Plucks & Arpeggios

Classic FM pluck (Operator)

The bread-and-butter pluck: a modulator with a faster envelope than the carrier so the first 50 ms are bright and the tail is nearly a sine. Works for everything from Goa to melodic techno.

1. Load Operator, algorithm with B feeding A (second from the left). Osc A: Sine, level 0 dB. Osc B: Sine, Coarse 2, level −14 dB.
2. Osc A envelope: Attack 0 ms, Decay 450 ms, Sustain −inf, Release 300 ms.
3. Osc B envelope: Attack 0 ms, Decay 120 ms, Sustain −inf, Release 100 ms. The modulator envelope being 3–4× shorter than the carrier is the whole trick.
4. Filter: on, LP 24, cutoff 3 kHz, envelope amount +30%, filter env decay 200 ms. Resonance 10%.
5. Global: Spread 15% for a bit of width above the fundamental; Tone 70% so the FM aliasing does not get harsh.
6. Voices 8, Retrigger on so repeated notes always restart the envelope.

Variations: ratio 1 + feedback 20% on Osc A gives a saw-like pluck (trance). Ratio 7 at −24 dB with 40 ms decay adds a tiny metallic click for techno. Add Pitch envelope +2 semitones with 15 ms decay for a tabla-like snap.

Wavetable pluck with position envelope

Instead of filter-only decay, modulate wavetable position with an envelope so the timbre itself morphs from bright to dark across the decay. Richer than a filter sweep and more stable in the low mids.

1. Osc 1: Basics category, pick a table that goes from complex to simple (Harmonic Series works; so does Collection → Lightsaber). Position 60%.
2. Amp envelope: A 1 ms, D 400 ms, S 0, R 250 ms. Set the Decay slope toward exponential (drag the curve handle).
3. Env 2: A 0, D 150 ms, S 0. Mod matrix: Env 2 → Osc 1 Position −40%, Env 2 → Filter 1 Freq +35%.
4. Filter 1: MS2 LP 24, cutoff 1.2 kHz, Res 15%, Drive 10% — the MS2 model saturates nicely as the envelope slams it.
5. Unison: Classic, 3 voices, amount 15% — only if the pluck is the lead element; otherwise leave it mono.
6. Osc 2: Sub category, a sine one octave down at −12 dB with the same amp env for weight on melodic bass-plucks.

Variations: Formant category tables + position envelope give vocal-ish plucks for future garage. Noise category + very short decay (80 ms) = tuned percussion.

Analog-style pluck (Drift and Analog)

The subtractive pluck: a saw or pulse through a low-pass with a snappy filter envelope. Drift's MS2 filter and Analog's dual filters both do this well; Drift is cheaper and has the better envelope shapes.

1. Drift: Osc 1 Saw, Osc 2 Rectangle at −7 semitones (a fifth below) at 40% level for house, or at 0 semitones with 10 ct detune for electro.
2. Filter: MS2 LP, cutoff 600 Hz, resonance 20%. Env 2 → Filter amount 55%. Env 2: A 0, D 180 ms, S 0.
3. Amp (Env 1): A 1 ms, D 350 ms, S 0, R 200 ms. Voice mode Poly, 4 voices.
4. Drift amount 20% — the small per-voice pitch and timing instability is what makes repeated notes not sound like a machine gun.
5. In Analog instead: Osc 1 Saw, Osc 2 Square −1 oct, Filter 1 LP 24 dB at 500 Hz, Filter env 1 amount +40%, decay 200 ms, Quick Routing parallel filters off (series).

Variations: Drift Mono mode with Glide 40 ms and Legato on = garage/melodic bass pluck that slides between notes. Analog with Noise at −20 dB mixed in for the first 30 ms (use Amp 2 envelope for the noise) = pick noise.

Physical plucks: Collision, Tension, Electric

Modelled plucks give you the one thing subtractive plucks lack: inharmonic, position-dependent attacks that change with velocity. Tension is a literal plucked string; Collision is a mallet on a tuned object; Electric with a hard Mallet setting is a very short Rhodes.

