mm.Chain Chooser - Navigate chains and reduce CPU

Easily navigate chains in an audio effect racks, midi effect racks and instrument racks. Turns off all devices that are not in the selected chain which reduces CPU for big chains.

Features

3 ways to choose a chain:

MIDI mappable dial to scroll through the chains

MIDI mappable 'Next' and 'Previous' buttons

MIDI mappable buttons to go straight to a certain chain

32 chains! (email messinkimusic@gmail.com if you need more than 32!)

Reduce CPU load

Use 'mm.Chain Chooser MIDI CPU' and 'mm.Chain Chooser Audio CPU' for racks with many chains and lots of CPU intensive VSTs. Any devices that are not in the selected chain will be turned off.

Check the CPU level when using 'mm.Chain Chooser MIDI Simple' vs 'mm.Chain Chooser MIDI CPU' on the same effect rack, as Ableton stock devices are very CPU efficient and therefore turning off the devices sometimes doesn't save any CPU.

Mute Delay

Per chain 'Mute Delay' setting that delays the turning off of a chain to allow for sounds with a long decay to ring out before the chain is turned off.

Hanging Notes

The device prevents chains with held notes from being cut off when switching chains.

Imagine playing a chord while Chain 1 is active, and then switching to Chain 2 while still holding the same chord. Chain 1 will only be disabled when all notes that were playing while switching from Chain 1 to Chain 2 have been released.

Setting Up Rack Devices

New versions now requires you to turn on the 'Auto Select' button on the rack device so that the active chain is selected. Doing this speeds up the device a lot and allows it to work with Ableton Push.

These devices work by moving the chain selector in the rack device, to route the input into one chain at a time.

Because of this if you manually create an rack device, you must make sure that on the 'chain' tab of the rack, the first chain takes goes from 0-0, the second chain goes from 1-1 and so on. Like this:

If you want to change the order of the chains, you must reset the order of the chain ranges. A quick way to do this is to use the 'Distribute Ranges Equally'

LIMITATIONS

There is a small delay in Max for Live when moving things like the chain selector. If you are using clip automation so that launching a clip triggers a new instrument chain, the chain will move a couple of milliseconds after the clip is launched. This means that the first MIDI note in the clip can get sent to the previously chain. I'm trying to work out a way to resolve this, but every solution is slightly hacky.

UPDATES

16/03/2024 Version 1.4.2

Fixed automation bug. Added a preference to turn off the ability to change the active chain by selecting it in the chain list of the effect rack. Doing this means that the chain dial is automatable again.

27/6/2022 Version 1.4.1

Fixed some initialisation problems including a bug that caused devices in the active chain to turn off at startup

5/5/2022 Version 1.4

Added preferences, with option to disable the feature that turns on all chains and devices when the device is deactivated. Disabling it can be useful if the device or enclosing rack has its on/off button automated.

12/3/2022 Version 1.3.1

Fixed the "mute delay" settings not saving properly with the live set.

7/1/2022 Version 1.3

Fixed "12" button that didn't work on all devices, and selector dial on Audio device, which didn't turn all the way.

16/12/2021 Version 1.2

The chain selector dial that on the device is now automatable. Also minor bug fixes.

10/12/2021 Version 1.1

Now requires you to turn on the 'Auto Select' button on the rack device that is being controlled. This saves CPU and makes the device work with Ableton Push.

Added a version of the device that saves CPU for audio effect racks.