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Magenta Studio: free AI for Ableton Live

This excellent set of tools for experimentation and generative music came out the other day. It’s completely free to download, and is now in beta, so it’s more than good enough to start playing with.

It comes both as standalone and as a Max for Live device.

It’s really easy to use, and great for generating quick ideas effortlessly, or creating whole tracks with nothing but a handful of simple controls. Goes very well with devices like Coldcut’s Midivolve, that can take the generated results and expand on them further. And it’s really handy for filling in simple drum parts while you concentrate on a melody.

What I like is that it generates usable MIDI clips, rather than hitting the CPU with endless live variations, like a lot of generative devices do.

But can it replace mechanical automata?