Device Details
Overview
| Name | Version: | HARMONIA 1.0 |
| Author: | adriank1410 |
| Device Type: | MIDI Effect |
| Description: | HARMONIA — Smart Voicing & Harmonic Sculptor for Ableton Live 12 A scale-aware chord generator and voice-leading engine that turns single notes into rich, voice-led chords following Live 12's global Scale. Pick a voicing, play any monophonic line, and HARMONIA builds chord shapes that stay in key and lead smoothly between changes. Built for producers and players who want harmony that thinks with them, not patterns they have to program. Drop HARMONIA on a MIDI track, place any instrument after it (Wavetable, Operator, Drum Rack, Simpler, VST), and play. Chords generate immediately — every note you play becomes a chord that follows Live's transport-bar key. ═══════════════════════════════════════════════ WHAT MAKES HARMONIA DIFFERENT ═══════════════════════════════════════════════ • EIGHT VOICINGS — Triad, 7th, 9th, 11th, Quartal (stacked 4ths), Cluster, Drop-2 (jazz-piano spread), Wide. One click swaps the entire chord vocabulary; everything else stays expressive. • FOLLOWS LIVE 12 GLOBAL SCALE — Auto-syncs root and scale with Live's transport bar via the LiveAPI. Change the project key from C Major to E Phrygian Dominant in Live's UI, HARMONIA follows instantly. All 35 of Live 12's built-in scales are supported automatically: Major, Minor, Dorian, Mixolydian, Lydian, Phrygian, Locrian, Whole Tone, Half-whole Dim., Whole-half Dim., Minor Blues, Minor Pentatonic, Major Pentatonic, Harmonic Minor, Harmonic Major, Dorian #4, Phrygian Dominant, Melodic Minor, Lydian Augmented, Lydian Dominant, Super Locrian, 8-Tone Spanish, Bhairav, Hungarian Minor, Hirajoshi, In-Sen, Iwato, Kumoi, Pelog Selisir, Pelog Tembung, Messiaen 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. • VOICE LEADING — Optionally minimises octave displacement between consecutive chords for smoother, more pianistic transitions. Turn it on for legato pads and cinematic progressions, off for staccato attacks where each chord lands clean. • SIX SHAPING DIALS — Tension (push voicings into denser extensions and altered tones), Spread (expand chord voicings vertically), Octave Mix (add an octave doubling above or below input), Strum (per-voice onset stagger 0–200 ms for plucked / harp / guitar feel), Humanize (random velocity per voice), Vel Curve (velocity bias from bottom to top voice). • TWO-OCTAVE PIANO-ROLL VISUALISER — In-scale tones in purple, root highlighted brighter, input note in yellow, generated voices glowing cyan. The viz is ref-counted so polyphonic input and overlapping chord voices all show correctly — release one chord and any pitches still held by another stay lit. • PANIC-SAFE STRUM — Per-note state tracking inside the strum scheduler means an early key release silences pending delayed voices before they can become stuck notes. Safe under fast playing, mid-strum scale changes, and bypass toggles. • 10 PARAMETERS — All automatable, mappable, and annotated for Live's Info View hover-help panel. Hover any control to see what it does. ═══════════════════════════════════════════════ PARAMETERS ═══════════════════════════════════════════════ Voicing — Chord shape: Triad, 7th, 9th, 11th, Quartal, Cluster, Drop-2, Wide Voices — Number of voices generated per input note (1–7) Tension — Push voicings into denser extensions and altered tones (0–1) Spread — Expand chord voicings vertically into wider intervals (0–1) Octave Mix — Add an octave doubling. Negative below the input, positive above (−1…+1) Strum — Stagger voice onsets bottom→top for a strummed chord (0–200 ms) Humanize — Random velocity variation per voice (0–1) Vel Curve — Velocity bias across voices. −1 louder bottom, +1 louder top (−1…+1) Voice Lead — Minimise octave jumps between consecutive chords (off / on) Bypass — Pass MIDI through unchanged with no voicing (off / on) ═══════════════════════════════════════════════ TIPS ═══════════════════════════════════════════════ • Start with Triad + Voice Lead ON + low Spread for clean diatonic chord beds under a melody line. • Push Tension above 0.5 for added 9ths and altered upper tones — instant Bill-Evans colour without leaving the scale. • Strum 50–100 ms with 4-5 voices = harp / nylon-guitar feel. Crank to 150–200 ms for slow rolling arps. • Drop-2 + 4 voices is the jazz-piano voicing — try it on a Wurli or Rhodes patch. • Quartal + Wide on modal lines (Dorian, Lydian) gives stacked-4ths colour à la McCoy Tyner / Herbie Hancock. • Combine with an arpeggiator BEFORE HARMONIA — the arp drives Harmonia's input, every arpeggiated note becomes a chord. Layered counterpoint without programming. • Map Bypass to a MIDI controller pad for live A/B between dry mono line and full chord stack. • Octave Mix +0.5 with Wide voicing on a pad / strings preset = cinematic, hall-filling voicings. ═══════════════════════════════════════════════ COMPATIBILITY ═══════════════════════════════════════════════ • Ableton Live 12 — required for full scale-aware chord generation. Live 11 doesn't expose scale_name / scale_intervals on the song object; on Live 11 the engine falls back to C Major. • Max for Live 8.6+ — the engine uses the [v8] JavaScript object, introduced in Max 8.6. • Built and tested on macOS. Windows untested but should work. ═══════════════════════════════════════════════ SOURCE & UPDATES ═══════════════════════════════════════════════ Open source, MIT license. The full source — patcher, JavaScript engine, jsui visualiser, and the Python build script that produces the frozen .amxd binary — is on GitHub: https://github.com/adriank1410/harmonia-m4l You can edit, modify, redistribute, and use HARMONIA in commercial productions. Please retain the copyright notice in derivative works. ═══════════════════════════════════════════════ ABOUT THE AUTHOR ═══════════════════════════════════════════════ Adrian Kwiatkowski — electronic music producer. https://adriankwiatkowski.eu Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0bnPfchFpM2qLv1xrCK727 Bandcamp: https://adriankwiatkowski.bandcamp.com SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/adriank1410 Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/artist/adrian-kwiatkowski/1039714796 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AdrianKwiatkowski Built with Max 8.6 / Live 12.3, using the Live Object Model for transport-bar scale follow and MIDI routing through midiformat → midiout (proper M4L convention for in-chain MIDI delivery). The single Harmonia.amxd file is a frozen Max for Live device — harmonia.js (engine) and harmonia_viz.js (visualiser) are embedded inside the .amxd binary, so users only need one file in their User Library. |
Details
| Live Version Used: | 12.3.5 |
| Max Version Used: | 8.6.2 |
| Date Added: | May 09 2026 14:38:42 |
| Date Last Updated: | No Updates |
| Downloads: | 34 |
| Website: | https://github.com/adriank1410/harmonia-m4l |
| ⓘ License: | Attribution |
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Files
| Device File: | Harmonia.amxd |
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