A1 would be shuffled using itself as the control clip. The formula for this would simply be =A1 shuffle.
Usage examples
Creating an arpeggio from a sustained note and a chord
=B1 slice 1/2 transpose 0 7 slice 1/16 1/8 transpose -by C1
This formula does the following: Start with the single sustained note contained in the clip at position B1. Slice it in half, keeping the first note unchanged and transposing the second note 7 semitones up (a perfect fifth). Now, slice the resulting two half-notes into a pattern alternating between 1/16 and 1/8th notes. Finally, transpose this pattern with the chord contained in the clip located at position C1.
Interleaving two clips together
=B1 C1 interleave -mode event
This formula combines the notes contained in the clips located at positions B1 and C1, so that the notes from each clip are played one after the other in an alternating fashion.
Adding retriggering to a beat
=A4 ratchet 1 2 3 6 1 2 5
This formula adds retriggering (also called ratchets) to the beat contained in clip A4. The numbers specify the retrigger amount for each note encountered in the clip. In this case, the first note in the clip will be divided into one (i.e. it will be kept as is), the second one will be divided into two, and so on. When the last number is reached it will loop back to the beginning if there are still unprocessed note events left in the clip.
Ratchet accepts a number of other parameters to scale the resulting retriggers in various ways, including starting fast and going gradually slower towards the end of the note. This can be achieved by adding the -shape parameter and specifying EaseIn (the default is Linear). In addition, the resulting output can be tamed slightly by adding the -strength parameter and setting it to 0.5 (i.e. 50% strength):
=a4 ratchet 1 2 3 6 1 2 5 -shape easein -strength 0.5
Support
If you're having trouble getting Mutateful to work, you can start a new discussion in the Q&A section here on Github. If you think you have encountered a bug or something that needs additional work to resolve, feel free to file a new issue.
If you're looking for ways to support this project, you can support me by checking out/supporting my music on Bandcamp.
Quick command reference
| Command | Parameters (default values in bold) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| arpeggiate arp |
‑rescale <Number: 2> ‑removeoffset ‑by <Clip reference> |
Arpeggiates the given clip using another clip, or itself. |
| concat cat |
Concatenates two or more clips together. | |
| crop | <list of Musical fraction: 2> | Crops a clip to the desired length, or within the desired region. |
| filter flt |
<Musical fraction: 1/64> ‑invert |
Filters out notes shorter than the length specified (default 1/64). If -invert is specified, notes longer than the specified length are removed. |
| interleave il |
‑chunkchords ‑solo ‑mode NotSpecified|Event|Time ‑ranges <list of Musical fraction: 1> ‑repeats <list of Number: 1> ‑skip |
Combines notes from two or more clips in an interleaved fashion. |
| legato leg |
Removes silence between notes. Basically the same as the built-in legato function in Live, but often useful in the context of a mutateful formula as well. | |
| loop | <Decimal number: 1> | Lengthens the incoming clips according to the factor specified (e.g. 2 would double the clip length) |
| mask | ‑by <Clip reference> | Creates a masking clip which is used to remove or shorten notes not overlapping with the mask clip. If no -by clip is specified, a sustained note is used instead, effectively inversing the clip rhythmically. |
| monophonize mono |
Makes the clip monophonic by removing any overlapping notes. Lower notes have precedence over higher notes. | |
| padding pad p |
<Musical fraction: 2> ‑length <Musical fraction: -1> ‑post |
Adds silence (i.e. padding) at the start of a clip, or at the end of a clip if -post is specified. If -length is specified, padding is calculated so that the total length of the clip matches this. If length is shorter than the current clip length, the clip is cropped instead. |
| quantize qnt q |
<list of Musical fraction: 1/16> ‑amount <Decimal number: 1.0> ‑by <Clip reference> |
Quantizes a clip by the specified amount against a regular or irregular set of divisions, or even against the timings of another clip. |
| ratchet rat |
<list of Number> ‑autoscale ‑by <Clip reference> ‑mode Velocity|Pitch ‑shape Linear|EaseInOut|EaseIn|EaseOut ‑strength <Decimal number: 1.0> ‑velocitytostrength |
Creates retriggers/ratchets in the current clip, based on a sequence of passed in values or another clip. The ratchets produced can be scaled and shaped in various ways. |
| relength relen rl |
<Decimal number: 1.0> | Changes the length of all notes in a clip by multiplying their lengths with the specified factor. |
| remap rm |
‑to <Clip reference> | Remaps a set of pitches to another set of pitches |
| resize rs |
<Decimal number: 1.0> | Resizes the current clip based on the specified factor (i.e. 0.5 halves the size of the clip, effectively doubling its tempo) |
| scale constrain scl |
‑by <Clip reference> ‑strict |
Uses a clip passed in via the -by parameter as a scale to which the current clip is made to conform. If -strict is specified, notes are made to follow both the current pitch and octave of the closest matching note. |
| setlength length len sl |
<list of Musical fraction: 1/16> | Sets the length of all notes to the specified value(s). When more values are specified, they are cycled through. |
| setpitch pitch sp |
<list of Number> ‑by <Clip reference> |
Sets the pitch of all notes to the specified value(s). When more values are specified, they are cycled through. |
| setrhythm rhythm sr |
‑by <Clip reference> | Retains pitch and velocity from the current clip while changing the timing and duration to match the clip specified in the -by parameter. |
| shuffle shf |
<list of Number> ‑by <Clip reference> |
Shuffles the order of notes by a list of numbers of arbitrary length, or by another clip. When another clip is specified, the relative pitch of each note is used to determine the shuffle order. |
| skip | <list of Number: 2> | Creates a new clip by skipping every # note from another clip. If more than one skip value is specified, they are cycled through. |
| slice slc |
<list of Musical fraction: 1/16> | Slices a clip (i.e. cutting any notes) at a regular or irregular set of fractions. |
| take | <list of Number: 2> | Creates a new clip by taking every # note from another clip. If more than one skip value is specified, they are cycled through. |
| transpose tran tp |
<list of Number> ‑by <Clip reference> ‑mode Absolute|Relative |
Transposes the notes in a clip based on either a set of passed-in values, or another clip. |
| velocityscale vel vs v |
<Musical fraction> | Scale a clips notes' velocities. |
Parameter types
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Clip reference | Cells in the session view are referenced like they would be in a spreadsheet, i.e. tracks are assigned letters (A-Z) and clip rows are assigned numbers (1-N). Example: track 1 clip 1 becomes A1, track 2 clip 3 becomes B3. |
| Musical fraction | These are commonly used in sequencer software to denote musical fractions like quarter notes, eight notes and so on. Examples: quarter note = 1/4, eighth note = 1/8. |
| Number | Whole number (integer), either negative or positive |
| Decimal number | Decimal number, from 0.0 and upwards |
Full documentation
I've started adding more in-depth documentation in our wiki. There's still a long way to go, though.
Be sure to star this repo and/or follow me at twitter.com/KnUpland for updates.
Compiling from source
Pre-requisites
- Git
- .NET 6 SDK
Building
Using the command line/terminal, navigate to the src folder inside the mutateful repository and run:
Windows: dotnet publish -c Release /p:RuntimeIdentifier=win-x64 /p:PublishSingleFile=true /p:UseAppHost=true
MacOS / OS X: dotnet publish -c Release /p:RuntimeIdentifier=osx-x64 /p:PublishTrimmed=false