CE DRUMSEQ
A step sequencer for Ableton Live and Push 3. One channel per Drum Rack pad, sixteen
steps each, six modulation lanes per channel, and everything reachable from the pads without a
computer.
Getting started · 01
Download and install
What is in the download, where to put it, and where to find it in Live.
The download unzips to one folder, CE DRUMSEQ:
CE DRUMSEQ.amxd | The sequencer. Everything it needs is inside this one file. |
CE DRUMSEQ - Groove Importer.amxd | A companion device that adds your own .agr grooves to CE DRUMSEQ. See Grooves and swing. |
seqimporter.js, groove_importer_node.js, agr_decode.js | Parts the Groove Importer loads while it runs. |
Manual.html | This manual. Open it in any web browser. |
README.txt | The build date and where to send feedback. |
- Move the whole CE DRUMSEQ folder into your Live User Library. By default that is
Music/Ableton/User Library on a Mac and Documents\Ableton\User Library on Windows.
- In Live's browser, open Places → User Library → CE DRUMSEQ. That is where the devices live from
now on: drag a device from there onto a track.
Keep the folder together. Move the whole folder, not just the .amxd files. The
Groove Importer needs its three .js files beside it.
Not sure where your User Library is? Live shows its location under
Settings → Library.
Getting started · 02
Setup
Three steps to a running sequencer.
CE DRUMSEQ is a MIDI effect. It sits in front of a Drum Rack and plays it.
- Make a MIDI track and put a Drum Rack on it.
- Drag
CE DRUMSEQ.amxd onto the same track, to the left of the Drum Rack.
- Press play, then click some cells in the grid.
That is the whole install. The device reads your rack on its own and builds one
channel per loaded pad, named after the pad.
Order matters. The sequencer has to come before the Drum Rack in the chain.
Behind it, it has nothing to play.
On Push 3 standalone? The device has to be transferred from your computer first. See
Push 3: installing.
Getting started · 03
How it works
Rows are notes, channels come from your rack, and what each part does.
Every row in the grid is a MIDI note. The sequencer plays your Drum Rack chromatically across the
rack's full C-2 to G8 range, so a kit with pads scattered up at C5 gets channels for those too. You are not
limited to the classic 16 pads from C1.
Loaded pads become channels. Empty pads are hidden everywhere. Load a sample onto an empty pad and its
channel appears at once, carrying whatever you had already programmed there.
| Steps | When a drum hits. |
| Velocity | How hard it hits. |
| Gate | How long the note lasts. |
| Mod 1 to 6 | Six mod lanes per channel that can
drive any control in Live. See Parameter mapping. |
| Chance | Probability that a step plays on any given pass. |
| Condition | Which passes a step plays on, such as the first of every four. |
Chance and Condition are what keep a one-bar loop from sounding like a one-bar loop.
Everything you program saves inside your Live Set. The device runs on Push 3 standalone with no computer
attached. See Push 3.
Sequencing · 04
The step grid
Clicking, dragging, and reading the grid.
The Sequencer tab shows all 16 channels at once. Use the ▲▼ arrows on the left edge to scroll. The
Advanced window's Sequencer tab shows 16 at once. On Push you see 4.
- Click an empty cell to add a step at velocity 100.
- Click a lit cell to remove it.
- Click and hold, then drag up or down to set the step's value. A white overlay prints the number
while you drag. Drag the Velocity lane to the very bottom and the step goes away.
Columns shade every 4 steps so you can find the downbeats.
Which value a channel's row shows and edits is set in the
Mod Matrix. Click a cell there and that row pages to that lane.
Alt/Opt is the menu. Alt/Opt-click opens the context menu everywhere in this device, which leaves Shift free for
selecting.
Sequencing · 05
Lanes
The eight values every step holds, plus Chance and Condition.
Every step on every channel holds a full set of values. The grid shows one of them at a time.
| Lane | What it does |
|---|
| Velocity | How hard the note hits, 0 to 127. Also decides whether the step exists at all. |
| Mod 1 to 6 | Six mappable modulation values per step. Each drives any Live parameter.
Mod steps are independent of drum steps, so a mod can change on a step where no note plays. |
| Gate | Note length per step, 10 to 500 ms, scaled by the global Gate multiplier. |
| Chance | Probability the step plays each pass. 127 always plays. |
| Condition | Play on the Ath of every B passes. 1:4 plays only on the first of
every four passes of that channel. Good for fills. |
A mod lane shows its own value where you set one, bright with a small breakpoint dot, and the
Mod Dial everywhere else. The lane reads as one continuous
automation line instead of scattered ticks. It can also run a curve. See
Mod Shapes.
These two hold no Mod Dial, so they get no cell in the Mod Matrix. They get buttons in the matrix's left
gutter instead, % and 1:1.
Sequencing · 06
Steps that might not play
Why some steps are dark, and when they light up.
