GLASS

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GLASS 2.0 is out

Version 2 is a rebuilt face with more to play. Get it from the Releases page.

New in 2.0

• MIX. Blends the dry signal back in.
• Preset bank. Save your own, rename and delete them, put any of them on three slots. Shared by every Live set.
• BACK. Steps back through your last 16 SHATTERs and preset loads.
• HOLD. Click a knob's label and SHATTER leaves that knob where it is.
• GLIDE. Knobs travel to their new values in time with the song, from an eighth note to four bars.
• SHATTER from a key or pad. Map one in Live and play SHATTER by hand.
• Fine control. Hold Shift while dragging a knob for ten times finer travel.
• Saved with the set. Held knobs and the glide length come back when the Live set reloads.
• PULSE. The face glows with what you play into it. The LED left of BACK turns it off. Its strength follows MIX.

SHATTER with GLIDE on 1 BAR, in Live:

Coming from 1.0? Install both new files. The new device is made for the new rack.

What GLASS is

A custom-GUI Max for Live device for the GLASS Audio Effect Rack, an original Ableton rack I built and sound-designed.

GLASS (the rack) chains Ableton's stock effects (Resonator, Phaser, Hybrid Reverb, Grain Delay, Glue Compressor, Echo, Delay) into one instrument, with hand-mapped macros driving the whole thing.

Ableton gives every rack the same plain generic macro panel. This device replaces that with a bespoke shattered-glass interface. Stock effects still do all the audio, GLASS knobs drive macros by index via the Live Object Model (LOM).

What it does

• 9 knobs. Eight drive the sound. MIX sits apart and blends the dry signal back in. Drag to set. Hold Shift while dragging for ten times finer travel. Double-click a knob to center it; double-click MIX for all wet.
• 3 preset slots over one bank. The bank starts with MIDNIGHT, ANGELS and GHOSTS, then holds your own. The caret at the end of a slot's color line opens the bank: pick a preset, save the current knobs as a new one, rename it, or delete it. Your presets live in ~/Documents/GLASS Presets.json and are shared by every Live set.
• SHATTER randomizes the eight sound knobs and breaks the glass behind them into a fresh palette on each press. It never moves MIX.
• BACK, the arrow left of SHATTER, steps back through the last 16 SHATTERs and preset loads.
• HOLD. Click a knob's label to hold. A held knob stays where it is when you SHATTER. Loading a preset still moves every knob.
• GLIDE makes SHATTER, preset loads and BACK move the knobs over time instead of jumping: OFF, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1 BAR, 2 BARS or 4 BARS at the song's tempo.
• SHATTER from a key or pad. The rack's tenth macro is named SHATTER. The button on the face can't be mapped, so show the rack's macros (the top button on the rack's left edge), then map a key, a pad or a knob to SHATTER in Live's MIDI map mode. Each press fires one SHATTER; a pad that also sends on release fires one on release too.
• Value-reactive drawing. Each knob's burst of glass grows, brightens and turns with its value; the whole field and the neon sign light up with overall rack energy.

In Ableton

The device sits inside the GLASS rack in a live set:

Requirements

• Ableton Live 12 Suite. The rack uses Echo and Hybrid Reverb, which come with Suite, and Suite includes Max for Live.
• The GLASS Audio Effect Rack with its macros mapped (ships as a bundle with GLASS.adg, or map your own rack's macros to match the table below).

Download

Version 2.0 ships as a bundle on the Releases page (GLASS.zip → Glass.amxd, GLASS.adg, GLASS.png and README.txt).

Install

The bundle holds four files: the device (Glass.amxd), the rack (GLASS.adg), the GLASS icon (GLASS.png) and a readme (README.txt). You install the first two. The rack already contains the device as its first chain device. It just looks for Glass.amxd in your User Library. Install the device first, then load the rack (no manual placement needed):

1. Install the device. Copy Glass.amxd into your Ableton User Library at Presets/Audio Effects/Max Audio Effect/Imported/ (create the folders if they don't exist). Find the User Library via Live → Preferences → Library, or right-click User Library in Live's browser → Show in Finder/Explorer.
2. Load the rack. Double-click GLASS.adg (or drag it onto a track). The full rack loads on MIDNIGHT with its macros mapped and the GLASS device already inside it, bound automatically. (First load takes a few seconds while Max boots.)

