Description
What is MelodySauce?
MelodySauce is a Max For Live (M4L) device that generates melodic phrases as MIDI.
Designed as a music co-creation tool for anyone making music in mainstream electronic pop, dance and EDM styles, MelodySauce provides a quick and unlimited source of melodies that are created for you at the click of a button, for use as leads, synth lines, arpeggios and other instrumental hooks. With MelodySauce anyone can easily generate, audition and select credible instrumental melody and hook ideas instantly.
MelodySauce is capable of generating many millions of different permutations of melody through its complex algorithms. None of the phrases that MelodySauce generates are preprogrammed as you hear them, they are all built from scratch each time you click to generate.
Background
MelodySauce is the culmination of 18 months’ research and development by Charlie Morgan and his EVAbeat team.
Charlie Morgan has 20 years’ experience at both the creative and business ends of the music industry – originally a Royal College of Music trained classical pianist, he became an electronic writer and producer (he penned hip-house anthem “I See Girls” which reached no.12 in the UK charts some years ago) and currently runs leading music-for-commercials agency Hush Music, working with songwriters and producers to create music for the likes of Nike, Adidas and Apple in the UK and US.
Having been introduced to “generative algorithms”, Charlie became interested in the potential for algorithms to help the music creation process, and decided to develop tools that would produce credible, useable and versatile musical ideas for musicians to use that would offer a more engaging alternative to making music with loops and pre-set MIDI phrases.
Teaming up with professor of Algorithmic Musicology Louis Bigo in Paris, he came up with a unique system to analyse the musical DNA of current commercial pop and EDM songs and understand what makes them tick. Focusing initially on melody, the process involved hours of painstakingly notating songs, extracting the component parts and putting these into spreadsheets, and then analysing them mathematically to identify the common features that successful instrumental hooks share and the “melodic rules” they tend to follow. This musical DNA was then used to build a set of algorithms, along with a unique phrase-building architecture, that would create melodies in a similar way to how a human songwriter would, at the click of a button.
Charlie and the EVAbeat team are currently working on chord and beat devices.
Orsetti (verified owner) –
Great little tool. First time I see a algorythmic generator, that actually brings results, that can really be used. It works best for little hooks or arpeggiophrases. Combine this with midimoods UARP and you have a playable instrument, that plays generated phrases from Melody Sauce.
There is room for improvement, though. I would like to set the lenght of the generated pattern beforehand. And I would really like to see a button, that allows to rewrite the actual clip each time I press generate. I can see, why each time a new clip is generated, but I think, this behaviour should be selectable.
And the transpose function should go over more octaves. This shouln`t be to tricky to implement.
Other than that I would not ask for a lot more paramaters to set. Just retry and retry and retry and be surprised. Its a nice and handy tool for certain situations.
belseadapt (verified owner) –
I love it. You press the button and it comes up with a musical idea. I’m not using it for main lead lines or bass lines, more as something to complement what I already have going on. For those of us who are less traditional music makers it’s also handy to get some ideas going in the right key from the off. Like I’ve said before..I ain’t written Higher states of consciousness yet, and I’m glad it hasn’t. I wanna write the killer lead lines …I leave the more simpler ideas for extra layers to Melody sauce.
qprojectaudio (verified owner) –
Would give 10 stars if I could! 5 for the product itself and 5 for the customer service!
Upon initial purchase the max device would keep repeating the same 20 or so melodies as opposed to the “millions” it says it can do, others have not had that happen so I figured it was a bug that my setup was unique to, I emailed support, staff was extremely helpful in getting the situation solved and asked for a sample project file with the device loaded in a rack which I sent over, soon after they updated the device and now it works exactly as I had hoped! There are multiple MIDI generators on the market and I have purchased and tried most of them however the algorithm on this one feels extremely precise and well thought out as opposed to other ones which feel just “randomized” without thought into phrasing and much musical practicality, the phrases it generates are actually catchy and useful as is, especially for EDM, but I like to take it further and use it in a chain of devices and plugins that take the midi data from melody sauce and manipulate it further to create a truly unique hook that feels more of your own, throw it in front of an arp or chord generator or anything really for that matter and watch your writers block vanish instantly, I’m anxious to see what these guys come up with next, It’s definitely a great tool to have in your collection when you’re needing that initial spark for an idea to get things rolling
Paul LeBlanc (verified owner) –
Isotonik continuously helps me achieve musical things simply, quickly and abstractly with their products – and Melody Sauce is no different. Astoundingly simply in its UI, it’s remarkably complex under the hood.
Look, if you have ever just wanted a “suggestion” or a “nudge” in a new direction when writing a melody, look no further, this wonderful utility will help. If you think its cheating somehow, your wrong. If you have ever used an arpeggiator then you’ve already broken the the glass, this is no different.
So give yourself a little treat, and sprinkle a little Melody Sauce on your next creation before you get too deep, or even after its been cooking for a while. You might find its like that TV commercial for hot sauce: ” I put that sh1t on everything!”
Put it in your cart, and hit the checkout button.
samnam Lee (verified owner) –
Please indicate version information. There is a limit of 10 downloads. When a product is updated to a new version, how do I check the version? I cannot check the version on the download tab.
Darren E Cowley (Admin) (verified owner) –
The changelog is listed on the product page and within the email we send out when an update is available. The version in your account is always the latest version listed. The 10 Download limitation has now been removed