Chance and Condition are the only two lanes that can stop a step happening. A step you cannot count on is
drawn in its own channel colour with the light taken out. Never a different colour. A conditioned kick
still reads as the kick.
Dark is only its resting state. The step comes up to full brightness for exactly the span in which it plays.
| Setting | What you see |
|---|
A Condition
1:4, 2:3, !4:4 |
The rule is known a pass ahead, so the step lights on the downbeat of the bar it plays in and stays lit
for that bar. You see the fill arrive before you hear it. |
| Chance below 127 |
Nothing is decided until the roll happens, so the step lights the moment it fires and stays lit to the
end of that pass. A pass it loses, it never lights at all. |
| Both on one step |
The Condition decides whether there is a roll at all, so a step that cannot fire this bar never lights. |
| Transport stopped |
Everything uncertain rests dark. That resting state is the readout. There is no second cue to track. |
This works the same way on the grid, in the Advanced window and on the Push pads.
Muted channels stay dark, because they are not firing. A long note takes the brightness of the hit that owns
it, so the whole block lights and rests together.
Sequencing · 07
Selecting several steps
Shift-click and shift-drag, then edit them all at once.
Shift is the select modifier throughout. It never edits anything on its own.
- Shift-click steps to add or drop them one at a time. Shift-drag to sweep a run.
- Shift-click a column header for that column across every loaded pad.
- Shift-click a channel name for every step on that channel.
- Click either again to drop it.
Then edit any one of the selected steps and they all follow. A click toggles them together. A value drag
moves each one relatively, so a ramp you built stays a ramp. Each step is written on its own row's
displayed lane, so you only change what you can see.
- A channel lock protects a row from a bulk edit, and its ring draws dimmed to show why. A lock has
never stopped you hand-editing one step directly.
- The header shows a count badge. Click it to clear. A plain click outside the selection clears it too.
- Bulk edits push the one-deep Undo.
Selections are never saved with the Set.
Sequencing · 08
Per-channel controls
Names, mute, solo, rotate, and per-channel length.
The name gutter. Each row shows its drum pad's name, plus:
- M mute.
- S solo. A plain click solos exclusively. Alt/Opt-click adds to the soloed group.
- ◀ ▶ rotate that channel's pattern left or right.
The right-hand column. Two mini rows per channel, Steps in cyan and Mods in amber. Each carries R to
randomise, X to clear, and a padlock. Locked channels are protected from the global Random and Clear
actions. See Randomising and locks.
Channel length. Each channel can have its own step count from 1 to 16, set from the Alt/Opt menu on its name. Channels of
different lengths drift against each other polymetrically.
Sequencing · 09
Randomising and locks
The R buttons only ever add, and locks stop them.
The R buttons only ever add. They never overwrite something you made by hand.
A mod lane is randomised only if it is mapped to a Live parameter and not locked. An unmapped
lane drives nothing, so filling it would write data you cannot hear. The button leaves it alone. If nothing happens, either every mapped lane is locked or nothing is mapped yet.
The Mods lock in the right-hand column locks all six lanes at once. To lock a single lane,
Alt/Opt-click its Mod Matrix cell and choose Lock from Random. The same item is on the Mapping page's
cell menu. The lock button then draws half-filled to show the channel is partly locked, and clicking it
from there completes the lock rather than clearing it.
Locks stop the randomisers only. Hand edits, the X buttons and pattern recall all still go through.
Each R button remembers the batch it placed and hands that batch back on the next press before rolling a
fresh one. R.Mod keeps giving you new mods instead of filling the row once and then doing nothing.
A hand edit takes that cell out of the button's batch, permanently, and only that cell. The rest of
the row stays re-rollable.
With a row on the Chance page, its R button rolls each hit's probability inside the Random-Mod range.
Same rules: add-only, re-rollable, and guarded by the Steps lock rather than the Mods lock, because
Chance rides with the steps.
The Condition lane has no randomiser. That one lives on Push, under Convert and the Condition
encoder.
Sequencing · 10
Order, colour and hiding
Rearrange the list, tint a channel, drop it from Push.
- Drag a channel's name up or down to reorder the list. Only the view moves. The notes and playback
do not change.
- Alt/Opt-click a name for its menu: Steps (that channel's length), Colour,
Hide on Push, Show All, Reset Order.
- Colour picks one of 16 swatches, or Auto for the default hue. The name header and that
channel's Push pads both take the colour.
- Hide on Push drops a channel from Push but keeps it on screen, dimmed with a strike-through. It
still plays. You cannot hide the last visible channel.
Order, colours and hidden state save with the Live Set.
Sequencing · 11
Density, Syncopation, Symmetry
Three dials that reshape the whole kit without touching your pattern.
Three dials on the Advanced window's bottom strip, also on the first three encoders of Push's Sequence
bank. They reshape the whole kit at once without editing your steps.
