How a route is described
One target type for everything
A modulation target is a single type, whether it points at an effect-chain parameter or at the instrument's own. That one decision lets a performance macro fan out across your effects and into the synth behind them, and what lets a per-step lock reach a synth cutoff as well as an effect value.
Each target on a macro carries its own from, to, curve and amount. So one knob can open a filter across its whole range while nudging a send a little and pulling a delay back. The fan-out gives you four different journeys on one control, each with its own range and curve.
Curve, per target
- Linear
- Straight through: the target moves with the macro.
- Log
- Fast at the start, easing out. Good for anything that sounds logarithmic, and most level does.
- Exp
- Slow at the start, then away. Good for a sweep that should stay out of the way until it does not.
- Sym
- Symmetric around the middle of the throw.
Where a step lock and an LFO both want the same parameter, the lock wins, following the precedence an Elektron box uses. A locked step then reads as something you meant.
The LFO
Seven shapes
Alongside the four you expect are a stepped shape and two sample-and-hold variants: one that jumps, one that smooths between picks. The jumping one is the source of a part that never sits quite still, and it takes a direction clamp so it can be told to only ever move a value downward.
LiveSet · modulation & automation
Modulation and automation
A track where nothing moves sounds flat within a bar or two, so LiveSet lets you wire almost anything to move almost anything else. Route a source to a destination in a free-form matrix, draw automation per pattern, or set one macro moving a handful of parameters together. The parts drift, breathe and build on their own while you play.
Sources
The modulation matrix is free-form. Pick a source, pick where it goes, set how much. These are the sources you route from.
LFO
A low-frequency oscillator, tempo-synced or free-running, in seven shapes. The steady hand behind most movement.
Envelope
A shape that fires on a note or an event, for a swell, a duck or a snap that lands in time.
Macro
One control that moves several things at once, so you turn one knob and the whole sound shifts.
Random
A sample-and-hold LFO shape that picks a new value on its own, for parts that never sit quite still.
Track envelope
A follower that reads the level of a track and turns that into movement elsewhere.
Destinations
Targets
Effect parameters
Sweep a filter cutoff, open a reverb, push a delay, any effect parameter is a target.
Track volume
Ride a level over time without touching a fader.
Sends
Move how much of a track feeds a send, so the space around it breathes.
Instrument parameters
Plug a source straight into a synth parameter and the instrument itself moves.
Seven shapes
The LFO
The LFO comes in seven shapes, from the smooth ones to the stepped and the sampled. Sync it to the tempo for movement that locks to the bar, or let it run free for something that will not sit on the grid. Reset it on the bar when you want every drop to start the same way.
LFO shapes
sine · triangle · saw
square · sample & hold
stepped · smoothed sample & hold
↳ tempo-synced or free
↳ free-run or reset on the bar
Scene-scoped modulators
Scene modulation
Some modulators live with the scene. Beyond the standard sources there is a multi-stage modulator for shapes you draw out in steps, a random-walk source that wanders instead of jumps, and a spline for smooth curves you set by hand. Change the scene and the movement changes with it.
Automation lanes
Drawn automation
When you want to write the movement out instead of generating it, each pattern has automation lanes. They reach every synth parameter, so you can draw a filter opening across sixteen bars, or nudge a single value at one point in the loop. Macro controls fold several of these moves under one knob for the times you want to conduct instead of edit.
Where the edges are
Macros reach the voice as well as the chain
A modulation target is either an effect-chain parameter or the instrument's own, so one performance macro fans out across your effect chain and into the synth behind it, each target with its own range and curve. A per-step parameter lock reaches the same two places. So you can lock a synth cutoff on a single step and never only an effect value.
Both used to stop at the effect chain, and both were widened. Files written before that still load: the older effect-only form is byte-identical on the wire, so a project authored against it opens unchanged.