Ableton Operator Tutorial – Wave Morphing

Ableton Live: This video, via learnMax, takes a look at wave morphing in Ableton Live’s Operator:

I’m always looking to do things a little differently. It occurred to me that with a midi/parameter LFO I could automatically and rhythmically change the waveform parameter for each of operator’s operators

14 thoughts on “Ableton Operator Tutorial – Wave Morphing

  1. This is a brilliant video I think!

    And for 2 reasons.. First one is obvious; my bias talking… Things like these clearly show the reason why I jumped onto the Max for Live ('M4L') bandwagon almost the very moment when I dove into Live (the next month after I bought Live Suite 8 I purchased M4L). I've said it many times and can't get enough of it either; Live combined with M4L is "synth dynamite". You can do so much with that duo…

    Second is way less biased; this clearly shows you that relative simple things shouldn't be judged on their appearance alone. Simple things sometimes get really amazing things done.

    Love the video!

  2. I like "synth dynamite"!

    Sounds like a new genre of exploitation film! Like El Mariachi, but the guys got a key tar with a rocket launcher built into it!

  3. Maybe just to clarify: the oscillator waveform parameter in Operator is a non-standard modulation destination, that is neither offered by Operator's internal LFO nor by the clip envelope. Therefore, it has to be modulated via Midi, by some external source. An M4L plugin is of course not the only way to do that.

    I didn't get completely what this has to do with NI's Razor. Of course, you also change the levels of harmonics over time there, but certainly in a very different way than by modulating the waveform in Operator.

  4. I have just noticed that the oscillator waveform parameter is available via automation, in arrangement view. One can draw a custom modulation curve there.

  5. Hello all,

    I make no claims about this being the only way to do it. I just like finding those parameters that you don't normally think to twiddle live and see what happens when you twiddle them. If it starts a conversation, then I consider the video a success!

    Eric (LearnMax)

  6. The device is up on maxforlive.com. I have a tutorial explaining how to build it all too, none of it is closed or proprietary.

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