Density. How full the pattern is. Left thins it, right fills it in. It knows what each
channel is from the pad's name, or failing that its General MIDI note, so the kit fills from the top down:
hi-hats first, then percussion, then ghost snares, and only near the top of the travel does the kick pick up
an extra hit. Turning down unwinds the same order. Added hits are quiet ghost notes placed where that drum would
naturally go, and a sweep always adds and removes the same hits, so nothing jumps around under your hand.
Syncopation. How far off the beat it sits. The kick on beat 1 and the snare backbeat stay put.
Right pushes up to half of every other channel's hits a 16th early, then adds offbeat accents to the kick and snare.
Left straightens hits back onto the beat.
Symmetry. How alike the two halves of the bar are. Right copies the first half onto the second until
they match. Left pulls them apart.
Each dial is bipolar, and the centre is a true no-op. Double-click a dial to re-centre it. There is a
detent at zero so you can always find it.
Nothing is destroyed. The dials are a layer over your pattern, not an edit of it. Hidden
steps draw ghosted, added hits draw as outlines, and returning a dial to centre brings your beat back exactly.
A STEPS-locked channel ignores all three, the same way it ignores Random Steps.
Commit. Press Commit to write what you are hearing into the pattern and re-centre all three
dials, so you can carry on editing by hand. It is inert while the dials are centred. Playback, the Push pads and
Export Midi Clip all hear the dials.
Movement · 12
The Mod Matrix
The lane selector, the Mod Dials, and the three gutter buttons.
It sits beside the grid on the Sequencer tab. You get the 6 visible channels by all 8 lanes
(Velocity, Mod 1 to 6, Gate) as horizontal value bars. Each bar is that lane's
Mod Dial for that channel. Drag a cell to change it.
In the Advanced window the same thing sits beside the grid, all 16 channels at once.
Click a cell and that channel's grid row pages to that lane. A cyan ring marks the one it is on. The same
press starts the value drag, so picking a lane and setting its Mod Dial are one gesture.
The gutter buttons. The left gutter holds three buttons per row. The first two are readouts as well as page buttons.
| Button | What it does | Lights blue when |
|---|
| % | Pages that channel to the Chance lane. |
Any step on the channel is below 100%. |
| 1:1 | Pages to the Condition lane and prints the channel's own condition.
1:1 when there is none, 1:4 when there is, and 1:2* when the steps
disagree. It shows the first one it finds and adds an asterisk. |
The channel carries any condition at all. |
| ∿ | Opens the curve editor on whichever Mod lane that
row is paged to. Inert on a row showing Velocity, Gate, Chance or Condition. |
That lane already runs a curve. |
Blue and cyan mean different things. Blue says this channel has some. The cyan ring
says this is the page the channel is showing.
Press a lit page button again to go back to Velocity. Steps past a channel's own length are not counted, so
a condition parked outside the loop never lights the button.
While the transport runs the value bars animate with the live per-step value, including the movement inside
each step on a lane running a curve.
Mapped Mod cells show a corner dot. Yellow is Remote, cyan is Modulate.
The cell menu. Alt/Opt-click a Mod cell for Map parameter or Add Parameter Mapping, Set to Remote or
Modulate, Auto Map Filter Cutoff / Decay/Release / Pitch, Lock from Random for that one lane, and
Delete mappings.
Shift-click a cell, or a Mod column header, to add it to the Mapping selection. A cell whose mapping has
lost its parameter turns red. See When the Drum Rack changes.
Movement · 13
Parameter mapping
Send mod lanes to any control in Live, and what happens when the rack changes.
Each channel's Mod 1 to 6 lanes can drive any parameter in your Live Set: pad devices, Drum Rack
macros, mixer controls, anything.
- Open Advanced → Mapping, or Alt/Opt-click a Mod Matrix cell.
- Click Map, then click or move the target parameter in Live.
- The lane's step values now drive that parameter.
One lane can hold several targets: click Add Mapping again for each. Click × to delete one
destination, or Clear to empty the lane. Each mapping has a Min/Max range bar and a mode.
| Remote | The parameter is driven directly, sweeping between your Min and Max. |
| Modulate | Live-style modulation. Your range sets the depth around wherever the parameter's
own knob sits, so you can still turn the knob by hand. |
Auto-Map. The Auto-Map button on the Mapping page maps the whole rack in one pass. It opens a
dialog listing all six mod lanes, each with four settings.
| Column | What it chooses |
|---|
| Target | What the lane drives. The named roles come first (Filter Cutoff, Pitch,
Attack, Decay, Hold, Sustain, Release), then every parameter found on your
loaded pads, then Other. Leave a lane on the dash and it is not touched. |
| Type | Optional setup for the target: the filter type for Filter Cutoff, the effect for a
Drum Sampler's FX 1 and FX 2, or a musical scale for Pitch. |
| Mode | Remote or Modulate. |
| Min / Max | How far the lane sweeps, in the parameter's own units on Remote and as a
percentage on Modulate. Alt/Opt-click to type a value. Auto uses the target's default: two octaves for
Pitch, the full sweep for everything else. |
Nothing is applied until you press Confirm. If the pass would replace mappings you already have, the
device asks first.
