Architect by pmonet: Hand-Drawn Envelopes as Modulation
Live gives you two kinds of modulation out of the box: automation lanes you draw in the arrangement, and the fixed ADSR shapes inside instruments and effects. Neither helps when you want a specific curve — a slow rise, a notch, a fast fall, a plateau — fired on a note instead of pinned to a timeline position.
Architect by pmonet sits in that gap. It is an envelope generator with a drawing surface: you build a shape by hand, map it to any parameter in your set, and trigger it with MIDI or by hand. It has 22,361 downloads and a 5/5 rating across 29 comments, which for a MIDI effect from 2014 is a strong signal that it did what people needed.
What the device actually does
The core is an editable envelope shape. You place and drag curve points, the envelope is output as modulation, and the Map button assigns it to a destination parameter. From there the controls shape how that envelope behaves in time:
- Time domain — set the envelope length in seconds or as a sync rate, so the same drawn shape can be free-running or locked to the project tempo.
- Trigger source — MIDI by default, or manual.
- Loop — the envelope can loop in free mode, which turns a drawn shape into an LFO with an arbitrary waveform.
- Reverse — trigger the shape backwards without redrawing it.
- Range flip — swap min and max to invert the envelope.
- Grid — user-definable, with snapping for curve points, so you can build stepped or rhythmically exact shapes instead of freehand ones.
- Presets and Store — several preset shapes ship with it, and the Store button saves your own.
It is a MIDI effect, so it lives on a MIDI track. That matters for how you build the session, and it is the single biggest practical constraint — more on that below.
Three ways to put it in a session
1. A real envelope for a parameter that has none
Say you have a bass on an audio or instrument track and you want the filter cutoff to do something an ADSR cannot: jump up, hold, dip, then slide down over the length of the note. Put Architect on a MIDI track, map it to the filter's cutoff, and feed that MIDI track a clip containing the same rhythm as the bass part. Every note retriggers the drawn shape. Because the time domain can be set to a sync rate, you can make the envelope exactly one bar or one sixteenth long and know it will stay aligned when you change tempo.
Duplicate the bass clip into the Architect track and strip it down to the notes you want to trigger on — you do not need every note to fire the envelope. Skipping the offbeats gives you accented notes without any extra automation.
2. A custom-shaped LFO with free loop
Switch the loop to free mode and the envelope repeats independently of the grid. Draw something deliberately asymmetric — a long ramp with a sharp notch two-thirds of the way through — and point it at a reverb send, a delay feedback, or a wavetable position. Free-running loops drift against the bar, so the notch lands in a different place every cycle. It is a cheap way to make a sustained pad stop sounding static over four minutes without touching an automation lane.
If you want the same movement tempo-locked instead, switch the time domain to sync rate. The shape stays; only the relationship to the clock changes. Store both versions as presets and A/B them.
3. Arrangement-scale transitions fired by hand
Set the time domain in seconds, draw a long curve — fifteen, thirty seconds — and use manual trigger. Map it to whatever carries your build: a filter, a pitch, a distortion drive. Hit the trigger at the point in the set where the transition starts and the shape plays out at exactly the same rate every time, which is more reliable than riding a controller. Then use the reverse trigger for the way back down, and the min/max flip if you want the same contour applied upside down to a second parameter.
This is where the grid earns its place too: snap the curve points and you get stepped transitions — a gate pattern, a tremolo that accelerates — rather than smooth ramps.
What the numbers say
22,361 downloads and a perfect 5/5 rating is an unusual combination. Rating counts are not published, but a device with 29 comments and no detractors has either a very focused audience or a design that does not get in the way. Architect's description is unusually clear about scope — it draws envelopes and maps them — and devices that promise one thing tend to rate well.
The license is Attribution, the most permissive in this comparison group. If you are making music for release or for clients, that is a practical advantage over devices carrying NonCommercial or NoDerivatives terms.
The date tells a different story. The last update is 7 May 2015, version 1.0.1, built against Live 9.1.2 and Max 6.1.7. That update announced a full rewrite — Architect 2.0, as an audio effect so it could sit on any track, with easier parameter mapping, a MIDI-sustained loop mode, a resizable pop-out envelope window, and a reworked Map button. Nothing past 1.0.1 is listed. Treat the device as it stands: a 2015 build, and test it in your Live version before you commit it to a set you have to perform.
Where it sits among comparable MIDI effects
The devices clustered around Architect in popularity solve adjacent problems, and the differences are worth knowing before you download four things and keep none.
LFO Zero by monolake is a general-purpose LFO with sample and hold, a smoothing algorithm and a songtime-synced reset. If you want cyclic modulation from standard waveforms, it is the more direct tool — Architect's strength is that the waveform is whatever you draw. LFO Zero is older still (2011, Live 8.2.2, Max 5.1.8) and carries no rating yet, so it is the riskier download of the two on compatibility grounds.
MK16-185 Sequencer by Kapetan is a modification of Nico Starke's ML-185 stage-controlled sequencer, at version 1.5 with 47 comments and a 4/5 rating. That is a step sequencer, not a modulator: discrete steps with stage control, where Architect is a continuous curve. If your idea is rhythmic and pitched, start there. If your idea is a contour, start here. For stepping Live's knobs specifically, the 3X Parameter Sequencer covers that angle.
CC map8 by veedjee also holds a 5/5 rating and does something entirely different: bidirectional CC control for hardware, with MIDI learn, sat on a MIDI track with input and output armed. Pair it with Architect rather than choosing between them — draw a shape in one, send it out as CC with the other, assuming your routing cooperates.
MotionMod by zealtv is the outlier: modulation from camera motion detection, 4/5 across 27 comments, built from Andrew Benson's Hold Still and Zlatko's peakmod. It is the opposite philosophy — modulation you cannot draw, because it comes from your body.
Who should skip it
Skip Architect if any of these describe you:
- You will not add a MIDI track. Version 1.0.1 is a MIDI effect. The planned audio-effect rewrite is exactly the fix for this, and it is not here. If your workflow is audio tracks only, the extra track plus trigger clip is overhead you will resent.
- You need the envelope to sustain while a note is held. MIDI-sustained loop mode is listed as upcoming, not shipped.
- You want plain cyclic modulation. A sine, a triangle, a sample-and-hold — LFO Zero or any stock LFO gets you there faster than drawing it.
- You cannot tolerate compatibility risk in a live rig. A device last touched in 2015 deserves a rehearsal, not a debut.
For everyone else — anyone who has given up on an automation lane because the shape they wanted had to repeat on every note — this is the right tool, and the download and rating figures suggest a lot of people reached the same conclusion.