Kanoid

What it does

Kanoid is a little brick-breaker game that runs in time with Live. Every time the ball hits a brick it plays a note, and the ball, the paddle and the hits can move any parameter in your set: a filter, a send, a reverb, anything you can click.

The game moves on Live's grid, one row per 16th note, so every note lands in time. A full wall plays once a bar. As it breaks up, the rhythm drifts, and the ball gets into gaps and rattles out quick bursts.

With the paddle on Auto, you get the same game every time you play from the same bar, so it's a riff you can arrange, not a dice roll. If you want it to keep changing, let it carry on through Live's loop, or hit RESTART. Turn the notes off and it's a modulator.

What's in it

• 14 walls and 1 to 3 balls, each ball on its own cycle for cross-rhythms
• 5 power-ups from falling capsules: three balls, lasers on the 8ths, half time, a paddle that holds the ball for a beat, a wider paddle
• 10 scales, with pitch climbing by row or by column
• 4 modulation slots: Ball X, Ball Y, Hit, Bounce, Paddle, Bricks, Power
• Mouse mode: play the paddle yourself
• 8 presets for melodic and organic house, from Dreich (a dark pedal bass) to Ceilidh (busy, for build-ups), and a one-page manual