The named roles find their control on each pad's Simpler, Sampler, Drum Sampler or Drum Cell, whatever that
device calls it, and set the pad up so the result is audible. A filter that is switched off is turned on, set to
low-pass and opened wide. A Simpler in One-Shot is switched to Classic so its envelope runs. Pitch arrives spanning
-12 to +12. On a Simpler or Sampler, Decay lands on the release, since that is the tail a drum hit plays.
Other covers everything else, such as a send or a macro. Choose it, then click any parameter in Live, and
every pad holding that same device gets its own copy of the mapping. Click the flashing panel to cancel.
The same roles are on the Alt/Opt-click menu of any Mod cell. Shift-click cells, or click a Mod column
header, and Min/Max, Mode, Delete and Auto Map apply to the whole selection.
A Macro wins. If a Live Macro already controls a parameter, your mod lane cannot move it.
Auto-Map maps the Macro instead when one is named for the role, and otherwise flags the row amber with a padlock
in the Mapping tab. Delete the Macro mapping in Live and the lane starts working, with no remapping needed.
Scale-locked pitch. A mapping onto a pitch parameter, such as Transpose, Coarse or Tune, gets a
scale chip. Pick a mode, from Major and Minor through the pentatonics to Blues and Whole Tone, and the output
only lands on that scale's notes, rooted at the sample's own pitch. It applies to everything that moves the lane:
step values, the Mod Dial, LFOs and the randomisers. Chromatic, the default, changes nothing.
Lock a lane from Random. Choose Lock from Random in the cell menu. See
Randomising and locks.
When the Drum Rack changes. Swap or delete the rack, or change a pad's device, and the mappings into it
turn red in the Mod Matrix and on the Mapping grid. Nothing is thrown away: each broken mapping keeps
the name of the parameter it pointed at. Opening Advanced → Mapping offers to reconnect them, and
Remap parameters does the same at any time, matching by name. Put the original rack back and they heal on
their own. Clear All Mappings removes every mapping in one pass, after a confirmation.
Mappings save with the Set and rebind automatically on load.
Movement · 14
Mod Shapes
Draw a curve across the whole bar, or glide between steps with Smooth.
A shape is a curve a Mod lane travels across all sixteen steps,
drawn the way a clip's automation is drawn. Smooth, at the end of this section, is the lighter
touch: it bends the join between one step value and the next.
The curve is the value. It replaces your step values rather than scaling them, exactly as a
16-step automation clip does. It applies on steps with no mod value too, where it replaces the
Mod Dial.
- The ∿ button, in the Mod Matrix gutter and in the Advanced window's Page column, opens the
editor on whichever Mod lane that row is paged to. It lights when the lane already runs a curve.
- Alt/Opt-click a step, a channel name, or a Mod cell, then Mod Shape. The flyout shows the eight
built-ins as pictures: None, Ramp Down, Ramp Up, Curve Down, Curve Up, Arch, Valley and Sine. From a channel
menu a built-in covers the whole lane, from a step menu just that step. Custom… opens the editor.
Shapes apply to Mod 1 to 6 only. Velocity and Gate drive the note itself rather than a Live
parameter.
The editor. A pop-out window that always spans the whole sixteen-step bar.
- Click the line to add a point, drag a point to move it, and drag the small dot between two
points to bend that segment.
- Double-click a point to delete it, or a midpoint dot to straighten that segment.
- The preset chips along the top drop a built-in straight in. /2 and x2 halve and double
the curve's speed.
- Steps past the channel's own length are dimmed but stay editable.
The ruler. The strip above the canvas carries the playhead and the time selection. Click it to move the
playhead, drag to select a range, double-click to select the whole bar. Copy, Paste and Dup
work on the selection. With nothing selected, Dup squeezes the whole bar into its first half and repeats it.
Undo and Redo are the two arrows at the bottom left. The editor keeps its own history.
Depth. Blends the curve against the step values. At 0% the shape has no effect, at 100% the
curve is the value. Below 100% a fainter cyan line shows what the lane will actually reach.
Apply writes the curve and closes the window. Cancel closes it without writing anything. While the
editor is open, clicking any Mod cell aims it at that lane instead, discarding anything unapplied.
A lane with no shape opens as a staircase of its current values, so applying it untouched changes nothing. Touch
a step's value on a lane running a curve and that one step goes flat at your value, drawn in amber, while the rest
keep following the line. Apply brings them all back in.
Smooth. A mod lane normally holds each step's value and then jumps to the next. Smooth makes it glide
there instead, like portamento for a parameter, which turns a stepped filter or pitch move into a sweep. The
slider sits beside Depth in the editor and sets the one Mod cell the editor is open on. On Push, hold
Select on the Mods bank and the six mod encoders become the six Smooth encoders.
- 0 is the default and jumps.
- 50% arrives by mid-step and holds there.
