One of Ableton Live’s strongest features is Max4Live.
Max4Live is an ecosystem within Ableton that allows creators to build and design their own effects and instruments for their projects. They can also share these tools with the greater production community.
This results in some of the most useful, engaging, and downright inspiring production tools on the market (often completely free of charge).
Aera is a German DJ, producer, and Applied Magic label head whose latest album wouldn’t be nearly as prolific if it wasn’t for Max4Live’s functionality. So to celebrate this, we brought him on to break down his favorite Max4Live plugins that every Ableton user should have in their arsenal.
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Stream Aera’s ‘Versions’ Below
This ten-track LP runs the gamut of left-field electronica, trip-hop, and more. While the genres themselves aren’t necessary, the texture and composition certainly are and are the reason why this album shines.
Each track offers a different perspective on the producer’s mastery over music while still managing to seamlessly meld into each other in a way that only true self-expression can manage.
“For this project Aera follows in the footsteps of his 90s heroes, channeling the likes of “Endtroducing” by DJ Shadow and “Mezzanine” era Massive Attack. By getting cozy and slow, he is leaving the dancefloors of this world behind for a moment.” -Aera
So before we get into Aera’s favorite Max4Live plugins, hit the play button on his latest album and hear these plugins in action as you read why he loves them so much.
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FOLD
First we have a rather simple device with a big impact. Fold allows you to shrink your MIDI keyboard to any custom palette of notes while skipping the unwanted notes.
It’s my favorite scaler device, as it does not leave any duplicate notes on the keyboard. As I play a lot of my melodies and chord progressions by hand, this opens up new ways of playing and finding melodies and made me think differently about the 12 keys we are all so familiar with.
POLYSCALE
Another scaler device, this one helps to keep melodies and chord progressions on track over several different channels, without the need to change or rewrite single midi notes.
It has one “sender” device that you feed the note information, which forces the “receiver” devices to only let these notes pass through. This lets you try out different scales and transpositions within a song easily.
STEP.MODULATOR
An unassuming-looking device made by Ableton founder Robert Henke. It basically lets you change the properties of every n-th note by certain amounts. For example, every 3rd incoming note could be transposed by 7 semitones.
Feed it a simple 4 note melody, and you have a more complex melody. In fact, you now have a melody made of 3×4=12 notes. I love devices that with simple ideas can create complex results, and this is one of them.
One of my (not so) secret weapons!
HOCKET
Hocketing is a super exciting concept originating from the 13th century, where a single melody is split into its single notes played by different instruments.
This device lets you do this very quickly.
I love to set up a simple arpeggio, where each note is played by one of 3 external synths, which all have a similar sound dialed in. Now when I start changing the timbre of every single synthesizer, I can get lively and exciting modulations going.
NOTE RAUM
A little bit of a curve ball, this is a Midi delay device on steroids made by certified Ableton trainer Noah Pred.
It took me a while to wrap my head around it, but once I did, it created some fascinating and highly usable results that I probably could not get from any other device.
I love devices like this to kickstart an idea. I could explain exactly how it works, but why don’t you head over to Noah’s page and try it out – he also has some other super cool devices!
Will Vance is a professional music producer who has been involved in the industry for the better part of a decade and has been the managing editor at Magnetic Magazine since mid-2022. In that time period, he has published thousands of articles on music production, industry think pieces and educational articles about the music industry. Over the last decade as a professional music producer, Will Vance has also ran multiple successful and highly respected record labels in the industry, including Where The Heart Is Records as well as having launched a new label with a focus on community through Magnetic Magazine. When not running these labels or producing his own music, Vance is likely writing for other top industry sites like Waves or the Hyperbits Masterclass or working on his upcoming book on mindfulness in music production. On the rare chance he's not thinking about music production, he's probably running a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends which he has been the dungeon master for for many years.
