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Song Sketch 2 (Pro Pack) by XY Studio Tools

A workflow tool that lets you quickly turn your song idea into a full arrangement.

£43.00

(4 customer reviews)
Song Sketch 2 is a Max for Live tool for working with song arrangement in Ableton Live. In Song Sketch 2, you can load, import, edit and create different arrangement patterns and apply them to your loops. In this way, you can quickly draft an arrangement, experiment with different options and evaluate arrangement ideas for the music that you are composing.The Pro edition includes a total of 172 arrangement templates in 14 genres. Song Sketch 2 is also available in a Starter edition (72 templates in 12 genres). More templates are available in expansion packs.
User Guide:

CLICK HERE

Developer: XY StudioTools
Compatibility: Ableton Live 11 Suite or Ableton Live Standard with MaxforLive | Ableton Live 10 Suite or Ableton Live Standard with MaxforLive
OS: Mac (Sierra and later) & Windows 10+
Min. Requirements: Ableton Live 10 Suite (10.1.13 or later) or Ableton Live Standard with MaxforLive 8 – Minimum 8GB RAM, recommended 8GB+

Description

With Song Sketch 2 you can quickly draft an arrangement based on your loop and work with different arrangement options for the music that you are composing.

SONG SKETCH 2 – WORKFLOW

The Song Sketch workflow takes you from a loop to a full track in a few steps:

  1. Start with your loop. Start with the loop that you are working on. You can use midi- and audio clips of different lengths. For each track or group of tracks, you can use either just one scene of clips or several different scenes.
  2. Apply an arrangement pattern. Load a template with an arrangement pattern for the genre. You can either use preset templates in Song Sketch, or you can create your own templates. In Live 11, it is also possible to import the structure of an arrangement into Song Sketch.
  3. Assign parts. When loading a template, your tracks will be matched with the different tracks in the template. Before placing the arrangement, consider how the tracks  are assigned and make the adjustments that you like.
  4. Define scenes. You now have a draft arrangement to start working from. If you are using several scenes, for example if you like to use a different chord progression in choruses, select in which section each scene should be used.
  5. Play back the first draft. Click the “To Arr” button to place the arrangement onto the Live Arrangement View and play back to hear the first draft.
  6. Edit. Edit the song structure in Song Sketch, for example by changing the length of sections, adding new sections, drawing bars and adding automation.
  7. Play back and continue your workflow in the Arrangement View. Update the Live Arrangement View and listen to your result. You now have a starting point for a track and can continue your workflow in the Live Arrangement View, for example to work on layering sounds, creating variation throughout the track and adding automation.

SONG SKETCH 2 – KEY FEATURES

  • Grouped tracks: Assign a group of tracks in the Live set to one part in the arrangement template
  • Multiple scenes: Use several different scenes to create variation between song sections
  • Edit and create: Make settings for song sections, draw/edit your arrangement and save your own templates
  • Expanded view: Get more space to work in the pop out window
  • Drum rack tool: Auto separate drum racks to individual clips to enable arranging different drum parts
  • Import arrangements from Live: Import existing Live sets into Song Sketch (in Live 11)

SONG SKETCH 2 – ARRANGEMENT TEMPLATES

Song Sketch 2 Pro comes with 172 arrangement templates in 14 different genres and styles. Applying various arrangement templates enables you to quickly test your loops in a full length song. You can also customise the arrangements, for instance by applying the pattern to your loops in different ways, or by editing the length and placement of the different parts of your song. Any work you do in Song Sketch can be saved as a new arrangement template. You can also create your own templates from scratch.

Templates included in Song Sketch 2 Pro:

  • 12 x Hip Hop
  • 12 x House (Chicago, Melodic, Tech House)
  • 12 x Deep House
  • 12 x Techno (Peak Time, Hypnotic/Deep)
  • 12 x Dance & Mainstage
  • 16 x Pop
  • 12 x Drum & Bass
  • 12 x Trap
  • 12 x Reggae & Dancehall
  • 12 x Trance
  • 12 x Reggaeton
  • 12 x Downtempo
  • 12 x Disco
  • 12 x Rock & Country

