Manifest Audio’s Polyfold: The Sequencer With (Over) 1000 Steps

If the modern DAW has conditioned us to think in neat four-bar loops, Polyfold would like a word. Manifest Audio’s latest Max for Live device aims to expand the concept of a step sequencer.

In releasing Polyfold, a new Max for Live MIDI sequencer for Ableton Live, Manifest Audio have taken an ambitious view of what a sequencer can be. Framed as a “multidimensional sequencing system,” it gestures beyond the familiar comfort of 16-step grids and tidy four-bar loops, proposing something closer to an architectural framework for rhythm, melody, and harmony.

At the centre of the device is a dual stage rate architecture built around a shared base rate. Rather than assigning each lane a simple clock division and calling it a day, Polyfold routes timing through two independent sequencers labelled Multiply and Divide. Each runs at its own length and combines each step to reshape the underlying rate before it reaches the rest of the system. In practice, this allows for local accelerations, contractions, and asymmetries. It’s complex, but not chaotic: the math remains grounded in your control.

Beyond those two, Polyfold offers 14 additional sequencer lanes, each supporting up to 1024 steps (though they can be as short as two steps each). Loop length, direction, and reset behaviour can be applied per lane, so you can build tight interlocking polymeters, letting individual parts run for long stretches before they coincide again — or enforce more conventional phrasing with the bar reset interval. Global controls make it possible to impose shared step counts or resets across unlocked lanes, while per-parameter play direction adds further dynamics.

“1024 steps per lane” is of course the headline figure that prompts a double take. In a landscape dominated by short loops and incremental automation, it may appear indulgent. But Polyfold’s expansive scale makes more sense in context: you don’t have to run every lane to the horizon. One transposition or modulation lane might stretch towards 1000 steps, unfolding over minutes, while a pitch lane cycles briskly through 16 steps or less. The friction between those lengths is where the interest lies. Short, familiar loops provide a centre of gravity; as longer lanes drift across them, they introduce gradual harmonic turns, rhythmic offsets, or gestural swells that take far longer to resolve. Instead of everything repeating together, elements phase through different relational states, creating extended interactions that animate otherwise traditionally cyclic material.

These extended step lengths also afford a different approach to longer melodic gestures: it’s easy to click and draw a curving pitch narrative over hundreds of steps, then apply gentle randomization to add dynamic variation to a melody that still broadly follows the drawn contour. Pitch duties are handled by four discrete-range pitch lanes, enabling up to four-voice polyphony. Each includes per-note probability and access to preset pattern libraries, with user sequences stored directly inside the device.

These all come alongside a notably detailed Ratchet engine. Ratcheting here is not a blunt rhythmic repeat tool, but a fully parameterised layer, with pitch, velocity, and length decay, probability and deviation controls, plus bounded behaviours such as clip, wrap, and fold. The rhythmic ratcheting is relative to the current step’s rate, so it’s already dynamic; adding the pitch decay turns each ratchet into intricately expressive ornamentation.

Finally, two additional modulation sequencers generate a combined control signal that can be mapped to up to eight parameters in a Live set. The signals can be mathematically combined — added, subtracted, multiplied, or divided — then shaped with slew, jitter, smoothing, and quantisation. OSC transmission and optional MIDI CC output extend Polyfold beyond Live, while the bundled X-Relay utility handles flexible routing within your set.

POLYFOLD: Key Features

• 16 independent sequencer lanes with up to 1024 steps per lane
• Dual rate-stage architecture with per-step Multiply and Divide timing control
• Shared base rate with polymetric and polycyclic lane interaction
• Four polyphonic pitch sequencers with per-note probability
• Optional Octave and bar-level Transpose sequencing
• Scale-aware operation with local or global key control
• Dedicated sequencers for Chance, Velocity, Length, Hold and Delay
• Advanced Ratchet sequencer with pitch, velocity and length decay plus probability and deviation controls
• Euclidean and count-based pattern generation for Velocity, Chance and modulation lanes
• Preset pattern libraries for Pitch and Transpose with random selection
• Two modulation sequencers with additive, subtractive, multiplicative and divisive combination modes
• Assignable summed modulation output to up to eight parameters
• OSC output with per-lane address routing
• Optional MIDI CC output for external hardware and software control
• X-Relay routing utility for flexible MIDI distribution across a Live set
• Per-lane loop length, direction, rotation and bar reset controls
• Global lock system for synchronized or independent parameter editing
• Adjustable randomization, invert and scramble functions per sequencer

Requires Ableton Live 12.3 running Max 9.

Introductory pricing ends February 28. Visit the Manifest Audio website to purchase.