Fors Kit is a new collection of four unique Max For Live devices made for exploring melodies, textures, rhythms, and spaces in new ways.
There is a plugin for everything. Many forget that you already have excellent tools in your DAW. Ableton Live is one of the best when it comes to special tools. And when combined with a Max For Live license, you get the full arsenal of little but powerful helpers without loading a plugin. M4L also allows you to load devices from third-party developers, which are often available for free or for little money.
Fors, for example, is made up of Ess Mattisson and Felisha Lesma. Ess Mattisson is known to some from his work at Elektron. He was in the team of the Digitakt, Digitone, and others. Both have recently released new very inspiring Max For Live, yes for little money.
Fors Kit
Kit contains four experimental Max For Live devices, each with a very distinctive visual interface. I really like that the interfaces are very slim and not overloaded with parameters. Very simple and aesthetically beautiful to look at. A bit like modules from the Teenage Engineering OP-1. Together they form a playful quartet of melody, texture, rhythm, and space says Fors.
Jog
Jog is a polyphonic notepad sequencer that sequences notes, chords, and rhythms. You can manually program it by recording MIDI data step by step. The developers says it’s inspired by classic step-entry sequencers. But it comes with a modern twist, it’s called a dynamic euclidean algorithm. It transforms every programmed sequence into a drastically new output. Out of a simple melody, you can create something inspiring new.
On top of that, you can chain several Jog instances to form complex sequences. They can interact with each other by transposing the adjacent Jog device or stacking sequences for true polyphonic sequencing. There is also a suitable sound generator for the jog sequencer.
Pop
It is an experimental 8-voice Synthesizer with morphing spectral modulation and microtonal capabilities. Pop is based on a system of turning oscillators and here it scans between different harmonics formed by phase modulation in its core. You can manually set the harmonics and spectra amount and the modulation with the built-in ADSR envelope.
The tuning goes beyond classic synths. Thanks to more cleverly octave division, Pop is also playable microtonally. This allows you to explore new timbres and musical expressions.
Hue & Box
Next, we have Hue, a bandpass filter with adjustable width. Hue is a highpass filter but also works as a lowpass, bandpass filter, or something in between. The device becomes more flexible with modulation. You can modulate the filter cutoff frequencies not with one but with two envelopes simultaneously. Plus, you can trigger it with a euclidean pattern generator.
Last but not least, Box is special reverb with vast spaces and intense tonalities. It’s made for exploring feedbacks, distortions, and filtering in a new way. Fors promises that you can completely deteriorate a signal and send it far, far away.
At first glance, very beautiful Max For Live devices with their very own feature set and design language. I’m excited to see what else will come of the two in the future.
Fors Kit is available now for 15€ (without VAT) and requires Ableton Live 10.1+ with Suite or a Max for Live license.
More information here: Fors.fm
After just a bit of setup, it also works well in Max.
And it really encourages experimentation. A bit like modular hardware typically does.
Your description is spot on:
“At first glance, very beautiful Max For Live devices with their very own feature set and design language. I’m excited to see what else will come of the two in the future.”
That’s also similar to modular hardware. I find the design language more appealing because it’s so focused.