Articulation Maps for Sampled Instruments

Share what you’d like to see added to Ableton Live.
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Slow Hand
Posts: 57
Joined: Fri Nov 13, 2020 7:54 am

Articulation Maps for Sampled Instruments

Post by Slow Hand » Tue Aug 10, 2021 7:26 am

Hi there,

I'd like to see a feature in Ableton akin to Logic's articulation maps or Cubase's expression maps. Something that removes the need to draw MIDI notes down in the C-2 range of the piano whenever I want to change instrument articulations (legato, pizz, tremolo, etc) in my Kontakt instruments or my Spitfire audio instruments. The articulations for each instrument patch could be saved as presets and displayed in a hideable lane beneath the piano roll where note velocity and note probability live. This could also be applied to instruments like Massive X that have different modulation sequences that are triggered in the same manner.

Such a feature would be a large workflow improvement for those of us who regularly use complex sampled instruments in Kontakt.

One other feature that would be cool, is if when loading an articulation map for, say, a violin patch, it also loaded preset automation lanes in the sequencer view when I press A. I regularly automate the same three parameters with all of my Spitfire instruments: Dynamics, Expression, and Reverb. It would be great if I could open up automation view and immediately have it display my most frequently automated parameters, as a part of the automation map preset for that instrument. This way I would not have to set up lanes for each parameter every time I load an instrument.

Freiin
Posts: 8
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 5:30 pm

Re: Articulation Maps for Sampled Instruments

Post by Freiin » Tue Aug 17, 2021 3:09 am

Agreed! Mainly because I do orchestral music and this is a huge feature that will save me serveral hours of work.

:D

jonljacobi
Posts: 937
Joined: Sat Dec 30, 2017 3:36 am

Re: Articulation Maps for Sampled Instruments

Post by jonljacobi » Wed Aug 18, 2021 10:34 pm

There are other threads about this. Specifically mine. Go to centercode and upvote it.

Slow Hand
Posts: 57
Joined: Fri Nov 13, 2020 7:54 am

Re: Articulation Maps for Sampled Instruments

Post by Slow Hand » Sat Aug 16, 2025 8:07 pm

Hey all,

Following up here to report that I've found an excellent M4L workaround built by Swub.

KeySwitch & Expression Map for Ableton Live: https://www.swub.de/en/software/keyswit ... eton-live/

This $30 M4L device provides an excellent implementation of key switching and expression maps within Live. It's outrageous how well thought through this thing is. Swub really did his homework here and I couldn't be happier with how well everything works. It's easy to program, to recall, and to share.

Also, don't sleep on the complimentary KSEM Router device that allows you to route MIDI CC messages and key switch buttons into the device, making it friction-less and easy to scale up your MIDI CC controls across every instance of the device.

KSEM Router: https://www.swub.de/en/software/support ... em-router/

It's such a relief to see expression maps finally made a reality in Live. If you're a member of the Ableton dev team, this device has a great implementation, and has all of the features that we'd love to see in a native version of expression mapping, should you ever choose to incorporate it into Ableton. Something I'd still dearly love to see someday.

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