Mass

What it does

A generative MIDI app built on a physics engine. Each part is a ball on a table with its own step pattern, note, offset, chance, length and MIDI channel, and the balls push each other around. Notes fire from the pattern, from wall hits, from collisions or from an impulse that scatters everything, and a part can send continuous CC instead. It runs standalone or as an AUv3.

In the demo

Jade builds patches from scratch in AUM, setting a scale, adding parts and pulling their offsets apart until a rhythm appears. She anchors one part still, sets another to fire an impulse on the first of eight steps, changes mass and resistance so the others travel further or stall, and routes two to a synth’s filter.

Worth knowing

Jade describes it as closer to puzzle solving than sequencing, and points at the manual and the tutorials. Anyone after a quick chord or arpeggio generator should look elsewhere.