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Scaffold: Session to Arrangement Builder for Ableton Live

SCAFFOLD

Composition Constructor

$19
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Scaffold is an Ableton Live Extension that works in both directions between Session and Arrangement View. Construct mode takes the clips already in your Session View and places them into the Arrangement according to one of five composition algorithms, with configurable section length, per-track density, and continuation behaviour. Deconstruct mode goes the other way, reading an existing arrangement and copying its segments back into new Session scenes. The two modes share one dialog, toggled from the header, and both write in a single undo step.


BIDIRECTIONAL CONSTRUCTION

  • Sequential per Scene advances all tracks through your scenes together, mirroring the Session View's vertical structure into a linear arrangement
  • Sequential per Track lets each track cycle its own clips independently, so tracks fall in and out of phase over time as they reach the end of their clip list at different points
  • Random per Scene picks a new scene at each interval boundary with all tracks playing from the same shared choice, maintaining track cohesion while randomising scene order
  • Random per Track lets each track pick an independent clip at each boundary, with Swaps (Min/Max) controlling how many tracks actually switch at any given boundary rather than all of them at once
  • Song Structure maps your Session scenes to a compositional form from a template library spanning Pop/Rock, Blues, Jazz, Hip-Hop, R&B, EDM, Dubstep, Drum and Bass, Ambient, Country, Metal, Reggae, and Classical forms, in either Semantic mode (matched by scene name) or Positional mode (matched by scene order)
  • Semantic templates match scenes by section-type name: a scene called Verse fills every Verse position in the form, a scene called Chorus fills every Chorus position, with matching handled case-insensitively
  • Positional templates match scenes by order instead: Scene 1 fills the A role, Scene 2 fills B, Scene 3 fills C, regardless of what the scenes are named
  • Linear plays all scenes once in order, the simplest template, equivalent to Sequential per Scene with the full scene set and no continuation
  • Extends the main sequence beyond its last section with Loop (replay from the start), Fold (ping-pong forward and backward, with each track folding independently in Sequential per Track mode), or Vamp (a free-form extension drawn randomly from the clip pool at the current Density setting)
  • Sets per-track Density from 1 to 100%, randomly muting individual tracks at each interval boundary to create space, with at least one track always playing per interval
  • Writes named locators at each scene change boundary, including scene name and tempo if set, so the arrangement's section structure is immediately readable in the timeline
  • Colours output clips to match their Session View source (Source mode) or assigns a consistent colour per section type across the whole arrangement (Section mode), making compositional form visible at a glance

Sequential per Track and Random per Track both use Swaps, but in meaningfully different ways. In Sequential per Track, tracks move forward at their own clip-cycle rate, so divergence accumulates slowly and predictably over time. In Random per Track, Swaps directly controls how many tracks change on each boundary, with the rest staying where they are, which produces arrangements where some tracks evolve while others hold still, a textural evolution rather than a full-ensemble reset at every section.

Semantic templates require named scenes to work correctly, which is the one piece of preparation Scaffold asks for before opening the dialog. Common labels like Verse, Chorus, Drop, Build, Break, Intro, Outro, and Bridge are all recognised. Positional templates need nothing from you at all, they work from scene order alone, which makes them more immediately usable when your session is still in rough shape.

Fold in Sequential per Track mode produces a result that's genuinely different from Fold in the scene-based modes, and worth understanding before reaching for it. In scene-based modes, all tracks reverse direction together at the same endpoint. In per-track mode, each track has its own clip list of a potentially different length, so each one folds at a different point in the arrangement, creating polyrhythmic offset relationships as tracks reverse at staggered moments rather than simultaneously.

Deconstruct's two extraction modes answer the same question from two different directions. Bars mode is for when you know the segment size you want and the arrangement is unstructured. Locators mode is for when you've already marked the structure with cue points and want to respect those boundaries exactly. Using Scaffold's own locator-writing option in Construct mode and then reversing with Locators extraction in Deconstruct mode closes the loop completely: whatever structure Scaffold wrote, it can read back.


CREATIVE DECONSTRUCTION

  • Divides an Arrangement time selection into equal bar-length segments and copies each into a new Session scene, with the bar range used as the scene name when naming is on
  • Alternatively splits by cue points, creating one scene per pair of consecutive locators and using the cue point labels as scene names
  • Always appends new scenes below the last existing scene rather than overwriting anything
  • Includes only clips whose start positions fall within each segment, with the original arrangement always untouched
Tool Tip Annotated
Learn all you need to know directly in Live - just click the [?] icon in the Extension and hover your mouse over any parameter.
Scale Aware
Natively integrated with Live 12's scale and key for seamless workflow.
Already comes included in:
Extensions Bundle 001 · Ultra Bundle

Requires:
Ableton Live Suite 12.4.5 or above.
Not available in Live Standard, Intro, or Lite.

EXTENSION
Workflow