MIDI pattern generator · VST3 / AU

Patterns that
sound like you.

Stepista generates bass, lead, pad and chord patterns inside your DAW. Drop one of your own clips on it and every pattern after that follows your rhythm, your intervals, your range.

€59ONE-TIME · macOS & WINDOWS
Buy nowTry the free demo

VST3 · AU · Tested in Ableton Live; other hosts in progress

Stepista plugin window: piano roll with a learned Electro Bassline pattern, Forget and Gen buttons, ten knobs, key and mode selectors
24Presets, 6 families
1–16Bars per pattern
.midDrop a clip, it learns
DragStraight into your DAW
Hands on a compact MIDI keyboard in a dark studio, lit by an amber lamp
The piano roll after Learn: a pattern generated in the voice of the dropped clip
Learn

Drop a clip.
Get more of it.

Drag any .mid onto the bar at the bottom of Stepista. It reads the rhythm and the intervals of your clip and, from then on, every Gen plays in that voice: same phrasing, same register, same key. Push Density and Drift to wander further; pull them back to stay close.

Source
Any MIDI clip, 1 to 16 bars
Keeps
Your key, mode, octave and locked notes
Forget
One click back to the style templates
A dark studio desk with a laptop, a coiled cable and an audio interface under an amber lamp
Workflow

Drag it straight
into a clip.

The bar at the bottom of the window is a MIDI file. Drag it onto a track and it lands as a clip with the right length, tempo and name. Don't like it? Undo, turn a knob, drag again. Swing, velocity and octave change while the pattern plays; Accent, Density, Drift and Tension shape the next Gen.

Output
Standard MIDI file, 480 PPQ, named after the preset and key
Library
Save patterns with their learned session and reload them later
Engine

Deterministic, musical, fast.

Every pattern comes from a seeded engine: the same settings always give the same notes, and every Gen finishes before you lift your finger.

24 presets that know their genre

Each one carries its own rhythmic template and musical priors, so a techno sequence and a jazz waltz do not come from the same dice.

Electro Bassline · Acid Line · House Groove · Detroit Techno · Psytrance Sequence · Synthwave Lead · Lo-Fi Melody · Ambient Pad · DnB Arp · Reggaeton Dembow · UK Drill · Jazz Waltz…

Ten knobs, two speeds

White knobs change the pattern as it plays. Indigo knobs shape the next Gen. Pin any of them to keep its value when you hit Random.

ACC · DNS · SWG · VEL · DFT · BPM · BAR · OCT · LEN · TNS

Any key, any mode

Pick a root and a mode and the engine stays inside it. Tension borrows notes from outside the scale on purpose, never by accident. Lock a note and it stays where you put it.

Major · Minor · Dorian · Phrygian · Lydian · Mixolydian · Harmonic minor…

Screenshots

480 × 630 · CAPTURED FROM THE PLUGIN
Empty state: press Gen to create a pattern
01 · Empty, waiting for Gen
A generated Electro Bassline pattern over four bars
02 · Generated, 4 bars, F Lydian
The plugin after learning from a dropped clip: patterns follow the clip's rhythm and range
03 · Learned from your clip
Specifications

What you get

One licence for macOS and Windows. Updates are included.

Formats
VST3, AUVST3 in Ableton Live · other hosts in progress
macOS
Universal (Apple Silicon and Intel)Installer, macOS 11 or later
Windows
10 / 11, 64-bitVST3, WebView2 runtime
Presets
24 across bass, lead, pad, chord, arp and percussion
Length
1 to 16 bars, 1/4 to 1/32 steps
Learn
Drop or import any .mid (up to 256 KB)
Output
Drag to DAW or Save .mid…480 PPQ, tempo and name embedded
Licence
Single user, one-time paymentUp to 3 computers · 14-day refund
Stepista

Start from your own clips.

One-time purchase. Try it first: without a licence the plugin runs as a demo, with Save .mid… and Drag to DAW disabled.

Coming from Stepista 1.x? Version 2 is a new, paid release, and installing it replaces 1.x in your DAW — projects that use 1.x will load version 2 instead. You can try it before you buy: everything works except Save .mid and drag-to-DAW, which unlock with a licence. Prefer to stay on 1.x? Download 1.0.5 — free, no longer updated.

Buy now · €59Download for macOSInstaller · VST3 + AUDownload for WindowsZIP · VST3

macOS 11 or later, Apple silicon or Intel — if macOS blocks the installer: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway (step by step in the FAQ). Windows 64-bit, with the Microsoft Edge WebView2 runtime (pre-installed on Windows 11 and most Windows 10 PCs). Tested in Ableton Live; other hosts in progress.

Questions

Frequently asked

Stepista 2 is a new, paid release, and installing it replaces 1.x in your DAW — projects that use 1.x will load version 2 instead. What's new is Learn: drop one of your own MIDI clips on Stepista and every pattern after that follows its rhythm, intervals and range. You can try it before you buy: everything works except Save .mid and drag-to-DAW, which unlock with a licence. Prefer to stay on 1.x? 1.0.5, the last 1.x release, stays available, with no updates or support. Everything about moving to version 2 is on the page for 1.x users.
A single-user licence, paid once. It covers the VST3 and AU builds for both macOS and Windows, all 24 presets, and every update.
Yes: the download is the demo. Without a licence every feature works except Save .mid… and Drag to DAW. It is the same plugin you get when you buy, so you can judge the sound first, and your licence key unlocks it in place, with no second download.
The macOS installer isn't notarized by Apple yet, so macOS can't verify it and blocks it the first time you open it. If macOS says it can't verify the installer, close the message with Done or OK (not Move to Trash). Then open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down to Security, click Open Anyway and confirm with your Mac password. The button only shows for about an hour after you try to open the installer; on macOS 12 or earlier it's in System Preferences → Security & Privacy → General.
Tested in Ableton Live 12. More hosts are in progress — any VST3 or AU host should load the plugin, but only what's listed here has been verified by hand.
Stepista is an instrument that sends MIDI, not audio: nothing sounds until that MIDI reaches a synth or sampler. In Ableton Live 12, use VST3, not AU — the AU build can't route MIDI to another track in Live. Add a second MIDI track with an instrument on it. Set its MIDI From to the Stepista track, pick Stepista in the chooser below it, and set Monitor to In. Then press Gen and hit Play in your DAW: Stepista only sends notes while the transport is running.
Yes. Updates are included with your licence — no separate purchase.
Within 14 days of your purchase you get a full refund, no questions asked: email support@stepista.com, or contact Link support, which handled your payment. Refunding disables the licence key. The details are in the terms of sale.