If the device shows as missing in the rack, Glass.amxd isn't in your User Library yet. Redo step 1 and reload GLASS.adg.

Use it in your own rack

Using the bundled GLASS rack? Skip this, it's already set up.

The device drives its parent rack's macros by index, so it works in any Audio Effect Rack. Drop Glass.amxd in as the first device inside your rack, before your effects so PULSE hears what you play (this is "Option A": it walks up to its parent rack to grab the macros), and map the macros to match the macro map below. Only the first eight are needed. Without a ninth there is no MIX, without a tenth no SHATTER from a pad, and without 11 to 14 holds, the glide length and PULSE reset when the set reloads.

GLASS reads macros 10 to 14 and writes 11 to 14, so leave them free for it.

Macro map, for custom racks

The bundled rack already has all of this mapped. This is the reference for building your own.

The device targets macros by index (macro i = rack parameter i+1; range 0 to 127). Knobs are laid out in display order, which is not index order:

Knob position (L→R)	Macro index	Rack macro	Name
1	0	1	Reflect
2	7	8	Verb
3	1	2	Delay
4	2	3	Echo %
5	3	4	Echo Time
6	4	5	Wavy
7	5	6	Wobble
8	6	7	Comp
9	8	9	MIX

All knobs display as % (the underlying macro range is 0 to 127).

Five more macros carry no knob on the face:

Macro index	Rack macro	Name	What it holds
9	10	SHATTER	Fires SHATTER each time its value crosses the middle. Map a key or pad here.
10	11	HOLD A	Which of macros 1 to 4 are held.
11	12	HOLD B	Which of macros 5 to 8 are held.
12	13	GLIDE	The glide length, 0 (OFF) to 6 (4 BARS).
13	14	PULSE	Whether the face pulses: 0 is on, 1 is off. The LED left of BACK sets it.

Macros 11 to 14 are how holds, the glide length and PULSE get saved with the set. They don't need to show in the rack, and the bundled rack hides them. The rack's random button and its macro variations skip macros 10 to 14.

Good to know

• Pads owned by a controller script. If a pad won't take a mapping, the controller's script is keeping it. Tick Remote for that controller's input port in Live's MIDI settings and try again.
• A mapped key or pad gives up its normal job in that set. A drum pad mapped to SHATTER no longer plays its drum.
• One preset bank for every set. A preset saved, renamed or deleted in one set changes in all of them.
• The bank file is made by your first save. Until then there is no GLASS Presets.json.
• A failed save says so only in the Max console. The preset still works until the device is closed.
• Esc doesn't close the preset list or the glide list. Click anywhere off the list instead.
• The preset bank has not been run on Windows.

Project layout

Glass/
├── glass.jsui.js              the device: drawing + mouse + LOM (single jsui script)
├── sprites/                   baked images the script draws (wordmark, neon, shards, glows)
├── glass-*test.jsui.js        throwaway probes of what jsui can do inside Live
├── icon/                      app icon (64 to 1024px) + GitHub social banner
├── screenshots/               device + in-Ableton captures
├── mockups/                   the HTML mocks the face was ported from, a browser
│                              stand-in that drives the script, and build-banner.py
├── package.sh                 assembles the download bundle (scrubs the preset's
│                              absolute paths, then zips the device + rack + readme)
├── README.md · LICENSE · .gitignore

All logic lives in glass.jsui.js. The .amxd is a binary container that references the script; once frozen, the script and its images bundle into the device so it no longer depends on Max's search path.

The playable device (Glass.amxd) and the rack preset (GLASS.adg) aren't in the repo. They ship together as a downloadable bundle. The repo holds the source script and assets.

License

MIT © 2026 Andrew Foster