- 100% is still travelling when the next step arrives, so the lane becomes one continuous curve.
Where a shape is assigned it already describes the motion between steps, so the Smooth slider dims and its
glide is drawn faint and green under the curve. It still applies on any step you have taken out of the
curve by hand.
Shapes and Smooth belong to the lane, not the pattern. They survive pattern recall, the X clears and the
randomisers, and they save with the Set.
Movement · 15
LFOs
Four global modulators, eight targets each.
Four global LFOs sit in the band directly above the pattern cues. Each is mappable to up to 8 targets
with a bipolar depth per mapping.
- A channel's Mod Dial, which wobbles a whole lane including anything it is mapped to in Live.
- A single step's value.
- The global step count, so the pattern length breathes.
- Activate an LFO and pick a waveform.
- Click Map, then click any Mod Dial, step value or slider.
- Set the bipolar depth on that destination. Click × to remove it.
Seven waveforms: Sine, Triangle, Saw up, Saw down, Square with pulse width, Sample and Hold, Drift.
Each runs tempo-synced, from 8 bars down to 1/32 including dotted and triplet values, or free
in Hz. An unsynced LFO shows a free-Hz dial where its rate menu would be.
They keep flowing at the song tempo even when the transport is stopped.
On Push, the LFO bank puts Rate on encoders 1 to 4 and waveform on 5 to 8, with on/off buttons above.
Shaping · 16
Grooves and swing
Manual swing, the groove library, and importing your own .agr files.
Manual swing. With no groove selected, the Swing slider shifts every other 16th, or 8th if you flip the grid toggle.
- 50 is straight. The tick at the middle of the slider marks it.
- Up to 75 delays the off-beats. Classic swing.
- Down to 25 plays them early. Shuffle.
The 1/16 ⇄ 1/8 toggle picks which grid the swing applies to.
The groove library. Pick from the built-in library, browsable by category in the Grooves tab or from the Push encoders. Click any
groove to apply its timing and velocity across all channels.
Loading a groove turns the Swing slider into the groove Amount, 0 to 100%, which sets how hard the
groove is applied.
Grooves shift step timing, and the clock looks ahead so early-pushed steps still land accurately. Some
grooves also shape velocity.
You can switch, enable or disable grooves while the transport runs without dropped or doubled notes.
The device starts with no groove loaded, and keeps any custom manual swing value saved with your Set.
Importing your own grooves. Your own Ableton .agr grooves come in through the free
Groove Importer companion device, which comes in the CE DRUMSEQ download. See
Download and install.
The Groove Importer. Drop .agr files on the dashed zone or click Choose Files. The list on the right shows
what you have imported.
- Drop the Groove Importer onto any track in the same Live Set as CE DRUMSEQ. Its header reads linked to
CE DRUMSEQ once the two have found each other.
- Drag your
.agr files, or a folder of them, onto the dashed drop zone, or click
Choose Files….
- Your grooves appear in the sequencer's Grooves tab under User Imported. There is nothing to reload.
The Groove Importer runs in Live on your computer only, not on Push 3 standalone. Remove takes one
groove out again, and Remove All empties the list after asking twice.
Patterns · 17
Pattern cues
16 hot-cue slots, quantized recall, and Follow Actions.
Click the Pattern Cues band at the foot of the Advanced window to expand the hot-cue slots. You get eight to start
with, 2 columns by 4 rows. The ▶ button at the foot of the cue rail opens the grid out to all
sixteen as 4 by 4, and back. Cues 1 to 8 never move when you open out. All sixteen show at once along
the bottom of the Advanced window.
Opening this section puts Push into Pattern Mode, from either window. Its bottom two
pad rows become the sixteen cues. Closing it again leaves Push where it is.
- Click an empty slot and it flashes. Pick a pattern from the browser to assign it, or press
● to capture what is currently playing.
- Click a filled slot to recall it. While the transport runs, recalls are step-quantized. The
switch lands exactly on the next 16th, from mouse, Push and MIDI alike.
- × clears a slot. ● captures the current pattern into it.
- Alt/Opt-click a filled slot for Copy to… / Move to… / Swap with… / Rename…. Move carries
the slot's Follow settings with it, and the active slot follows its pattern to the new position.
The active slot auto-saves. Edits you make while a slot is active are written back into it
continuously, like editing a clip.
Slot recall buttons are MIDI-mappable. Transparent overlay buttons sit on each slot.
Slot colours read the same on screen and on the pads. Dim purple is an empty slot, brighter purple is filled,
brightest is the active one.
The cue rail. A narrow button column just left of the cue grid, holding the controls that act on the cues as a whole. It
folds away with them.
| ▶| | Follow Actions master toggle. |
| ✕ | Clear all cues. The most destructive button in the device, so it is a single
Undo away, named Clear All Cues, which puts every slot back at
once. |
| Temp / ↻ | Temp Save and Recall. |
| ▶ / ◀ | Open the cue grid out from 8 to 16 and back. The number above says which you are
looking at. |
Follow Actions. Turn on Follow and each slot gains a length field and an action menu. After that much of the slot has
played, the sequencer jumps to Next / Previous / First / Last / Random / Repeat. Chain slots into
arrangements that run themselves.
