Bass + Lead by Philip Meyer

It analyses your chord progression and extracts the lowest note from each chord to automatically generate a bass line. Simply copy your chord clip onto your bass track, run the transformation, and the device does the rest.

Attraction controls the sensitivity of the chord detector, allowing you to fine-tune how the device interprets your chord progression. Dialling it in lets you get more accurate or more relaxed chord detection depending on the complexity of your MIDI data.

Yes, you can octave-transpose the resulting bass notes and adjust their velocity directly within the device, giving you immediate control over how the bass line sits in your mix.

Bass + Lead is built for Ableton Live 12, so you will need Live 12 installed to use it. It is a Max for Live device, so a Live 12 Suite licence or a Live 12 Standard licence with the Max for Live add-on is also required.

After purchasing, download the device file and drag it into your Ableton Live library or directly onto a MIDI track. Copy your chord progression clip to your bass track, load the device, and run the transformation.

It is particularly handy when you have a chord progression and want a quick, musically coherent bass line without writing one note by note. That said, the octave and velocity controls mean you can also use it to reshape or inspire existing ideas.

Yes, it uses the same chord detection logic as Philip Meyer’s Chord Inverter device, so it is designed to handle a wide range of chord voicings and progressions. The Attraction control helps it adapt to more unusual or complex harmonic content.

V1.0.0 – Initial Release – November 2024

To install MIDI Tools, first double-click to decompress the ZIP archive it arrived in. !

In Live’s Browser, navigate to the User Library in Places

Then find the MIDI Tools folder located there. If you don’t see a folder called MIDI Tools in your User Library, simply create it yourself.

We’d advice adding two subfolders for Generators and Transformers for neatness.

Finally, drag our Generators to the Generators subfolder and our Transformers to the Transformers subfolder

Live should automatically detect them and within the next few minutes, they should appear in the dropdown chooser of Live’s Generators or Transformers in the corresponding tab of any MIDI Clip’s Note Editor.

PLEASE NOTE: Once installed MIDI Tools, since they are not Max MIDI Effects, cannot be dragged and dropped onto MIDI tracks: they can only be loaded by the Generator and Transformer tabs of the MIDI clip editor.

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