Skip to content
/ SYNDRAVA Public

⬡ SYNDRAVA ⬡ - Chaotic AI Drum Brain | Max for Live hybrid sampler/sequencer with touch surface, feedback chaos, and spectral AI processing

License

MIT license
0 stars 0 forks Branches Tags Activity
Star
Notifications You must be signed in to change notification settings

bomac1193/SYNDRAVA

BranchesTags

Repository files navigation

⬡ S Y N D R A V A ⬡

Chaotic AI Drum Brain • Touch • Feedback • Spectral Morphing

A Max for Live hybrid drum machine/sampler/AI-inspired sound engine combining:

  • SOMA Enner (touch plates, chaos, feedback routing)
  • Elektron Monomachine (trigs, parameter locks, FX lane)
  • Elektron Digitakt II (sample workflow)
  • SOMA Pulsar-23 (burst generators, pulses)
  • AI/Spectral Processing (RAVE-inspired granular/spectral morphing)

🔥 SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

4 TRACKS (Expandable to 8)

Each track features:

  • Dual voice architecture: Sample playback (groove~) + Synthetic voice (FM/noise/cycle~)
  • Independent envelope (ADSR~)
  • SVF filter (lowpass with cutoff/resonance)
  • Parameter lockable controls: Pitch, Level, Decay, Filter, FX Sends
  • Buffer~ sample loading (10 seconds per track)

16-STEP SEQUENCER with Parameter Locks

  • Step matrix (4 tracks × 16 steps)
  • Parameter lock dictionary per step
  • Trig types: Normal, Ghost, Trigless Lock, Retrig
  • Conditional trigs: Probability, Fill, 1:2, 1:4, 2:4
  • Microtiming nudge
  • Velocity per step

ENNER TOUCH SURFACE

8 interactive touch plates (live.slider objects):

  • P1-P8: Modulation sources for chaos/routing/parameters
  • Touch/drag to generate control signals
  • Can modulate:
    • Track parameters
    • Feedback depth
    • Chaos amount
    • Spectral processing
    • FX routing

FEEDBACK BUS (Chaos Network)

Enner-inspired feedback loop with:

  • Dual delay lines (2000ms/2300ms L/R)
  • Ring modulation (cycle~ @ 37Hz)
  • Chaos injection (noise~ modulated by touch plates)
  • SVF lowpass filter (800Hz, Q=0.9)
  • Tanh~ saturation (analog-style drive)
  • Feedback amount dial (0-0.95)
  • Chaos amount dial (0-1.0)

ENCODER BUS (AI-Inspired Spectral Processing)

Simulated RAVE-style processing:

  • pfft~ spectral blur (2048 FFT size, 4× overlap)
  • Granular delay (441/661 samples L/R for grain motion)
  • Encoder Depth control (dry/wet mix)
  • Spectral Morph (formant warping simulation)
  • Can process all tracks or per-track sends

FX LANE (Monomachine-style)

Per-step automation lane:

  • FX A Send (delay/reverb)
  • FX B Send (spectral/granular)
  • Feedback Send (chaos injection)
  • Chaos Burst (trigger instability)
  • Stored in dict fx_lane_data

STATE STORAGE

  • pattrstorage object (syndrava)
  • Saves with Ableton set:
    • Sequencer patterns
    • Parameter locks
    • Touch plate states
    • Sample references
    • Routing states

📦 INSTALLATION

1. Copy the .amxd file

cp SYNDRAVA.amxd ~/Music/Ableton/User\ Library/Presets/Instruments/Max\ Instrument/

Or place in any Ableton User Library location.