The length reads bars . beats . sixteenths. 4. 0. 0. is four bars, the default. Three
digits, three hit zones: drag the one you are pointing at and it moves in its own unit, or click it
without moving and type a value instead.
Typing accepts fewer parts the way Live's own fields do. 8 is eight bars, 8.2 is
eight bars and two beats. Anything unparseable leaves the value alone rather than zeroing it. The range runs
from a single sixteenth to sixteen bars.
The Push follow encoders are a beats control, 1 to 64.
Patterns · 18
The pattern library
Factory patterns, saving your own, and rating them.
Click the Pattern name on the Advanced window's control strip to open the Patterns tab. The
Advanced window names the loaded pattern as well, at the head of the action row along the bottom, and clicking
that name opens the same tab.
- Factory patterns ship embedded in the device, grouped by genre. That includes long and evolving
presets that use Conditions to feel like 32 or 64 steps.
- Save captures your current pattern into the user library with a name. Factory presets can be
renamed.
- Random generates a fresh beat. Clear empties the grid.
Patterns store everything: steps, all lane values, chance and conditions, channel lengths, and a suggested
BPM.
The user library lives in your Live Set by default. It can optionally point at a shared library file on
disk so all your sets see the same collection.
Three things the browser keeps about a pattern rather than in it. All three survive a rename, a
delete of some other pattern, and a reload.
| Rating | Five stars in their own column. Click a star to rate. Click the star that
is the rating to clear it. Click the Rating header to sort, again to reverse, a third time to
go back to library order. Unrated rows sink either way. |
| Comment | Free text, shown dim beside the name. A shelf of forty patterns can then say
what each one is for. A row with no comment gives its space back to the name. |
| Category | A User pattern can move into any category: a factory genre, the User
catch-all, or one you make up. A factory pattern rates and comments like any other but stays in its
genre. |
Everything past the star click is behind Alt/Opt-click on the row: Edit Comment… · Clear Comment ·
Clear Rating · Rename…, and on a User pattern the category list with the current one lit, plus
New Category….
Alt/Opt the category column itself to add a category, or delete one of yours. Deleting a category
returns its patterns to User. It never deletes them.
Each entry shows an ideal BPM and a complexity rating alongside the stars. Click any column header to sort
by it.
All of it rides with the user library, including into the shared library file.
Patterns · 19
Undo, Temp Save and Recall
One step of undo, plus a deeper RAM snapshot.
Undo. One step of protection. Overwriting a slot, clearing a pattern, steps or mods, or moving a pattern onto a
filled slot all arm the Undo button with a label describing what it will restore. Click it to take that
one action back.
Undo is on the Advanced window's control strip.
Temp Save and Recall. A one-slot RAM safety net, separate from everything else and never written to disk.
Temp Save captures the whole editable grid: steps, velocities, gate lengths, chance and condition,
every mod lane and every P-lock. Recall puts it straight back.
Great for live performances. Use it before you start pulling a pattern apart. It is faster and deeper than Undo, and it survives as many
edits as you like in between.
| On screen | The second pair of buttons on the cue rail, and a pair in the Advanced window's
Pattern Cues header. |
| Push | A bare Convert tap saves. The Double Loop button recalls. |
It is the same single snapshot, so a save from either surface recalls from the other.
It touches nothing on disk and nothing in the pattern library. With no Temp Save yet this session, Recall
falls back to the grid as it stood when the current pattern was loaded. Loading a different pattern clears the
snapshot.
Patterns · 20
Export to a MIDI clip
Write what you are hearing into a Session clip, one full cycle long.
Export Midi Clip is beside Undo on the control strip. It writes the pattern you are hearing into the
first empty Session clip slot on the track.
The clip carries velocity, gate lengths, groove timing, Conditions and Chance. Muted and hidden
channels are left out. Mod lanes stay in the device, because they drive parameters rather than notes.
The clip is as long as the pattern takes to repeat. With no Conditions and every channel at 16 steps that is
1 bar. A 1:4 makes it 4 bars, and odd channel lengths stretch it the same way, up to a limit of 64 bars.
Chance is rolled once, at export, so the clip plays the same way every time. Do not like the roll? Delete the clip
and press Export Midi Clip again.
Push 3 · 21
Push 3: installing
Transferring the device to Push, and bringing your mappings with it.
CE DRUMSEQ runs on Push 3 standalone, but it has to be transferred from your computer first.
- Install CE DRUMSEQ on your computer first. See Download and install.
- In Live's browser, open Places → User Library and drag the CE DRUMSEQ folder onto Places → Push.
- On Push, open it from the User Library and add it before a Drum Rack.
