What is it and how does it work?

CV4LIVE by Skinnerbox let’s you gain control over Ableton Live functions from your Eurorack synthesizer. Without any additional hardware. Been dreaming about getting the complex, hands-on envelopes from my modular to control parameters in Live. Problem solved in a pretty genius way:

Most audio devices come with a DC filter that filters nasty artifacts from a signal. Unfortunately the low currents of CV is one of them. Skinnerbox bypasses the issue by calibrating min and max values in Ableton Live to the pitch of a VCO in a modular system. Should also work fine with your Microbrute, Moog Mother 32 or whatever synthesizer you’ve got in your arsenal. Once you modulate the VCO with envelopes, LFOs or whatever in your modular things start to get interesting. There is a lot of creative potential.

Kickass: for the demo video they setup multiple devices to control the sample start point of a Simpler instance and the offset by CV. Wonder how well it responds to very fast LFOs.

CV4LIVE comes with two devices:

  • one for mapping fake CV to any mappable destination in Ableton Live (nasty!)
  • one for syncing Ableton Lives tempo to your modular

Quick test with two Quadra envelopes and a LFO mapped to Abletons Auto Filter:

Waaah. CV4LIVE by Skinnerbox is the shit! #modular #ableton #cv

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If that isn’t enough already – it’s available for free.

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