MK16-185 Sequencer by Kapetan: 16 Stages, Live-Ready
Kapetan's MK16-185 Sequencer is a knob-per-stage step sequencer that lives on a MIDI track and generates notes. It began as a modification of Nico Starke's ML-185 Stage Controlled Sequencer and grew into its own thing: 16 stages, per-stage division, a randomizer you can constrain, preset slots that save inside the Live project, and an interface that was rebuilt for version 1.5 in September 2015.
If you have ever wanted the workflow of a hardware sequencer panel — turn a knob, hear the pitch change, nudge a division until the pattern limps in a way you like — without leaving Live's MIDI chain, this is the shape of device that does it.
What the device actually gives you
The feature set is unusually well documented in the changelog, so it is worth being precise about what you get:
- 16 knob stages. Each step is a knob, not a grid cell. You set pitch by hand and you can see the whole pattern as a row of positions.
- Semitones or MIDI note numbers. A switch changes how the stage values are expressed, which matters a lot when you are trying to hit a specific note rather than a relative interval.
- Division. Stages carry a division setting, and it is deliberately excluded from both Randomize and Clear — so your rhythmic skeleton survives when you re-roll the pitches.
- Randomize with an adjustable range. You decide how wide the dice can throw. Version 1.5 improved this section.
- Presets saved into the Live project. Patterns travel with the set, not with a separate file you will lose.
- MIDI-Through on the main interface and an On/Off button, both reachable without digging.
- A minimize button that shrinks the device width, plus two selectable skins and a global play mode setting, all added in 1.5.
- Timing down to 1/4, with note duration tied to the timing setting after the 1.0.1 fix — short divisions no longer produce notes that overrun their own tick.
One known issue is listed openly: the division number does not update visually when the stage is inactive. That is a display quirk, not a sound problem, but it is the kind of thing worth knowing before you file a bug report.
Scenario one: a mono bassline you perform rather than draw
Put MK16-185 on a MIDI track in front of a monophonic bass instrument. Set timing to 1/16, switch to semitones, and clear everything. Now dial in four or five stages by hand and leave the rest at zero or inactive, so the pattern has holes in it.
From there, the division controls are where the character comes from. Stretching one stage across several ticks creates a long anchor note that the rest of the pattern orbits. Because Randomize leaves division alone, you can keep that rhythmic frame and shuffle the pitches as many times as you like — narrow the randomize range to a few semitones and you get variations that stay in key-adjacent territory instead of jumping octaves.
Store the results as presets. Since they live in the project, each arrangement section can get its own pattern without any external file management, and you can recall them from the device while the transport runs.
Scenario two: live playing on top of a running sequence
MIDI-Through on the front panel is the feature that makes this a performance device rather than just a pattern generator. Leave it on and the notes you play from a controller pass through the device alongside the generated sequence. Feed both into a poly synth and you have a self-running bed you can play chords or melody over, with one button to stop the sequence when you want the arrangement to open up.
The global play mode in 1.5 matters here too: if you have several instances across a template, they can follow one behaviour rather than each needing to be set individually. Combine that with the minimize button and you can keep four or five sequencers visible in a device chain row without the horizontal scroll becoming unusable.
Scenario three: driving hardware
Nothing about this device cares whether the destination is a plugin or a box. Route the MIDI track to an External Instrument or straight to a hardware output and you are using Live as a host for a 16-stage sequencer with randomization, which is a reasonable substitute if you do not own one in physical form.
Pitch is only half of a hardware patch, though. For the CC side, CC map8 by veedjee is the obvious companion: it is bidirectional, has MIDI learn, and is built specifically for sending CC to outboard gear. One track running MK16-185 for notes, another running CC map8 for filter and envelope sweeps, is a clean division of labour.
Where it sits among comparable MIDI effects
In the same popularity band on the MIDI effect shelf, MK16-185 is the odd one out — and that is the most useful thing to know about it. Most of its neighbours are modulators, not note generators.
LFO Zero by monolake is a general-purpose LFO with sample and hold, smoothing, and songtime-synced reset. It modulates parameters; it does not produce notes. Architect by pmonet is hand-drawn envelope modulation and carries a 5/5 rating across 29 comments — we looked at it in more detail in our Architect deep-dive. MotionMod by zealtv reads motion from a camera and turns it into modulation, which is a performance idea rather than a sequencing one. CC map8 is a controller bridge.
So the practical comparison is not "which of these should I pick" but "what goes next to MK16-185 in the chain." Pitch from the sequencer, parameter movement from Architect or LFO Zero, CC to hardware from CC map8. They stack rather than compete.
What 22,113 downloads and a 4/5 rating tell you
Twenty-two thousand downloads over a decade puts this firmly in the well-travelled category, and 47 comments is a high number — more than any of its popularity neighbours. That volume of discussion usually means two things: people used it seriously enough to hit edge cases, and the author was responsive enough that reporting them seemed worthwhile. The changelog supports that reading, with a specific note-duration bug fixed between 1.0 and 1.0.1.
The 4/5 rating is solid rather than spotless. Next to Architect's 5/5 and CC map8's 5/5 it looks slightly behind, but those are narrower tools; a sequencer has more surface area for a user to disagree with. Four out of five with this much traffic reads as "does the job, has rough edges," which matches the openly listed display bug.
The date is the real caveat. Version 1.5 shipped in September 2015, built against Live 9.1.7 and Max 7.0.1, and nothing has changed since. On a current Live install, test it in a scratch set before you build a performance around it. The license is Attribution-NonCommercial, which is worth reading if you intend to redistribute a modified version.
Who should skip it
Skip MK16-185 if you want polyphony — this is a stage sequencer, one value per step, and chord work belongs in clips. Skip it if your goal is sequencing Live's own device parameters rather than notes; that is a different category of tool, and we covered one approach in the 3X Parameter Sequencer write-up. Skip it if you need pattern chaining, song-length variation lists, or anything resembling a step sequencer's arrangement features.
And skip it if you are unwilling to troubleshoot a device that has not been updated in years. For everyone else — anyone who likes setting pitch by hand, likes constrained randomness, and wants presets that stay inside the set — it is a reasonable addition to the MIDI chain. If you want a broader survey first, the current MIDI effects roundup is a good place to orient.