SufiPlugIns: Seven Devices, One Release, 78k Downloads
Seven devices, all uploaded on the same day in April 2012, all still at version 1.0. SufiPlugIns is not a catalogue built up over years of iteration \u2014 it is a single release, published as a set, and it has accumulated 78,452 downloads in that form. That shape tells you something about how to approach it: these aren't seven unrelated utilities that happen to share an author name. They are parts of one body of work, and the author's own distribution route reflects that, since the same seven devices are also offered as an Ableton Live Project demo song rather than as isolated .amxd files.
The through-line: small, opinionated instruments with a point of view
Five of the seven are instruments, and none of them is a do-everything synth. Each one picks a single synthesis idea and builds a compact voice around it: a dual-oscillator monosynth, an overdriven sine, a feedback oscillator, a waveshaper, a bank of sampled handclaps. There is no mega-patch here, no 200-parameter modulation matrix. If you are used to the sprawl of modern Max for Live instruments, this collection reads as a deliberately narrow set of tools, each with a short path from "open it" to "make a sound."
The naming follows its own logic too \u2014 Hijaz, Bayati, Saba and Khomasi are terms from the vocabulary of Arabic music, and Palmas is the Spanish word for handclapping. The device descriptions themselves stay strictly technical about what each patch does, so treat the names as framing rather than as a promise about tuning systems. What they do signal is intent: this is a set assembled around a cultural idea, not a product line.
The seventh device, Devotion, is the one that makes the intent explicit. It is an audio effect you insert on the master fader, and it adjusts master output level for the call to prayer five times per day, according to geographic location and a devotion-level setting. It doesn't process audio in any conventional sense. It is a device about when you are allowed to be loud. Whatever you make of that as a studio tool, it is a rare example of a Max for Live patch whose parameter list includes something other than frequency and amount.
Palmas is the one everyone downloaded
Palmas accounts for 43,178 of the author's 78,452 downloads \u2014 more than half the total \u2014 and it holds a 5/5 rating across 16 comments, the most discussion of anything in the set. It is an instrument that gives you up to 32 pairs of hands clapping, with varying stereo position, velocity, playback speed and attack triggered on any MIDI note-on.
The key phrase is "any MIDI note-on." You are not playing a keyboard map of clap samples; you are triggering a crowd. The variation across the 32 pairs is what makes this different from loading one clap into Simpler and adding a short delay \u2014 the stereo spread and per-pair playback speed produce the smear and width that a single sample plus randomisation struggles to fake.
Three things to try first:
- Feed it a straight four-on-the-floor MIDI clip on a single note and dial the number of hands up and down across an arrangement \u2014 it becomes a density control for a whole section.
- Drive it from a clip of dense, slightly-off sixteenths to get a rolling palmas texture rather than a backbeat accent.
- Print the output to audio and treat the stereo field as a source, not a finished layer. A wide clap bed sits very differently against a narrow kick than a sampled clap one-shot does.
If you only ever install one thing from this author, this is the one, and the download count suggests most people reached the same conclusion.
Four small synths, four different reasons to reach for them
The instrument group splits cleanly by synthesis approach, which makes choosing between them straightforward.
- Khomasi is the conventional one: a Moog-style dual oscillator monosynth with independent envelope generators for the VCA and the VCF. 6,970 downloads and a 5/5 rating. Separate amp and filter envelopes are the thing to exploit \u2014 a long filter sweep under a short amp decay, or the reverse, gives you plucks and swells from the same patch.
- Bayati is the minimal one: an overdriven sine wave through a resonant filter, and nothing else. 5,338 downloads. This is a sub-bass and lead machine. Overdrive on a sine is the oldest trick for turning a fundamental into something with harmonics you can then filter back out, and with this few controls you will land on a usable tone fast.
- Saba is the unstable one: an iterative feedback oscillator with a resonant filter, rated 4/5 across 5,705 downloads. Feedback oscillators reward slow, careful knob movement and punish presets. Record your parameter moves rather than hunting for a single static sound.
- Hijaz is the random one: a randomisable three-band waveshape-distortion synth, 6,256 downloads. The randomiser is the interface here. Use it the way you'd use a dice roll on a modular patch \u2014 hit it repeatedly, capture the two or three results that surprise you, and move on.
Running two of these on separate tracks and letting them share a MIDI clip is a reasonable way to find the character of each: Khomasi for the body, Bayati for the fundamental, Hijaz or Saba for the layer that misbehaves.
Drone, and what it wants from you
Drone is one of two audio effects in the set and the only semi-modular design among them: four pulse-width-modulated oscillators, overdrive, and parallel high and low band-pass filters. 8,321 downloads, rated 4/5 across 9 comments. Four PWM oscillators into parallel band-pass paths is a classic recipe for a sustained bed that moves without anything obviously modulating \u2014 the beating between slightly detuned pulse widths does the work.
It's categorised as an audio effect, so it sits on a track rather than taking MIDI, which makes it a good candidate for a dedicated drone channel you fade in under a section and leave running. The author published an instructional video for it; the device page is the place to start from there.
Where to start, and what to expect from 2012 patches
Order of approach, based on how the catalogue has actually been used: Palmas first, then Drone, then Khomasi. That covers a rhythmic instrument, a sustained texture generator and a straightforward playable synth \u2014 three different jobs, and the three best-documented devices in the set by comment count.
Set expectations honestly on the technical side. Every device here lists Live 8.1.4 and Max 5.1.3 as its environment, and none has been updated since 2012. Later Live and Max versions generally load older Max for Live devices, but "generally" is not "always," and a patch from this era may want to be opened and re-saved before it behaves. Test the set in a scratch project before you build a live rig around it, and if something loads but looks wrong, open it in the Max editor first rather than assuming it's broken.
All seven are released under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence. That governs what you can do with the devices themselves \u2014 relevant if you plan to modify one and pass it on, less so if you're just using them to make music.
If the small-synth approach appeals and you want a modern counterpart to sit alongside these, the current instruments roundup is a reasonable next stop, and the wider best-of lists cover ground this set doesn't touch. But for a rhythm bed with 32 pairs of hands in it, there still isn't an obvious replacement.