1. Tension: Excitator Pick, Protrusion 35%, Stiffness 20%, Velocity 60%, Position 15% (near the bridge = brighter). String: Decay 55%, Damping 40%, Inharmonicity 5% so it is not perfectly harmonic. Body: Piano, Size medium. Filter: LP 5 kHz with a short envelope.
2. Collision: Mallet excitator, Stiffness 70%, Noise amount 15% with Noise Color bright. Resonator 1: Beam, Decay 30%, Material 40%, Pitch 0. Resonator 2 off or a Marimba at Decay 15% for an extra "tok". Keep Hit position around 25% for a proper fundamental.
3. Electric: Mallet Force 80%, Stiffness 90%, Noise 20%. Fork: Tine level 60%, Tone decay short. Damper: Tone 70%, Attack 20%, Release 100%. Pickup: Symmetry 30%, Distance 70%. Tiny Release in the global envelope.
4. Whichever you use: follow with a Compressor at 4:1, 10 ms attack, 80 ms release to tame the velocity range without killing the attack transient.

Variations: Tension with Bow excitator + 5 ms Force envelope on a Macro produces a "plucked bow" that is great under organic techno. Collision mallet at Stiffness 100% with Resonator Tube = plucked flute (Rhythm & Sound territory).

Sampled one-shot pluck (Simpler)

Any sound with a transient becomes a pluck in Simpler One-Shot mode. Guitar hits, kalimba, a resampled chord, a bottle — the envelope and filter re-shape it into a note.

1. Drop a sample in Simpler, switch to One-Shot. Set Trigger (not Gate) so the sample plays regardless of note length.
2. Snap on, Fade In 0, Fade Out 100–300 ms. Warp off for pitch-tracking plucks; Warp on (Complex Pro) if you want fixed length across notes — garage chords do this.
3. Filter: LP 24, 2 kHz, Drive 15%, envelope amount +40%, decay ~150 ms (use the Filter envelope in the Filter/Global tab).
4. Transpose to taste; for garage plucks +12 and Warp on gives the chipmunk-tight feel.
5. Voices 6, Retrigger on. Add Velocity → Volume at 60% and Velocity → Filter at 40%.

Variations: Slice mode on a chord loop with Transient sensitivity high, then play slices as plucks from Push pads = instant garage stab-arp. Drum Sampler (12.1) with Pitch envelope and Ring effect for tuned percussive plucks.

Arpeggiator deep-dive

The Arpeggiator MIDI effect takes held notes and sequences them. The important controls beyond Style and Rate are Gate, Steps + Distance (transposition repeats), Retrigger, and the built-in velocity envelope — those turn a cycle of notes into a performable line.

1. Style: Up, Down, UpDown, DownUp, Up&Down, Down&Up, Converge, Diverge, Con&Diverge, Pinky Up/UpDown, Thumb Up/UpDown, Play Order, Chord Trigger, Random, Random Other, Random Once. Play Order is the performer's choice — the arp follows the order you pressed keys.
2. Rate: Sync on, 1/16 for techno/trance, 1/8 for house, 1/16T for Berlin-school. Swing follows the groove pool if you set Groove on the clip, or use Shuffle in the device's Rate section (Live 12 exposes swing amount).
3. Gate: 30–50% for a pluck (the synth release does the rest), 90–100% for legato arps on a Mono synth with glide.
4. Steps and Distance: Steps 2, Distance +12 st repeats the pattern an octave up — the classic trance "stacked octaves". Steps 3 with Distance +7 gives stacked fifths for darker techno.
5. Retrigger: Off, Note, Beat. Beat with Interval 1 bar re-starts the pattern every bar so the arp stays locked to the downbeat even when you re-press chords mid-bar. Note restarts on every new key.
6. Repeats: Inf for held arps; 1–4 to turn a chord stab into a short flourish.
7. Velocity section: On, Decay 500 ms, Target 60, Retrigger on — a velocity envelope across the pattern. Set your synth to respond to velocity on filter cutoff and you get a built-in fade-in per bar.
8. Hold: on, for hands-free Push performance; use the Transpose Key/Offset to move the arp in-scale with the set's Scale.

