An empty arrangement might be the most intimidating moment in production: not what to use or how to mix, but how to start. For me, the fastest way past it is randomly loaded sounds from my own library. Unexpected sounds give me ideas I wouldn’t have found on purpose. That’s why I built Protoform.

Protoform is a machine for building ideas quickly. Give it a MIDI clip and a few folders of sounds, and you have a sonic sketch in minutes. Then one click prints that sketch into your arrangement: every slot on its own audio track, one clip per note.

Random draw, not browsing

No browsing: Protoform draws the sounds for you.

Point it at pools — named sets of folders anywhere in your library — and it fills a 16-slot kit by drawing at random across them. Lock the slots that work, shuffle the rest, repeat until the kit is right. A slot can draw from a different pool than the others, so one kit can hold a bed of atmospheres alongside a handful of drums.

Drag a specific sample onto a pad when you know exactly what you want there. It locks automatically, so the next shuffle leaves it alone.

Two ways to play

Retrigger restarts a sample from the top on every note. Continuous gives each slot its own read head that runs independently of your notes — a note opens a window onto wherever that head currently is. Because every slot scans its own sample at its own rate, gating them at different moments layers material in ways Retrigger mode doesn’t.

One click to an arrangement

EXTRACT takes the MIDI clip you’re working on, plays it through the current kit, and renders it out: one audio track per slot, one clip per note, silence stripped, placed at the right positions in your arrangement. Per-slot volume, pitch, pan, envelope, tempo-synced stretching and any automation you drew on the kit controls are all baked in, captured as they move rather than sampled once at each note.

Lock what works, and EXTRACT keeps it.

The rest of it

• Tempo sync — Loops with a BPM in the filename follow your set tempo, pitch preserved.
• Pitch lock — conform samples to each slot’s note by nearest pitch class, or restrict shuffling to samples whose filename note matches the slot.
• Per-slot mixing — volume, pitch, pan, solo, mute and an amplitude envelope on every slot, with a kit-wide master and transpose.
• Automation and MIDI mapping — playback mode, master volume, transpose and the global envelope are real Live parameters. Draw them into an automation lane, map them to a controller, reach them from Push. Per-slot volume, pitch and pan remain drawn controls.
• Loop filter — scope shuffling to loops only, or exclude them entirely.
• Kits save with your set — including as a Live Clip dragged to your browser, so a sketch comes back intact months later.

Full walkthrough

Watch the full Protoform for Live walkthrough — from setting up pools and building kits to printing a performance into the arrangement.

Ways to use it

• Finding an idea fast — sketch a rough MIDI clip, shuffle sounds into it until something works, and carry it straight into an arrangement. Watch →
• Generating and curating drum kits — shuffle, lock what works, keep re-rolling the rest.
• Remixing loops you already own — loops-only shuffling with continuous gating to get new patterns from old material. Watch →
• Atmospheric beds and transitions — long overlapping notes across atmosphere and FX pools, shuffled into pads, risers and impacts. Watch →
• Aleatoric performance — continuous slots as independent loopers, each cycling at its own length, woven live.
• Hybrid patterns — retrigger slots holding a repeatable groove while continuous slots move underneath. Watch →
• Tonal sketching — pitch lock conforms samples to each slot’s note using the note in their filenames (no key detection), so sounds from unrelated sources can share a pitch.
• A sound menu — a random spread of sounds across the keys, played through to hear what you have and pick the ones worth keeping.
• Turning a library into an instrument — point a pool at a whole sample folder and play a cross-section of it.
• Scoring to picture — collapse a cue’s MIDI events into one clip with Prismat, then shuffle sound effects against the video until the hits land. Watch →
• Printing the accident — extract a shuffled performance to stems and carry on arranging. Watch →

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Sounds

Protoform ships with no samples. It plays your own library — point it at folders you already own and it draws from those. If you want a library built for it, most of what you hear in the videos comes from Sample Spektrum.

Requirements

Ableton Live 12.4.5+ with Max for Live. The device is frozen with the Max that ships in 12.4.5; earlier Live 12 releases carry an older Max and may refuse to open it.

Extraction writes audio into your Live project folder and needs the set saved first.

In the Vault

Protoform is included in Spektralisk Vault, free while subscribed and updated as it grows — alongside the sounds, Blueprints and instruments that land there month to month.

Current version: 1.1.2. It’s still being built, and updates are included.

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New to my sounds? Specimen is a free, growing sample pack: 82 samples from 9 packs.