Mazetools Mutant delivers a multitouch loop machine for audio production and design. Players build beats on a square surface using 7 cubes as session starters, 7 instruments like synths, drum sequencers, and a versatile sampler, plus filters and effects. Rotate the Hypercube to shift key, tempo, and pitch, revealing fresh musical angles from the same loops.
Snapshots capture these creations for playlist-style playback or cloud-based mutation by mood, energy, and texture. Merge snapshots to spawn endless variations, record audio as WAV files, or jam in Collab Mode over local networks. Audio producers and loop experimenters thrive on its quantized sequencing, Ableton Link integration, and perspective-changing workflow.
Key Features
- 7 Cubes with different settings as starting point for your Session
- Interactive, quantized Loop-Machine within the Cube-Cell
- 7 Instruments with sequenced based note input, envelope, filter & effects
- 4 different synth, 2 drum sequencers, 1 sampler with slice, granular and pitch shift mode
- Sample library with user file integration
- Cross-Instrument key interface to define chords & scales
- Main FX Interface to perform a Snapshot playlist incl. Echo, Reverb, Reverser, Note Envelope & Flanger
Project Cloud
- Snapshot principle: keeps track of the recorded loop
- Snapshot list can be used like a playlist of the different loops
- Save Session to save the Snapshot list
- Interactive Cube-Cell navigation to switch from one Cell to another and change the musical perspective in key, tempo & pitch
- Snapshot Cloud: Load your snapshot into a 3D cloud defined by the characteristics of mood, energy and texture
- Interactive cloud navigation and Snapshot filtering by author, key & tempo
- Snapshot Mutation Interface to merge two Snapshot and create infinite new perspectives
- Audio Record as .wav file
- Ableton Link
- Setup Menu to define graphic and sound quality setting
- Main zoom to customize the general size of the interface
- In-App Guide (german & english)
Mazetools Mutant lets you make music in loops. On a square surface you play synths, drums, sampler, sequencer, filters and effects. Together, all the instruments form the Hypercube. Hyper- What?. The Hypercube is a space that changes your music multiperspectively....
The principle
Think of a record player, play the vinyl from 33 to 45 and everything sounds higher and faster. Conversely from 45 to 33 everything sounds slower and lower. It remains the same song, only the conditions are changed. Mutant works in a similar way. You play in a beat loop, then turn the Hypercube and hear everything from new perspectives.
According to this principle, new ideas and results emerge in the musical process. These don't have to reach perfection. Mutant stands for experimenting, making loops and exploring sound, it's the session, the moment and an audio recording that counts.
From Snapshots to Cloud Mutation
To capture the loops you've created, take a snapshot - an anchor point with all the instruments that you can always return to.
Load your snapshot into the cloud and locate it in three dimensions with Mood, Energy & Structure. If you then select another snapshot, it will be mutated in certain ways and many new perspectives will emerge.
Collaboration
In Collab Mode, two Mutant users can make music together via local network. All inputs are transmitted live and the people each play instruments or effects."
App information
We do our best to avoid bugs, often enough we were disappointed when a moment was lost. But at some point it has to go out and after the update before the next one. So feel free to write us bugs and problems, definitely also if you made a song or video.
The cloud is offline, but technically designed to be part of an online cloud for own user data and content sharing in the future. It was created as part of the Mazetools Assist research project. You can read more about it at Ectoplastic.com.
Mutant requires the microphone for audio recording, the local files to store projects and recordings, and the network for Collab Mode and Ableton Link.
Much more content, terms of use, credits and FAQ are in the app in the Guide and can be found in the app's Start-Up menu.
About Mazetools
Empowering creativity, democratizing musical expression and making it inclusive - how does that work? These are the questions that keep us busy. Mutant is a further step in the process, alongside Soniface, and provides important points of contact through the multitouch-based loop principle, the change of perspective and the cloud. But we want to go further - with you and the community.
We are Stephan Kloß and Jakob Gruhl, Ectoplastic from Halle/Leipzig, we first met in 1999 as teenagers to make hip hop and electronic music. Since then we have been fascinated by music software and sharing our enthusiasm for it with people.
More than 10 years ago we started the Maze project - a software core of instruments and multimedia interfaces. Since then we have been dedicated to audiovisual connections, sound through movement and spatial audio. Through exchanges, sessions, research and development, and public funding, Maze became Mazetools.
Our roadmap follows the goal of improving workflow, experience, energy consumption and new features of our previous Mazetools Mutant and Soniface. Here we are always open to ideas and constructive feedback. In 2024, we have two new releases coming up, Mazetools Botany and Modyssey VR. We have developed these over the last three years. To make it all work, we need your support!
We wish you a great time with Mutant,
Stephan & Jakob