Variations: Random Other on a 7-note scale cluster with Rate 1/16T and 4 Repeats = generative techno fills. Chord Trigger style with a 3-note chord = rhythmic chord stabs (see Chords & stabs).

Live 12 generators: Euclidean, Rhythm, Seed, Strum

Instead of a device, generate the pattern into the clip. Rhythm generates hit grids (with Euclidean distribution options), Seed scatters pitches from a scale, Euclidean Sequencer (Pack) runs several Euclidean rings in parallel, and Strum spreads a chord's notes in time like a guitarist.

1. Empty 1-bar clip, Scale mode on (C Minor). Open the MIDI Tools tab, Generators → Rhythm: Steps 16, Density 7 (Euclidean distribution) gives the 7-of-16 pattern; Rotation shifts the downbeat; Pitch locked to root.
2. Transformations → Seed is a generator too: pick Scale, Pitch range 1–2 octaves, Density, Note Length; it fills pitches randomly but in-scale. Use it on top of the Rhythm output by selecting the Rhythm notes first.
3. Apply Velocity Shaper with a repeating ramp (Period 1 bar) so each bar swells — more musical than Random velocity.
4. For a guitar-ish arp, write a chord as block notes and apply Strum: Tension (how spread), Velocity falloff, Direction Up/Down alternating per chord — gives the "strummed pluck" feel at 1/64–1/32 spacing.
5. Euclidean Sequencer (MIDI device in the Live 12 pack) for live use: 3 independent rings (e.g. 5/16, 7/16, 9/16) each sending a different pitch, Hold on, feeding one pluck — polyrhythmic arps you can tweak on Push.
6. Follow with the Connect transformation if you want glide-like legato between the generated notes, or Quantize at 1/16 with 70% strength to tighten them.

Variations: Recombine (shuffle pitches, keep rhythm) on an existing arp clip for A/B variations across 8-bar phrases. Time Warp to stretch the second half of a generated phrase for an IDM lurch.

Delay-based pseudo-arps (Echo, ping-pong, Note Echo)

One pluck and a dotted-eighth delay is the oldest arpeggio in electronic music. Audio delays repeat the timbre; the Note Echo MIDI effect repeats the note and can transpose each repeat — a pseudo-arp that still hits the synth's envelope fresh.

1. Audio: Echo, Sync on, Left 3/16 (1/8 dotted), Right 1/4, Ping Pong mode, Feedback 35–45%, Dry/Wet 35%. Filter: HP 300 Hz, LP 6 kHz inside the Echo so repeats thin out. Modulation 10% at 0.3 Hz for a little drift.
2. Program the pluck with gaps: notes on 1 and the "and" of 2 only; the delay fills the rest. Count the delay grid against the kick — 3/16 against 4/4 creates the 3-over-4 feel.
3. MIDI: Note Echo before the synth. Delay Time 1/8 dotted, Feedback 60%, Repeats 4, Pitch +12 st per repeat (or +7 for fifths-cascade), Velocity decay so each repeat is quieter. Because each repeat is a new note, the synth's velocity-to-filter mapping shapes the cascade.
4. Stack both: Note Echo for the pitched cascade, Echo for the room. Keep audio delay feedback under 40% when Note Echo is already repeating.
5. Ducking: Echo's Gate/Duck section — Duck on, so the repeats drop under new played notes and swell back in the gaps.

Variations: Grain Delay at 3/16 with Pitch +12 and Spray 20 ms for a shimmering pseudo-arp (ambient). Delay in Fade mode with Jump on and automated time for dub-style glitch arps (see Dub FX).

Sidechain pumping and sidechain-to-pad

The arp pumps against the kick, and the pad behind it ducks under the arp. Two sidechains in opposite directions is what makes a trance or melodic-techno arrangement breathe without volume automation.

