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Prism as Your Hardware Brain

Your iPad becomes the brain. Your hardware becomes the hands.

This recipe covers using Prism as the central sequencer for an external hardware rig — synths, drum machines, and controllers all connected and sequenced from a single iOS device. It also covers adding Ableton Live to the system for a complete four-piece rig.

The Setup

You need Prism running inside a host app. AUM is the most flexible choice for hardware-heavy setups — it handles MIDI routing between Prism and your external gear cleanly. Logic Pro for iPad, Cubasis, and Loopy Pro all work too.

Basic routing:

  1. Open your host and load Prism as an AUv3 MIDI plug-in.
  2. Connect your external hardware via USB MIDI or a MIDI interface.
  3. In Prism, assign each track to the MIDI channel your target instrument listens on. Track 1 → drum machine channel 10. Track 2 → synth channel 1. And so on.
  4. Press play in the host. Prism syncs to the host's transport and starts sending MIDI to your hardware.

Each of Prism's 16 tracks can send to a different MIDI channel and port. Your drum machine, your bass synth, your lead synth, your pad synth — each gets its own track, its own sequence, its own parameter locks. The hardware just receives and plays.

Sequencing a Drum Machine

Load a drum track in Prism and build your kick, snare, and hi-hat patterns on separate pads. Each pad sends a specific MIDI note — match them to your drum machine's note map using a Drum Profile. Prism includes factory profiles for common instruments; if yours isn't listed, create a custom profile that maps each pad to the right note.

Each pad is an independent mini-sequencer with its own length and resolution. Set your kick to 16 steps and your hi-hat to 7 steps — the hi-hat loops against the kick in a pattern that takes many bars to fully cycle. Add the Euclidean Sequencer Extension and give each pad its own three-layer Euclidean algorithm. Your drum machine plays patterns its own internal sequencer could never produce.

Parameter Locks add another layer: lock the filter cutoff on specific drum hits, lock the velocity on individual steps, lock any MIDI CC your drum machine responds to. Every hit can be slightly different without any automation lanes.

Sequencing Synths

Use tonal tracks for melodic and harmonic content. Set your key and scale in the FX section — every note placed on any tonal track will be in key, including notes generated by the arpeggiator, harmonizer, and randomizers.

Bass line: A simple tonal track with a short sequence and a few parameter locks on filter and velocity gives you an expressive bass that evolves over time without constant editing.

Chords: Use Chord Blocks. Place block references on trigs across your chord track, then edit the blocks themselves to change harmony globally. Switch scenes to swap to a different bank of chord blocks — your entire harmonic world changes in one tap, while your synth just keeps receiving MIDI.

Leads: Use Fuse Modes. Set a lead track to Echo a chord track — it plays the same notes as the chord track but with its own sequence length, loop points, and FX processing. Or use Melt to extract the rhythm from your drum track and apply the pitch from your chord track — a rhythmically active lead that shares pitch content with the harmony.

Adding a Launchpad

Connect a Novation Launchpad via USB. Prism auto-detects supported models (Launchpad Pro MK1, MK3, Mini, X). Use the quick-connect button to pair it.

The Launchpad gives you physical control over everything Prism can do from its screen. View your 64-step sequences on the Launchpad's grid. Trigger trigs with physical pads that light up in your track's color. Use the global mixer mode to access track selection, pattern switching, scene launching, and mute control — all without touching the iPad screen.

For live performance: leave Prism's interface on the step grid or FX view, and work the Launchpad for everything else. Your iPad shows you the detail; your Launchpad handles the macro moves.

Adding a Launchkey Mini MK4

The Launchkey Mini MK4 IAP ($4.99) adds keyboard and encoder control. Connect the Launchkey alongside the Launchpad — both work simultaneously with complementary modes. The Launchkey provides a physical keyboard for playing notes into Prism's retroactive capture buffer, encoder control for parameter adjustments, and additional navigation.

With Launchpad + Launchkey + Prism on iPad, you have a three-device hardware rig controlled by a unified sequencing brain. The iPad shows the full picture; the Launchpad handles step control and scenes; the Launchkey handles playing and parameter control.

Adding Ableton Live

Install the Prism Ableton Remote Script on your laptop. Connect iPad and laptop to the same network or via USB.

Once connected, the script performs a ping-pong handshake with Ableton that auto-maps 16 Ableton tracks, captures track names, macro names, and drum pad names, and syncs Ableton's track colors to Prism's interface. Prism's CC 1–16 map directly to Ableton Macros 1–16.

Ableton becomes a sound source that Prism sequences. Load synths, samplers, and drum racks in Ableton; Prism tells them what to play. Change a Prism parameter lock and the corresponding Ableton macro moves. The system is fully bi-directional — Ableton's names and colors live inside Prism's interface.

The result: Prism sequences, Launchpad controls, Launchkey plays, Ableton provides the sound engine. A complete four-piece rig, built around an iPad, for a fraction of the cost of dedicated hardware.

Performance Tips

Scenes for song structure. Set up scenes for each section: intro, verse, chorus, breakdown. Each scene stores which pattern each track is playing plus mute states. Switching scenes during performance moves the entire arrangement — all 16 tracks — in one tap.

Mute profiles for variation. Each scene has 8 mute profiles. Build a "full" and a "stripped" version of each section without creating new scenes. Switch mute profiles live for instant dynamics.

Retroactive capture for happy accidents. Your Launchkey is connected and you're playing melodies while the sequence runs. Prism is capturing everything. Hold Capture when you play something that works and retrieve it from the buffer — even if you weren't recording.

Parameter locks for expression. Automate your synth's filter cutoff, resonance, and envelope on specific steps without any automation lanes. Every step in Prism can carry different CC values for any parameter your hardware responds to.

For documentation on the features used in this recipe, see: Chord Blocks, Fuse Modes, Euclidean Rhythms, Retroactive Capture, and Getting Started.