FIELDWORK V2Electronic music / Ableton Live
Bass lab / sub · rollers · acid · broken rhythms

Write from the low end up.

18 bass articulations, 96 starting recipes. Build the pocket, find an answer and export the sequence.

1,760MIDI recipes
32artist profiles
64sounds & kits

Your sketch

Five original parts and a suggested sound palette. Choose Tiësto’s trance or club direction, or explore the other artist studies.

Harmony

Locks protect parts when generating variations. Key, scale, length and harmony changes rebuild every part. Style starts a matching five-part sketch; Undo recovers your previous sketch.

Choose an instrument on each track above. Change sounds while playing; notes stay intact. The 48 tonal sounds and 16 kits are synthesized previews, saved with your session.

1 . 1 . 1
Click to add or select · drag to move · double-click to eraseArrows: pitch / timing · Delete: erase · Space: play

Density, gate, emotion and phrase controls regenerate unlocked parts. Use Undo to recover edits. Lock a part to keep it while exploring.

Sketch exports include audible parts (mute / solo applies). Separate parts include all five, including muted parts. Variation packs use the selected recipe and current settings; hand edits are not included.

Inside the pattern

Make it yours in Live

Choose a sound, then commit

01 / A useful constraint

Length is part of the groove

A bassline has a pitch shape and a silence shape. Rolling psy notes end quickly; a halftime sub needs space to sustain. The same pitches can imply a different genre when their release changes.

Try this: solo bass and drums. Compare Gate at 50% and 110%, then shift the bass by a sixteenth. Add glide or accent modulation in your synth after importing.

02 / From browser to session

Five minutes in Ableton

  1. Export a clip or sketch. Drag the .mid file into Live.
  2. Load an instrument on each MIDI track. MIDI contains notes, not sound.
  3. Set your session tempo and check the clip’s loop bracket. Files end at the chosen bar length.
  4. Map the drum notes, choose a bass patch, then automate one sound parameter across eight bars.

Ableton’s MIDI import guide ↗

03 / What goes in the file

Clean, editable MIDI

Individual clipsSMF0 · 480 PPQ
Complete sketchesSMF1 · separate named tracks
IncludedPitch, timing, length, velocity, tempo, 4/4
Drum notes36 kick · 38 snare · 39 clap
42 closed hat · 46 open hat
Extra percussion37 rim · 45 tom · 63/64 conga
70 shaker · 75 claves · 76 woodblock
Pitch labelsLive convention: MIDI 60 = C3

Glide, sidechain, effects and synth settings are sound-design steps in Live. Preview synthesis is a sketching aid.

The original field guides · 16 standalone references

The V1 teaching labs remain available alongside these new workbenches. Open the V1 guide index ↗