If dragging the individual .amxd shows a forbidden cursor, transfer the containing folder instead.
Mod mappings. For mappings to work on Push, make them on your computer first and
carry them across in an Instrument Rack.
- On your computer, map the mod lanes. See Parameter mapping.
- Select CE DRUMSEQ and the Drum Rack, press Cmd/Ctrl-G to group them into an Instrument Rack, and save
the rack to your User Library as an
.adg.
- Drag the
.adg onto Places → Push, the same way as the device.
Transfer the device first. Push must already have the same copy of CE DRUMSEQ.amxd
that is inside the rack, or the .adg will not load correctly.
Push 3 · 22
Push 3: the pads
4 channels by 16 steps on the 8x8 grid, tap and hold.
Select the device, or have it first on the track, and the Push pad grid becomes the sequencer.
The 8x8 grid shows 4 channels by 16 steps. Each channel spans two horizontal pad rows.
- Empty steps alternate grey per channel.
- Active steps take the channel's colour.
- The playhead runs white.
| Tap a pad | Toggle the step. |
Hold a pad
about 0.2 s | The pad turns green and the 8
encoders become that step's Velocity, Mod 1 to 6, and Gate. Release and the encoders go back to normal. |
| Hold, then page to Step | The Step bank's first two encoders are that step's Chance
and Condition. |
| Delete + a pad | Clears that step. |
A pad carrying a Chance or a Condition sits at its channel's own colour with the light taken out, and comes
up to full for the bar it plays in. It is a brightness, never a second hue, so the pads keep telling you which
channel you are looking at. See Steps that might not play.
Push Takeover. By default Push hands over its pads only while this device is
the selected one. Switch it to Track in Settings to take over whenever the device's track is selected.
Push still only takes over while its pads are in Note mode.
Push 3 · 23
Push 3: navigation
Scrolling channels, the scene buttons, and the View page.
Scrolling. The Up/Down (Octave) buttons scroll the 4-channel window through your channels and select the
channel they land on, so its lanes fill the Mods encoders. They reach every loaded pad across the rack, up to
128 of them.
The Scroll encoder, on the Sequence and View banks, jumps straight to any channel. One detent per
channel, its display reading the channel number.
While you scroll, Push jumps to the View encoder page and its title changes to name exactly which
channels the pads are on, such as Kick-Clap, top to bottom of the window, using your Drum Rack's own pad
names.
The title stays until your next scroll. The View page is an exact copy of the Sequence page, so all its
controls stay under your fingers.
Scene buttons. The column to the right of the pads.
- Press a blue scene button, or turn the Scroll encoder, to select the active channel.
- The green scene buttons are mute.
Delete + a mute button clears a whole channel.
Push 3 · 25
Push 3: the eight encoder banks
Sequence, Mods, Step, Patterns, LFO, Groove, Follow, View.
Eight banks, paged with the display's bank buttons.
Sequence. Density, Syncopation, Symmetry, then Steps, Swing, R.Steps, R.Mod, and
Scroll for channel select. Buttons above: Commit, Swing 1/8 which flips the swing grid
between 1/16 and 1/8, Pattern Mode, Follow on/off, and Midi-In mode.
This is the bank the device lands on and the one you stay on while it plays. Everything on it is continuous
and nothing on it replaces the pattern.
Mods. The 8 Mod Dials of the selected channel: Velocity, Mod 1 to 6, Gate. Or the held step's values while a pad
is held.
Hold Select and the six mod encoders become the six Smooth
encoders. Same slot, same lane, so encoder 3 smooths Mod 3 and its lock button is still underneath. Velocity
and Gate get nothing, because a note cannot be half-struck.
Step. The held step's Chance and Condition. Hold a pad and page here to edit them.
Patterns. The pattern Category and Pattern selectors, with buttons for Load Pattern, Random, Save
and Clear.
Turning the Pattern encoder does not load anything. It walks the library and prints
each name under the knob. Load Pattern, the first button above the display, applies the one you stopped
on. The Category encoder arms the same way. Until you press Load, the armed name shows dim after an arrow,
beside the loaded one, so you can see you are pointing at one pattern and hearing another. The Advanced window's action row prints the pair.
LFO. Rate on encoders 1 to 4, waveform on 5 to 8, with on/off buttons. An unsynced LFO shows a free-Hz dial where
its rate menu would be.
Groove. The groove Category and Groove selectors. The Swing and Tempo encoder sets manual swing
percentage, or groove depth whenever a groove is loaded.
Follow. One pattern slot's Beats and Action, whichever slot pad you pressed last. The two encoder
labels read Beat 7 / Act 7, so they name the slot you are editing. Its buttons are Follow on/off
and Pattern Mode.
View. Where scrolling lands you. A mirror of the Sequence page whose title names the visible channels, and whose
buttons Move ▲ / Move ▼ / Hide / Show All reorder and hide channels live on the selected channel.
