Midi Groover Ableton Rack
2026-05-17
while experimenting with with ways to generate melodies, I had an intrusive thought of "what would happen if I used 2 Arpeggiators on one track?" and the result was a way to "generate" melodies or percussive rhythms using multiple arpeggiators.
The Rack
The rack consists of 2 arpeggiator plugins in sequence. The rate, retrigger, style, and repeats are mapped to their respective group.
Usage
Because we're using an arpeggiator, we'll need sustained notes. I chose to combine 2 chords, Gsus2 and Gsus4 and made a simple Acid Bass with Analog.
This will keep all the notes that the MIDI groover outputs within the bounds of the notes we're playing. I find that having ARP 2 at a higher rate and ARP 1 on a slightly off-kilter rate (basically something not 1/4 or 1/8) will create a kind of "call and response" melody. I noticed that you typically had to wait for a bar or two for the arpeggiators to sync up properly. Let the loop run for a cycle or two in order to get everything moving together.
Extractive groove
Now with the configuration dialed in, it's time to extract the MIDI being generated by the groover. create a new MIDI track and set "All Ins" to the track with your chords. you should begin to see MIDI activity on your channel. Make sure you arm the track for recording.
Hit record while the loop is playing and capture the generated MIDI that has come out of the groover. Replace the chord with your new MIDI sequence and turn off the MIDI groover (or add more randomness to the mix and leave it on).
This is also a great way to generate percussive grooves by filling a drum rack with a bunch of random samples and creating sustained notes for each sample. Just adjust the "distance" on both arps to 0 st, otherwise empty sample slots will be played and it will be more difficult to extract a groove.