2. Load in Ableton Live

  1. Open Ableton Live 11+ (Suite or Standard with Max for Live)
  2. Navigate to Browser → Max for Live → Max Instrument
  3. Drag SYNDRAVA.amxd onto a MIDI track
  4. Wait for Max to initialize (check bottom left corner)

3. Verify DSP is running

  • Click the Max window icon in SYNDRAVA
  • Audio should be ON (green audio status)

🎹 HOW TO USE

BASIC WORKFLOW

1. LOAD SAMPLES

  • Drag audio files onto the device
  • Samples load into buffer~ track1buf, track2buf, etc.
  • Each buffer holds up to 10 seconds (44.1kHz)

2. PROGRAM SEQUENCER

  • Click cells in the 16-step matrix
  • Row = Track (1-4)
  • Column = Step (1-16)
  • Lit cells = active triggers

3. ADJUST TOUCH PLATES

  • P1-P8 sliders on the right side
  • Drag to modulate:
    • Feedback depth
    • Chaos amount
    • Filter cutoff
    • Spectral morph

4. CONTROL FEEDBACK

  • Feedback dial: Amount of signal fed back (0-95%)
  • Chaos dial: Random modulation depth (0-100%)
  • Touch plates interact with feedback network

5. SHAPE WITH ENCODER BUS

  • AI Depth dial: Dry/wet spectral processing
  • Morph dial: Spectral character/formant shift
  • Creates RAVE-like textural transformations

6. AUTOMATE FX LANE

  • FX lane stores per-step routing changes
  • Modulate sends to feedback/encoder busses
  • Trigger chaos bursts on specific steps

🧬 ADVANCED FEATURES

PARAMETER LOCKS

Each step can lock parameters:

  1. Select a step in the sequencer
  2. Adjust track parameters (pitch, level, decay, filter)
  3. Values stored in dict pattern_locks
  4. Per-step override of global parameters

TRIG TYPES

Normal: Standard trigger Ghost: Quiet trigger (50% velocity) Trigless Lock: Parameter change without trigger Retrig: Rapid repeating trigger (rate/count lockable)

CONDITIONAL TRIGS

Probability: 0-100% chance per step Fill: Only fires when Fill button is active 1:2: Every 2nd cycle 1:4: Every 4th cycle 2:4: 2 out of 4 cycles

CHAOS NETWORK ROUTING

Touch plates → Feedback Bus → Chaos Injection → Ring Mod → Filter → Saturation → Output

The feedback can:

  • Self-oscillate (careful with feedback dial!)
  • Generate rhythmic artifacts
  • Create harmonic distortion
  • Produce semi-random modulation

SPECTRAL MORPHING

Encoder Bus signal flow:

  1. Input → pfft~ spectral blur (frequency smearing)
  2. Granular delay (time-domain microshifts)
  3. Morph control (spectral tilt/formant shift)
  4. Encoder Depth (dry/wet crossfade)

Simulates AI latent space interpolation through spectral manipulation.

🗄️ SUB-PATCHER STRUCTURE

p main_engine

Top-level signal flow and UI presentation

p sequencer

  • Step matrix (matrixctrl 4×16)
  • Parameter lock dictionary
  • Trig condition logic

p track1 / track2 / track3 / track4

Individual track voice engines:

  • buffer~ sample storage
  • groove~ sample playback
  • cycle~ synthetic oscillator
  • adsr~ envelope
  • svf~ filter
  • *~ VCA/mixer

Inlets:

  1. Trigger (bang)
  2. Pitch (0-127 MIDI / float multiplier)
  3. Level (0-1)
  4. Decay (ms)
  5. Sample (buffer name)

Outlets:

  1. Audio L
  2. Audio R

p enner_surface

8 live.slider touch plates (P1-P8)

Outlets: 8 float streams (0-1)

p feedback_bus

Chaos feedback network

Inlets:

  1. Audio L
  2. Audio R

Outlets:

  1. Processed L
  2. Processed R

Controls:

  • Feedback amount (0-0.95)
  • Chaos amount (0-1.0)

p encoder_bus

AI-inspired spectral processor

Inlets:

  1. Audio L
  2. Audio R

Outlets:

  1. Spectral L
  2. Spectral R

Controls:

  • Encoder Depth (dry/wet)
  • Spectral Morph (formant shift)

p fx_lane

Per-step routing automation

Inlet: Step number (0-15)

Outlets:

  1. FX A Send (0-1)
  2. FX B Send (0-1)
  3. Feedback Send (0-1)
  4. Chaos Burst (0-1)

p mixer

Final stereo bus mixer (8 inputs → 2 outputs)

