Level Up with Manifest Audio’s free Cheat Code Max for Live MIDI effect

Berlin’s Manifest Audio has been busy of late, releasing a trio of powerful, user-friendly Max for Live MIDI effects over the past few months  

Manifest Audio has created some very cool Max For Live MIDI FX: Chance Engine, Subtraction Engine, and Note Raum. Their latest free offering, Cheat Code, is a deceptively potent performance tool – and Ask Audio is here to break the news.

Typical Quantization

When it comes to MIDI, there are two types of quantization. Note pitch quantization ensures MIDI conforms harmonically to a selected scale and key. Timing quantization keeps notes tidy on the timeline, adhering to consistent rhythmic intervals such as 16th or 8th notes – but this is typically only applied after a performance has been recorded.

Then There's Cheat Code Quantization

By combining both types of quantization in real time, Cheat Code allows you to play loose and free in the moment with clinical accuracy – and optional swing. With 50 scales to choose from in any key, there’s nothing stopping you from grooving away in just about any style imaginable.

Base rhythmic quantization ranges from whole notes – perfect if you only want notes or chords to start at the beginning of each bar – all the way up to 64th notes for slow tempo genres. Swing is contextual to the selected rhythmic interval, and you can click the button that says Normal to toggle into Triplets at any interval.

An F# Persian scale quantized to 32nd note Triplets with no swing percentage.

Click the Quantize toggle to Pass notes through without rhythmic quantization. Or, to only use real-time rhythmic quantization without conforming to a scale, just set the scale selector to Chromatic with Quantize on.

Controls

A built-in Transposition slider allows you to re-pitch note output in real time within the selected scale and key to easily produce new melodic motifs. Combine this with the Hold toggle for intermittent sustain, and you can have a lot of fun repurposing existing MIDI clips with minimal effort.

Cheat Code set to a Bebop scale in the key of E, dropped one octave, quantized to 16th notes with 64% swing, and sustain Hold engaged.

 The output display at lower right shows outgoing MIDI note pitch and velocity – and you can also click there to flush stuck notes if need be. All Cheat Code parameters are available for automation, modulation, and MIDI mapping, it’s fully optimized for Push, and features comprehensive Info View annotation should you need help at any point.

Cheat Code is certainly no substitute for the skills of an accomplished musician, though it should help smooth the roughest edges off a questionable performance – or possibly even disguise a novice as an amateur while landing on some new ideas in the process. 

Grab it now free, exclusively from Manifest Audio:

https://manifest.audio/allmax/cheat-code

Cheat Code Features:

  •  Real-time note quantization with optional transposition through 50 scales in any key
  •  Real-time rhythmic quantization at 1n, 2n, 4n, 8th, 16th, 32nd, and 64th intervals
  •  Adjustable swing percentage
  •  Optional triplet mode
  •  Sustain toggle
  •  Full Info View annotations
  •  Optimized for Push

https://manifest.audio/allmax/cheat-code

Requires: Live 10.1 Suite or higher running Max 8.1 or higher.

Learn more about Max at AskVideo!

The Ask.Audio team of writers is a dynamic and talented collection of expert educators, technical, news, feature and review writers. Read More

Discussion

Want to join the discussion?

Create an account or login to get started!