Ableton Breaks the Rules: Sanjay C’s Take on Extensions, Knock Drums & Synth Resurrection

Ableton’s just thrown a spanner in the workflow works by unleashing Extensions—letting you build custom tools right inside Live. No more praying for the next update to sort your session chaos; now you (or some clever coder you know) can whip up track organisers, colour coders, and automation robots that actually do what you want. This is serious DIY territory, but if you’re fed up with repetitive DAW busywork, it’s a potential game-changer.

Don’t get it twisted though: Extensions aren’t here to kill Max for Live. Max is still the playground for sonic mad scientists, while Extensions are all about making Live less of a faff for the rest of us. The catch? It’s beta-only right now, and mostly for Suite users with a taste for code. But if history tells us anything, it’s that the wildest tools come from the community, not the corporate roadmap. If you want to see what this dangerous door really looks like, you’ll need to dive into the video for the full picture.

GForce and Sequential have teamed up for the first officially licensed Prophet-5 plugin. Yes, there are a million Prophet clones out there, but this one comes with the proper stamp of approval—and all three classic revisions under one virtual hood. Want that Rev1 filter grit or Rev3’s envelope snap? You can flip between them faster than a DJ swapping USB sticks.

GForce didn’t just stop at nostalgia. The plugin piles on modern must-haves: deeper modulation with their X modifiers, splits, layers, MPE, effects, 20 voices, and more. You get the Prophet vibe without the maintenance headaches or the second mortgage. Sanjay C gives it the nod, and if you want to hear how it stacks up in practice, check the video for audio demos and some sharp commentary.

The Erae Sound synth from Embodme is what happens when you build a plugin specifically for an MPE controller instead of bolting on half-baked support. Designed for the touchy-feely Erae 2 surface, it loads custom layouts per preset—so every patch feels like a new instrument, not just a piano in disguise. Use a harp patch, and the grid transforms to match. Play something wild, and the interface morphs right under your fingers.

Specs-wise, it’s virtual analog with all the modern extras—morphing, FM, wavefolding, and effects. But the real kicker is the way it finally treats MPE as a first-class citizen. You’re not locked to the Erae either; any MPE controller will do the business. Want to see the layouts shapeshift in real time? Only the video will do it justice—trust me, words won’t capture the tactile madness.

Cherry Audio’s back at it, this time resurrecting the Ensoniq ESQ-1—one of those quirky hybrids that mashed digital oscillators with analog filters before it was cool. Their plugin nails the original waveforms (officially licensed, no less), and you can even import SysEx patches from the real deal. It’s the classic ESQ-1 sound, somewhere between warm and razor-sharp, with all the nostalgia minus the creaky 80s hardware.

As always, Cherry Audio keeps it wallet-friendly, so you’re not paying vintage collector prices for a bit of dusty magic. If you want to hear how those digital-analog textures stack up against modern softsynths, Sanjay’s walkthrough is a must-watch. Some synth ghosts are worth raising, and this one comes back swinging.