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2sl stab

A chord instrument for Ableton Live. Hold one key and it plays the whole chord, or play single lines, with a stab sequencer and an echo built in.

softwarecoming to the 2sl shop
2sl stab's play page in Live. Chord: C#, notes C# F Ab lit on a keyboard, minor, in key on. Pattern: 16 steps, each a column of on, A, B and off buttons with a throw row under them, latched C#, machine and latch on, the dub dotted pattern, Chance A 70.6%, Chance B 100%, Throws 35.4%, seed 46, loop 8 bars. Echo: bars for the peaks of the last repeats, send 14, throw and freeze buttons, echo time a dotted quarter. Pump: the duck curve with its playhead, 28%, rate a quarter note.
The play page latched on C# minor, with A steps and throws marked in the pattern.

what it does

A Max for Live instrument for dub techno chords. Play chord clips straight through it, or hold one key and it plays the whole chord, the old chord memory trick. The synth is a polyphonic analog-style voice laid out like a Juno or Jupiter. A 16-step machine plays stabs off a latched chord, and the dub moves are right there to perform: throw, freeze, echo send and pump.

There are three pages, play, osc and shape. Each section has a small display showing what it's doing. The controls are normal Live controls, so automation, mapping and Push all work.

play

chordthe chord you're playing, on a lit keyboard. Chord type (held notes, minor, m7, m9, m11, sus4, fifths, dark), In Key to follow Live's Scale Mode, tone, length, and drift, which changes the voicing a little each stab
machine16 steps, each one on, A, B or off. Chance A and Chance B set how often the A and B steps play. Mark steps in the throw row and their stabs go into the echo, as hard as Throws says. Latch, pattern, gate and shift. Seed and Loop make the chances repeat, so a part plays back the way you heard it. Steps save with the set.
dubthe echo, with its last ten repeats drawn as they actually sounded. Dub (feedback), throw, freeze, time and send
pumpa duck synced to Live's tempo. Depth, attack, release, curve and rate
2sl stab's osc page. Sub: a square one octave down, divided down from dco 1. Dco 1: saw plus pulse at 70% pulse width, 8 foot. Dco 2: saw, 8 foot, 0 semitones, 10 cents up. Mixer: osc 1 and osc 2 at 80%, sub at 0, noise at 8%. Lfo: a sine wave at 0.50 Hz, vibrato and filter at 0, one lfo for all voices.
The osc page: saw and pulse on dco 1, a saw 10 cents up on dco 2, the lfo at 0.50 Hz.

osc

suba square 1 or 2 octaves down, or a 25% pulse 2 octaves down, following dco 1
dco 1saw, pulse or both at 16′, 8′ or 4′, with PW and PWM for the Juno shimmer
dco 2saw, pulse or tri, up to an octave either way (7 semis stacks a fifth), plus fine detune
mixerOSC 1, OSC 2, Sub, Noise
lfoone for all voices: rate, vibrato and filter
2sl stab's shape page. Filter: the clean ladder's low-pass response at 231 Hz, and in grey where the envelope opens it; filter type clean, reso 36.2%, env 36.2%, key and vel 50%. Envelope: a 2 ms attack and a 401 ms decay to no sustain, 240 ms release, one envelope for amp and filter. Drive: the tape saturation curve, drive 25%.
The shape page: the clean ladder at 231 Hz, a short envelope and a bit of drive.

shape

filtera 24 dB ladder low-pass, with the envelope's sweep shown in grey. Filter type picks clean or Moog, a transistor ladder that sings from about 75% reso like a Minimoog. Cutoff, reso, env, key and vel
envelopeone ADSR for amp and filter
drivetape saturation before the echo. Turning it up adds grit without making it louder

The signal goes oscillators → filter → saturation → echo. The output is clean, with no clip of its own, and the presets peak under full scale.

stop

Stop, top right, is a panic button. It kills every note, clears the latched chord and empties the echo. Stopping Live doesn't do that, so tails ring out like any instrument and a latched chord comes back when you hit play. With Live stopped, the machine only plays while you hold keys, so you can audition sounds.

presets

Init plus 24 sounds, saved as normal Live presets you can browse and hot-swap from the browser or Push. They're volume matched, so nothing jumps when you switch.

dubchain stab, m-stab, deep haze, fog, wash, skank, roots chop, sub stab, tape chord, ambient dub, throw dub, moog sing
technohypnotic loop, dark machine, chord memory, warehouse, pulse, rolling, dark fifths, throw machine, moog chords
otherdetroit strings, deep house keys (made for chord progressions' clips), pump pad

install

It's coming to the 2sl shop, as the Max for Live device and as a VST3. Once it's out, here's how to install the device:

  1. Unzip the download.
  2. Move the folder inside into User Library/Presets/Instruments/Max Instrument/.
  3. In Live's browser, drag the .amxd onto a MIDI track. The presets are in the same folder.

Keep the presets next to the .amxd and don't rename it, or the presets won't find it.

Needs Live Suite, or Standard with Max for Live. Live 12 is best. 11.1 works too, minus In Key.

what it's based on

Classic dub techno sound design: the minor stab, chord memory on one key, saws and a bit of noise into a dark 24 dB low-pass, detuned oscillators, filtered tape echo, sidechain pump, and voicings that drift like Kerri Chandler's.

how it's built

The patch is generated in Python with our open source kit, 2sl-dsp. The voice and echo are gen~, and the chords, sequencer and displays are JavaScript. The build fails if a change would break saved sets, presets or automation. The displays use 2sl-ui, the same design system as this site, and follow Live's light or dark theme.

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