dAVEBOx SA is an 8-track MIDI sequencer for Ableton Move: clips and scenes on the pads, a sound of your choice on every track, note effects and automation per clip, and a browser editor on the same Wi-Fi.
SA stands for standalone session. dAVEBOx SA is not a tool or overtake module running inside Schwung's session. When you launch it from Schwung, Move restarts into a dAVEBOx session — the sequencer, the screens you work in, and the instruments and effects you have installed in Schwung — running on a fork of the Schwung host. Quit, and Move restarts back into your normal Schwung, untouched.
It needs Schwung, and is not a replacement for it. You install dAVEBOx SA from Schwung Manager, start it from Schwung, and it plays the modules, presets and samples your Schwung install has.
It is the successor to dAVEBOx, which was an ordinary module inside Schwung. That version is frozen; everything new happens here.
Read the manual · Watch the tutorials · See it in action
dAVEBOx makes no sound of its own. Every track sends its notes to an instrument: one of Move's own, a Schwung synth (OB-Xd, Dexed and the rest of the module catalog), or an external synth on the USB-A port.
Sequencing
- 8 tracks, 16 clips each, up to 256 steps per clip. Melodic and drum tracks; every drum lane has its own length, so polyrhythms need no setup.
- Per-step pitch, velocity, length, nudge, probability, conditions and ratchets.
- Five pad layouts for playing in: Scale, Chromatic, Piano, Chord and your own Custom chords.
- Capture: whatever you just played is already recorded.
- A Conductor track transposes the other tracks, in key, as its clips play.
- Groove: swing, or the feel of any MIDI file or Ableton groove, per project or per track.
 Track View: every track's clip, the key and the bank |  Hold a step to edit its note, length, velocity and more |
Shaping the notes
- Every clip has its own note effects: arpeggiator, harmonizer, MIDI delay with pitch and velocity feedback, pitch randomization that stays in key, and quantize, gate and velocity shaping. Bake writes the result into the clip so you can stack more on top.
- Schwung MIDI effect modules on any track — after the clip, or in front of the sequencer so you record what they play. They follow dAVEBOx's key, scale and tempo.
 The MIDI delay, one of each clip's note effects |  Everything automated in a clip |
Sound and mixing
- Four insert effects per track, two send buses, master effects and two LFOs per track — on Move's instruments as well as Schwung's.
- Macros: one knob moves several parameters, each over its own range.
- Sound snapshots, and SnapMorph to glide between them on one knob.
- Automation for any parameter, in lanes of their own length, recorded from the knobs or drawn per step.
 Macros: each knob shows what it drives |  SnapMorph: glide between sound snapshots |
Playing live
- Performance mode turns the pads into real-time modulation, with 16 preset slots.
- Note repeat with groove, latch and multi-lane patterns on drum tracks.
- 16 mute/solo snapshots, and scenes launched from the pads.
 Session View: each track's playing clip and the mixer |  Performance mode with mods engaged |
Getting things in and out
- Projects live on the pads, separate from your Move sets.
- Export a project to an Ableton Live set, or any clip to a MIDI file; import MIDI files into clips.
- The browser editor at
move.local:7700has the sequencer, mixer and sound pages, a live mirror of the screen you can record, and the full manual. - Schwung's Quantized Sampler and Skipback work inside dAVEBOx, to record what you play as audio.
The browser editor's sequencer, live in both directions with the Move
- Nothing is installed over stock. Official Schwung and Move's firmware are never modified. dAVEBOx restarts Move under its own build, and leaving hands the device back to stock.
- A reboot returns to stock — even after a power cut — unless you have made dAVEBOx your boot default.
- Your Move sets are untouched. dAVEBOx keeps its own projects and its own copy of Move's settings.
- One folder. Everything dAVEBOx keeps on the Move — projects, settings,
logs and MIDI exports — is in
/data/UserData/daveboxSA.
You need an Ableton Move with Schwung 1.7.3 or newer.
- Open Schwung Manager at
move.local:7700and go to Modules. - Find dAVEBOx SA in the catalog (under Tools) and click Install.
- On the Move, press Shift + Step 13 to open the Tools menu and choose dAVEBOx SA. The first launch finishes the install by itself, which takes about a minute.
Start it from the Tools menu, or hold Back while the Move boots and pick it. Leave with Quit in Project Settings (Shift + Step 2).
Update from Schwung Manager when it shows a newer version. Your projects
carry over; an install from an earlier test build (folder dbx-host) is moved
into daveboxSA on its first launch.
Not in your catalog yet? Download davebox-sa-module.tar.gz from the
Releases page and install it
through Modules → Install Custom Module → From Tarball → Install from File.
Remove it by installing davebox-uninstall-module.tar.gz from the
Releases page the same way and choosing Uninstall dAVEBOx SA in the Tools menu. Your projects
and settings are kept.
New to it? The Quick Start gets you from an empty project to a looping pattern in about fifteen minutes.
The original dAVEBOx — now dAVEBOx Legacy — still works but gets no new features, and dAVEBOx SA replaces it in the Schwung module catalog. The two install side by side, but their projects are separate: dAVEBOx SA doesn't open Legacy projects.
This repo is the whole of dAVEBOx SA: the sequencer module (davebox/), a fork
of Schwung that hosts it, the
browser editor and its server (schwung-manager/), and the launcher and
installer (standalone/). They ship together under one version. Changes that
make sense for Schwung itself are offered upstream.
Writing a module? Write it for Schwung, following its module guide. A module that works on stock Schwung works in a dAVEBOx session; keeping it that way is this repo's job, so there is nothing to target here.
./standalone/scripts/install-sa.sh # build everything and deploy it to a Move over SSH
./standalone/scripts/build-sa-release.sh # assemble the release tarballstandalone/README.md— the launcher, installer and on-device layoutBUILDING.md— the build system and cross-compilingdocs/— the host's architecture, how it runs Schwung modules, and the OLED UI specificationdavebox/CHANGELOG.md— what changed in each release
MIT, as inherited from Schwung — see LICENSE.
Two shipped binaries carry stricter licenses: schwung-shim.so links eSpeak NG
for the screen reader and is GPL-3.0-or-later, and link-subscriber (Ableton
Link) is GPL-2.0-or-later. See THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md.
dAVEBOx was built by AI goblins and designed by a human who is not Dave. It comes with no warranty: if it breaks your Move, makes your child cry or cleans out your fridge, that's on you.