SONG SKETCH 2 – COMPARE EDITIONS

Song Sketch 2 Pro: CLICK HERE

  • All features
  • 172 templates
  • 14 genres

Song Sketch 2 Starter: CLICK HERE

  • All features
  • 72 templates
  • 12 genres

SONG SKETCH 2 – EXPANSION PACKS – AVAILABLE SEPARATELY

Expansion pack are available separately and give you additional arrangement templates in a style of your choice, they are compatible with Song Sketch 2 Pro and Song Sketch 2 Starter editions. Available expansion packs include:

4 reviews for Song Sketch 2 (Pro Pack) by XY Studio Tools

  1. Martin

    I just gave this a test run two days ago and it’s so straight forward and easy to use. I quickly turned one of my abandoned projects into a song! Recommended!

  2. John Williams (verified owner)

    If you have any trouble with arranging your loops / scenes from the Session window this is a totally brilliant plugin – I’m putting together an album to release for artist charities and I went from one arrangement a week to 7 in one day! . This plugin is a game-changer. Added to which the dev is really responsive and helpful (For incredibly smooth arranging – Make sure that midi and audio loops you import into Live’s clip slots are an exact number of bars – None of those pesky little red numbers at the bar-end or the loop length counters in the loop-detail window- Its not the apps fault, its just that imported loops can be incorrectly reported by Live).

  3. Andreas Graf (verified owner)

    just love it! okay, i have some problems with it after a few hours.. like automation, … but i will continue to check it out

  4. Ian Dee Grees (verified owner)

    I’m amazed. If you struggle with arrangements or need to finish a lot of songs for different styles, this is the way to go! Tons of templates, very detailed and well thought out enhancement to your workflow. I really like it when people think in detail about how to do things better and assist you to save your time. Song Sketch 2 is one of those gadgets, and it should get an award too.

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CHANGE LOG

Version 2.1.0 – Released 14th November 2022

New features in Song Sketch 2.1

  • Improved Clip Placement (Live 11) When clips are placed on the arrangement view, they are placed with the original loop points from the clip, instead of placed with duplicated notes within the clips (or repeated clips for audio). You can choose to restart clips at every new section. The new clip placement is faster, more flexible in terms of which material you can use, and makes it easier to work with the material once arranged.
  • Placing Locators The new “Place Locators” button places locators according to the sections in the arrangement.

  • Sections Track (Live 11) With the “Sections Track” feature, you will get an extra track on top of your other tracks with empty midi clips that are named according to the sections in the arrangement. (“Sections Track” replaces “Section Names on Clips” for Live 11 users.)

  • Use Scene Names Any scene names in the Live set can be transferred to the scene settings in Song Sketch, making it easier to work with settings for multiple scenes in Song Sketch.

Other updates in 2.1:

  • Separate drum rack function is updated to work with the latest Ableton and Max version

  • Improved font graphics for section names.

Song Sketch 2 Release Notes

Version 2.0.5 – Released 1 February 2022

Bug fixes:

  • Stack Overflow message when using multiple scenes: When using multiple scenes and the “allow default” option was selected at the same time as a default clip wasn’t available, a stack overflow message was displayed.
  • Halftime mode with short clips: Short Audio clips did not place correctly with halftime mode. Note: Audio clips still have to be at least 2 bars long to work correctly with half time mode.

14th November 2021: version 2.0.3 – RELEASE NOTES

13th November 2021: version 2.0.2

8th September 2021: version 2.0.1 (initial release) 

 

 

REVIEWS & FEATURES

INSTALLATION

HOW TO INSTALL – VIDEO:

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Unzip the downloaded file

2. Place the folder “Song Sketch” with all its content in: User Library / Presets / Audio Effects / Max Audio Effect

3. Place the file “Sketch Rack.adg” in: User Library / Presets / Audio Effects / Audio Effect Rack

HOW TO USE

To use Song Sketch: In the Live browser, select “Max for Live” and “Max Audio Effect” and drag “Song Sketch.amxd” to a new channel

DEVELOPER

XY StudioTools

XY Studio Tools

XY StudioTools was founded in 2020 with the vision to introduce new workflows for digital music production. The focus is on enabling musicians to work faster, try out more ideas and achieve unexpected results, while making sure that the artist always stays in control over the final result and musical expression. This idea led to the development of Song Sketch, the first of its kind pattern-based arrangement tool.

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