1. Arp track: Compressor, Sidechain on, Audio From Kick (pre-FX), Ratio 4:1, Attack 1 ms, Release 100–150 ms, Threshold until 4–6 dB gain reduction. Keep the Sidechain EQ: LP 150 Hz so only the kick's body triggers.
2. Pad track: another Compressor, Sidechain from the Arp track, Ratio 2:1, Attack 5 ms, Release 200 ms, 2–3 dB reduction — the pad gets out of the way of every pluck.
3. For a shaped pump instead of a detected one: Shaper (M4L) on the arp's Utility gain, synced 1/4, custom curve with a fast dip at step 1 and a slow rise. Deterministic, no kick needed, works in breakdowns.
4. Envelope Follower on the arp track → mapped to a Pad's Auto Filter cutoff (inverted): pad darkens on every pluck, not just quieter.
5. Check in mono that the pump does not expose the arp's stereo delay as a wobble; if it does, place the Compressor before Echo.

Variations: Sidechain the arp from its own Note Echo repeats (duplicate track, compress the dry by the wet) for self-ducking cascades.

Velocity and accent shaping

Flat velocity is the number-one reason an arp sounds like a preset. A pluck that reacts to velocity on three parameters at once (amp, filter, FM index) turns a velocity pattern into a timbral pattern.

1. In the synth: Velocity → Amp 50–70%, Velocity → Filter env amount +40%, Velocity → FM index (Operator: Osc B level Vel 40%).
2. Velocity MIDI effect after the Arpeggiator: Drive 0, Compand slightly (Comp 0.8) so quiet notes stay audible, Random 10–15 for life. Operation Add/Subtract mode gives fixed offsets for deterministic accents.
3. In the clip: Velocity Shaper transformation with a pattern like 127, 70, 90, 60 repeating per 1/16 — a programmed accent pattern that reads as a groove.
4. Velocity Ramp on 8 bars (Shaper with a slow slope) for the build; combine with filter cutoff automation.
5. On Push: aftertouch → Osc B level for FM-expressive arps while holding the chord.

Variations: Chance in the clip (note probability 70%) with Velocity Deviation ±20 for arps that differ slightly per cycle without touching the notes.

Supersaw pluck and gated trance arp

A wide detuned saw stack with a hard filter envelope and a gated 1/16 pattern. This is the one place a pluck is allowed to be stereo-wide, because it is the lead element.

1. Wavetable Osc 1 Basics → Saw, Osc 2 Basics → Saw at +12 semis, −6 dB. Unison Classic, 6 voices, Amount 35%.
2. Filter 1 OSR LP 12 dB, cutoff 900 Hz, Res 10%, Env 2 → Freq +45% (Env 2: A 0, D 220 ms, S 0).
3. Amp env A 0, D 300 ms, S 0.15, R 80 ms — tiny sustain keeps it from choking between 1/16s at 140 BPM.
4. Arpeggiator Gate 40%, Steps 2, Distance +12, Retrigger Beat 1 bar.
5. Utility after the chain: Mono below 250 Hz (Bass Mono) so the detune does not smear the low mids.

Genre-specific pluck quickies: techno, house, garage, melodic

Four ten-second variants built on the Operator FM pluck above, because the timbre differences between genres are mostly ratio, decay and processing choices.

1. Techno: Osc B ratio 3.5 (inharmonic), decay 180 ms total, Roar Diode shaper 20% drive, mono. Pattern: offbeat 1/8 or a 3/16 that resolves every 2 bars. Reverb dark and short (Dark Hall 0.8 s).
2. House: ratio 2, Osc A decay 500 ms, Chorus-Ensemble Ensemble mode 25%, Delay 1/8 ping-pong 30%. Pattern: syncopated 1/8s between the kick, often on a 7th chord's top notes.
3. UK garage: Simpler version with Warp on, pitched +7, swing 60% from the groove pool, gate short; Delay 1/16 at 20%; a Pitch MIDI effect with +12 on alternating notes via Random.
4. Melodic techno / progressive: Wavetable pluck with 3-voice unison 12%, Echo 3/16 at 45% feedback with Echo's Reverb 30%, slow Auto Filter LFO (1/4 bar, 15%) for gentle motion; 8-bar filter automation over the phrase.