The title readout. The bank title above the encoders names what you are editing. By default that is the current drum, meaning
the selected channel or the one whose pad you are holding.
Twist any Mod encoder and the title flips to that Mod's mapped Live parameter, such as Decay, then
reverts to the drum name shortly after you let go. So you always know which control you just moved. This works
on the Mods page with no pad held, and on the View page while holding a pad.
Push 3 · 26
Push 3: Pattern Mode
The bottom two pad rows become 16 cue slots.
Toggle Pattern Mode with the Pat Mode button above the display on the Sequence bank. The
bottom two pad rows become the 16 cue slots. The sequencer grid shifts onto the remaining rows.
Purple is a filled slot. The brightest one is active.
| Gesture | What happens |
|---|
| Tap a filled slot | Recall that slot, quantized. |
| Tap an empty slot | Save the current pattern into it. Nothing else changes: what is playing keeps
playing, and now it is stored there too. |
| Hold 2 s | Overwrite that slot with the current pattern. Undo takes it back. |
| Hold a filled slot, tap an empty pad | Copy it there. |
| Hold a filled slot, hold a filled pad | Overwrite it. A filled target must be held for a
second, so a stray brush cannot destroy anything. |
That makes empty pads the quickest way to build a set of cues. Play a pattern, tap an empty pad to store it,
change the pattern, then tap the next empty pad.
Press a slot pad, then page to the Follow bank. Its two encoders now edit that slot's
Beats and Action, the same way holding a step puts that step on the encoders.
A tap recalls the slot and aims the bank at it in one gesture. A hold aims without recalling. Editing a slot's follow settings on screen aims the bank at it too.
Opening the Pattern Cues band also puts Push into Pattern Mode. See
Pattern cues.
Reference · 27
Saving
What saves with your Live Set.
Everything lives in your Live Set. No external files needed.
- All 16 slots, their patterns, names and Follow settings, plus the active slot's latest edits, which
auto-save continuously.
- The three Density, Syncopation and Symmetry dial positions.
- Parameter mappings, which rebind automatically on load, and their per-cell Smooth.
- LFO configs, mute and solo states.
- Groove and swing settings.
- The Settings tab options: Sample & Hold, MIDI-In mode, monitor forcing, recall quantize.
- The user pattern library.
- Channel order, colours and hidden state.
There is no kit size you cannot save. A completely full 128-pad Drum Rack, with every step and all six mod
lanes in use on every pad, still fits.
Sets saved with an older version open normally and re-save in the newer, smaller form. Nothing needs
converting.
Settings. The Settings tab collects the device-wide options.
| Option | What it does |
|---|
| Sample & Hold | How mod lanes behave between mod steps. Off (default) means a
mod value lasts its step, then the parameter returns to the channel level. On means the value holds
until the next mod step. |
| MIDI In | Step (default) passes notes straight through to the Drum Rack, so you can
finger-drum alongside the sequencer. Pattern turns 16 incoming notes from C1 up into pattern-cue
triggers, each recalling its slot, quantized. |
| Force Track Monitor Off | Keeps the sequencer's timing tight. Recommended, and the
default. Turn it off only if you need to set the track's monitor yourself. |
| Quantize Cue Recalls | Cue recalls land on the next step edge while the transport plays.
On by default. Turn off to recall the instant you tap. |
| Push Takeover | When Push hands its pads over. Device (default) means only while
this device is the selected one. Track means whenever this device's track is selected, regardless of
which device on it is focused. |
Reference · 28
Tips and troubleshooting
Common problems and their fixes.
- Push pads do not light up
- The device searches for the Push for a few seconds after loading and keeps retrying in the background. Make
sure the device is selected, or first on its track. Deselecting the device hands the pads back to Live.
- Steps toggle by themselves when I play MIDI at the track
- Check the Midi In mode. In Pattern mode, notes in the cue range trigger slot recalls. Switch
it to Step.
- A channel shows no name
- The name comes from the Drum Rack pad at that row's note. Check that a sample is loaded on that pad.
- Something just got overwritten
- Hit Undo. It holds the last destructive slot or pattern action. For anything deeper, see
Temp Save and Recall.
- Random Mods does nothing
- It only randomises mod lanes that are mapped to a Live parameter and not locked. The Max
window says which of the two it hit. Map a lane, and Auto-Map fills a whole column in one go. Or unlock one via
its Mod Matrix cell. If the steps are already full of mods the button did not place, use Clr.
- The exported clip is longer than a bar
- That is a Condition doing its job. The clip has to span a whole cycle or the loop would lie. See
Export to a MIDI clip.
- I need the track's monitoring set my own way
- The device forces the track's monitoring to Off so the sequencer's clock stays clean. Turn off
Force Track Monitor Off in Settings, or send the message
monoff 0 to the grid for a
session-only escape hatch.
- My pattern browser scrolled past the one I wanted and loaded it
- It will not. On Push, turning the Pattern encoder only browses. Load Pattern applies it. See
the Patterns bank.