🎛️ CONTROL SURFACE LAYOUT

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    ⬡ S Y N D R A V A ⬡                          │
│      Chaotic AI Drum Brain • Touch • Feedback • Spectral       │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                                 │
│  SEQUENCER (16 steps × 4 tracks)                               │
│  ┌──┬──┬──┬──┬──┬──┬──┬──┬──┬──┬──┬──┬──┬──┬──┬──┐           │
│  │01│02│03│04│05│06│07│08│09│10│11│12│13│14│15│16│  Track 1  │
│  ├──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┤           │
│  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  Track 2  │
│  ├──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┤           │
│  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  Track 3  │
│  ├──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┤           │
│  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  Track 4  │
│  └──┴──┴──┴──┴──┴──┴──┴──┴──┴──┴──┴──┴──┴──┴──┴──┘           │
│                                                                 │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  ENNER SURFACE                    CHAOS & AI CONTROLS          │
│  ┌──┬──┬──┬──┬──┬──┬──┬──┐       ┌────────┬────────┬────────┐│
│  │P1│P2│P3│P4│P5│P6│P7│P8│       │Feedback│ Chaos  │AI Depth││
│  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │       │  Amt   │  Amt   │ / Morph││
│  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │  │       └────────┴────────┴────────┘│
│  └──┴──┴──┴──┴──┴──┴──┴──┘                                    │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

🔧 TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Sample Rate: 44.1kHz / 48kHz (follows Ableton project) Bit Depth: 32-bit float (Max/MSP internal) FFT Size: 2048 (encoder bus) FFT Overlap: 4× Buffer Size: 10 seconds @ 44.1kHz per track Polyphony: 4 voices (1 per track) Latency: 5ms (pfft processing + buffer latency) CPU Usage: Moderate (depends on spectral processing depth)

🎨 DESIGN PHILOSOPHY

SYNDRAVA is not a traditional drum machine. It is a ritualistic sound instrument where:

  1. Chaos is intentional — Feedback and touch plates introduce controlled randomness
  2. Routing is performance — FX lane changes the signal path per step
  3. AI is simulated — Spectral processing mimics neural encoding without ML inference
  4. Touch is expressive — Enner-style plates make static sequences dynamic
  5. Sequencer is alive — Parameter locks and conditionals create evolving patterns

🚀 WORKFLOW TIPS

Creating Evolving Patterns

  1. Program basic 16-step pattern
  2. Add parameter locks to steps 4, 8, 12 (pitch/filter changes)
  3. Set FX lane to boost encoder depth on steps 5, 13
  4. Modulate feedback with touch plates in real-time
  5. Add chaos bursts on steps 7, 15 for rhythmic artifacts

Building Chaotic Textures

  1. Load noisy/percussive samples
  2. Set high feedback (0.7-0.9)
  3. Increase chaos amount (0.5+)
  4. Modulate touch plates rapidly
  5. Use encoder bus morph to smear frequencies

Pulsar-23 Style Bursts

  1. Use retrig trig type on steps
  2. Set high retrig rate (8-16 repeats)
  3. Short decay envelopes (<50ms)
  4. Modulate pitch per retrig with parameter locks
  5. Add chaos burst in FX lane

Sample-Based Workflows

  1. Drag drum hits onto tracks
  2. Use groove~ start/length for slicing
  3. Pitch parameter locks for melodic sequences
  4. Encoder bus for spectral mangling
  5. Feedback bus for rhythmic echoes

📝 KNOWN LIMITATIONS (MVP VERSION)

This is a Minimum Viable Product demonstrating core concepts. Future enhancements:

  • Full 8-track expansion
  • Visual step editor with parameter lock UI
  • More trig conditions (euclidean, ratcheting)
  • Per-track FX sends (currently global)
  • MIDI CC mapping for hardware controllers
  • Preset management system
  • Advanced spectral effects (freeze, bin scramble)
  • Polybuffer~ for multi-sample layers
  • Sample slice auto-detection
  • Live recording into buffers

🛠️ CUSTOMIZATION

Modifying the Spectral Processor

  1. Open SYNDRAVA.amxd in Max for Live
  2. Navigate to p encoder_bus
  3. Replace p_spectral_blur pfft~ patch with custom FFT processing
  4. Example processors:
    • fft~ + cartopol~ + frequency bin scrambling
    • spectdelay~ for spectral freezing
    • frameaccum~ for smearing

