- If you haven't yet seen this unhinged promo video for Dope Matrix, the latest Ableton Live pack from SonicFaction, you owe yourself a viewing. It features a live PA by a bloke in a fox mask and heavily tongue-in-cheek narration, all in the name of presenting a live pack centered on modular synth samples. Needless to say, the promo succeeded in piquing my interest in this fairly unique offering in the world of Live packs.
Dope Matrix gets part of its name from Doepfer, the Eurorack manufacturer who created the ubiquitous A-110 oscillator module. This well-known VCO is one of the four that SonicFaction sampled to provide the basis of Dope Matrix's sound; the others are VCOs from Plan B and Cwejman, as well as the Piston Honda wavetable oscillator. These modules were all thoroughly multi-sampled and nested within an instrument rack in Ableton, with macro controls for volume and tuning of each sampled module. The resulting instrument amounts to a stackable selection of voices, each with its own individual character taken from its hardware of origin. Additional controls for each of the four voices are placed one level down in the rack, where the respective oscillator chains have macros for waveform, envelope, LFO and FM.
To add some variety to the somewhat antiseptic sound of a sampled dry oscillator, Dope Matrix comes with 12 newly designed effects racks. These include the usual fare like a panner, delay, filter and frequency shifter, but there are also some multidimensional offerings. Effects like Reso Pad and Saturn Redux do a great job of enhancing Ableton's standard effects with some smart programming behind the scenes of otherwise unassuming racks. The effect racks are one of the highlights of this live pack—and since they're self-contained, their usefulness isn't limited to the included instrument presets.
This is what SonicFaction had in mind when they described this live pack as a "virtual modular system for Ableton." It's not necessarily some revolutionary design enabling new levels of inter-track routing within Live; rather, the modular nature of the pack's elements yields easy and quick experimentation. The included presets are proof of this, as the great majority seem to be untamed exercises in sound manipulation. It's easy to see the relationship between SonicFaction's promo video and the sounds they designed for Dope Matrix's presets. If you're looking for utilitarian east-coast modular philosophy here, you may be left wanting. However, with the building blocks provided it's not hard to create a whole new set of sounds to suit your needs.
As nice as the effects are, the wow factor comes from the hands-on control it provides via a custom-built Max For Live step sequencer. It was developed for easy integration with three MIDI controllers: Ableton Push, Akai APC40 and Novation Launchpad. Each of these controllers offers a shade of the same workflow, based around a grid-based melodic note sequencer that can include up to 64 steps. Programming the sequence is done simply by pressing the pads on the controller, with the sequence moving left to right and notes bottom to top. Curiously, note velocity control is limited to accents, which are entered by double-tapping on an existing note. The sequence can be adjusted to any number of steps, which allows for some interesting off-meter timing. Sequence length is set by entering a number in the Max effect UI, and I found myself wishing for a way to do it from the controller.
The Dope Matrix sequencer isn't just monophonic, as you'll discover by moving onto the chord generator page. This allows you to add harmonies to the main sequence based on the current scale at intervals above the sequenced note or one octave below. The scale is set on yet another page, which allows you to choose from 32 possible scale types and also lets you set the key of the scale in realtime. The last two pages pertaining to the melodic sequence are for note length and octave, and they do pretty much what you would expect.
Once you've got a sequence running, the matrix page gives you a measure of control over the instrument itself, the depth of which varies among the three supported controllers. What they all have in common is the ability to mute/solo the four instrument voices as well as their respective effect modules (an activity that's essential for reigning in many of the presets). You can also select any voice and effect module within the Dope Matrix rack using the matrix page and gain hands-on control of its macros if using the APC-40 or Push.
Another page within the Max sequencer controls a set of four sequences dedicated to parameter modulation. These sequences aren't linked to any parameter by default, so you must first "teach" the Max effect using the Learn button. These modulation sequences all follow the same length as the melody sequence, which seems like an unfortunate limitation. Additionally, they are all linked to a global slider that controls the range of the modulation for all four sequences at once. It would be nice to have independent modulation range and step length for these sequences.
Once you've worked your way through all of these pages, you can save your work easily with the preset page. This makes it possible not only to jump between different saved sequences on the fly, but it also does the behind-the-scenes work necessary to store those sequences with your Live session. All of this hands-on control transforms Dope Matrix from just another software instrument into something much more like a hardware instrument that you can actually play.
Ratings:
Cost: 4/5
Versatility: 5/5
Sound: 4/5
Ease of use: 4/5