Meet Sonification Tools v3, a suite of tools that turns real-world data into music: Data Path, Data Synth, Data FX, Data Map, and Data Tap turn weather, currencies, mathematics, and live sensor streams into sequences, oscillators,
audio effects, and more - alongside Data Map, a new Ableton Live Extension. Version 3 brings the company's sonification tools, previously available only as Max for Live devices, to VST3, Audio Unit, and CLAP for the first time, so they run in hosts such as Logic, Bitwig, and REAPER, as well as in Ableton Live.
Each tool reads data differently. Data Path, a MIDI effect, plays a data set as melodies, chords, and Euclidean rhythms that stay in key, or uses it to reshape notes played live. Data Synth, a 16-voice MPE-capable synthesizer, builds its waveforms and harmonic spectra from the data itself. Data FX, an audio effect, uses data to set the tuning of a resonator bank, the tap pattern of a delay, the mask of a spectral filter, or the curve of a wavefolder. Data Map, an Ableton Live Extension, writes data straight into MIDI and audio clips, or reshapes clips already in a project, from Live's right-click menu.
Data, now navigated and ingested directly inside the plug-in, comes from online sources across weather, environment, finance, economics, health, and the web - alongside built-in generative mathematical algorithms, including chaotic maps and physical systems, and of course anything from a producer's own spreadsheets, images, text, audio, and video - even from live Open Sound Control streams. Data Tap, a companion app for iPhone that sends motion, touch, microphone, camera, and location data to the plugins, is coming soon to the App Store.
The three plugins share one data selector, one preset format, and one tuning folder, so a single data set can drive a melody, the waveform that plays it, and the effect it runs through in the same session. Fetched data is saved inside each project, so sessions reopen offline exactly as they were saved. On macOS and Windows, all three can be operated with full screen reader support or by keyboard alone.