Music Tech Focus

Follow actions and what they can do for you

Follow Actions are settings we can make in Ableton Live’s Session View clips, that determine how and when one playing clip will automatically move on to another, and what will happen when it gets there. We can use Follow Actions for creative purposes, such as in evolving sound art installations, or to create unpredictable sequences of instrument parts, but we can also use them as purely practical tools, for example creating timed intervals in a live performance – they’re very flexible. Follow Actions can be thought of as Ableton’s take on generative music – music which composes or arranges album from 1975, which would’ve been made with hardware devices and tape in those days, to the album from 1996, which he made using Sseyo’s Koan software. If you want to get some of that old-school Eno action, Koan evolved into Noatikl 3, and it’s still available from .

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