Changing Synth Voices

  1. Open p track1 (or any track)
  2. Replace cycle~ with:
    • saw~ (aliased saw)
    • rect~ (pulse/PWM)
    • pink~ (noise generator)
    • rand~ (sample & hold chaos)
    • Custom poly~ voice

Adding Effects

  1. Insert between p mixer and p feedback_bus
  2. Recommended Max effects:
    • tapin~/tapout~ (delay)
    • comb~ (resonator)
    • freqshift~ (frequency shifter)
    • teeth~ (bit crusher)

💾 SAVING & RECALL

Saving Presets

  1. Click floppy disk icon (pattrstorage UI)
  2. Type preset name
  3. Stores:
    • Sequencer pattern
    • Parameter locks
    • Touch plate states
    • Routing settings

Recalling Presets

  1. Click preset number in pattrstorage
  2. All parameters restore instantly

Copying Patterns

  • Use dict pattern_locks object
  • Export to JSON via dict inspector
  • Import to other SYNDRAVA instances

🎯 EXAMPLE PATCHES

Example 1: Acid Techno

Steps: 1,5,9,13 (kick)
       3,7,11,15 (snare)
       Every step (hihat with 50% probability)

P-Locks: Step 5 (pitch +7 semitones)
         Step 13 (pitch +12 semitones)

FX Lane: Step 8 (feedback burst)
         Step 16 (encoder depth 100%)

Example 2: Ambient Chaos

Steps: 1 (long sample, decay 2000ms)
       9 (retrig ×8)

P-Locks: Step 1 (filter 200Hz)
         Step 9 (filter 5000Hz, pitch -12)

Touch: P1→Feedback, P3→Chaos, P5→Morph
FX Lane: All steps (encoder 80%, feedback 60%)

Example 3: Glitch IDM

Steps: Random pattern with 70% probability per step

P-Locks: Every step (random pitch -24 to +24 semitones)
         Alternating filter cutoff (100Hz / 8000Hz)

Touch: Rapid P2/P4/P6 modulation
FX Lane: Chaos bursts every 4 steps

🔗 RESOURCES

Max for Live Documentation: https://docs.cycling74.com/max8/vignettes/m4l_intro Buffer~ Reference: https://docs.cycling74.com/max8/refpages/buffer~ pfft~ Spectral Processing: https://docs.cycling74.com/max8/vignettes/fftspectral pattrstorage Presets: https://docs.cycling74.com/max8/vignettes/presets

🙏 CREDITS

Concept: Hybrid of SOMA Enner, Elektron Monomachine, Digitakt II, Pulsar-23 Architecture: Semi-modular chaotic drum brain with AI-inspired processing Built with: Max/MSP 9, Max for Live Designed for: Ableton Live 11+ Suite

📜 LICENSE

This Max for Live device is provided as-is for educational and creative use.

Feel free to:

  • Modify and extend
  • Use in commercial productions
  • Share with others (with attribution)

Do not:

  • Resell as a standalone product
  • Claim original authorship

⚡ QUICK START CHECKLIST

  • Install SYNDRAVA.amxd in Ableton User Library
  • Load on MIDI track in Ableton Live
  • Verify Max DSP is running (bottom left)
  • Load 4 drum samples (kick, snare, hihat, perc)
  • Click steps in sequencer matrix
  • Press Play in Ableton
  • Adjust Feedback/Chaos dials
  • Modulate with touch plates (P1-P8)
  • Enable Encoder Depth for spectral morphing
  • Save your first preset!

⬡ Welcome to SYNDRAVA — where chaos meets rhythm ⬡

About

⬡ SYNDRAVA ⬡ - Chaotic AI Drum Brain | Max for Live hybrid sampler/sequencer with touch surface, feedback chaos, and spectral AI processing

Topics

ai chaos sampler music-production ableton-live drum-machine granular-synthesis max-msp max-for-live spectral-processing

Resources

Readme

License

MIT license
Activity

Stars

0 stars

Watchers

0 watching

Forks

0 forks
Report repository

Releases

No releases published

Packages

No packages published

Contributors 2

  •  
  •  

Languages