Imported from CooperNederhood/Ableton-Agent-App (skills/techno-arrangement-planning/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add CooperNederhood/Ableton-Agent-App --skill techno-arrangement-planning. Copyright stays with the author.

Techno arrangement planning

Be opinionated. Diagnose the existing Arrangement before proposing or making changes, classify it as beginner, intermediate, or advanced, and recommend the smallest changes that create the largest improvement in pacing, energy, and DJ usability.

Treat the templates below as strong defaults, not laws. Techno subgenre, intended release format, track duration, tempo, and the user's references can justify deviations, but every deviation must have a clear musical purpose.

Core principles

• Arrange in phrases. Put important structural changes on 8-, 16-, or 32-bar boundaries unless deliberate displacement creates a better effect.
• Preserve the groove's identity. Techno develops through controlled addition, subtraction, processing, and orchestration more often than constant new melodic material.
• Build energy in plateaus. Let a state establish itself before changing it. Avoid peaking in the intro or adding a new layer every few bars.
• Prefer subtraction before spectacle. Removing the kick, bass, hats, or hook can create more tension than stacking risers and fills.
• Give transitions preparation, an event, and a consequence. A sweep without a meaningful state change is decoration, not arrangement.
• Keep club versions mixable. Default to a 32-bar rhythmic intro and outro with restrained tonal content. Shorter listening edits are valid when requested.
• Create contrast without abandoning continuity. A breakdown or reduction should make the return feel stronger while still belonging to the same track.
• Favor one unmistakable primary idea, a supporting idea, and purposeful texture over many competing hooks.
• Do not confuse complexity with advancement. A sparse, patient, intentional arrangement can be advanced; a busy arrangement can still be beginner-level.

Inspect before judging

Inspect the full Arrangement, not only the current loop or selected tracks. Establish:

1. Tempo, meter, total bars, and approximate duration.
2. Every audible track's musical role: kick, bass or rumble, low percussion, hats, clap or snare, auxiliary percussion, primary hook, supporting motif, atmosphere, transition FX, vocal, and return effects.
3. Clip start and end bars, empty regions, overlaps, repeated clip identities, automation-bearing regions, and existing locators.
4. Section boundaries and phrase lengths inferred from actual changes.
5. The energy state of each section using observable proxies: kick and bass presence, active layer count, high-frequency density, hook prominence, rhythmic density, automation, and transition events.
6. Whether the opening and ending provide practical DJ mix points.

Do not claim to have heard qualities that inspection cannot reveal. Distinguish facts from inference, and recommend a playback or reference-track comparison when groove impact, loudness, or timbral tension cannot be verified from Arrangement data.

Level 1: Beginner — clear functional form

The beginner goal is a complete, playable arrangement with obvious sections, clean phrase boundaries, one coherent energy arc, and no accidental dead space.

Use this opinionated 192-bar club scaffold unless the material clearly calls for another form:

Beginner requirements:

• Major sections begin on 16- or 32-bar boundaries.
• The intro does not reveal the entire arrangement.
• The primary idea is identifiable by bar 96.
• At least one 8- to 16-bar reduction creates contrast before the peak.
• The peak is observably stronger than the intro and first groove section.
• The outro removes tonal and low-frequency conflicts before ending.
• Transitions are restrained: one clear cue near a boundary is usually enough.
• No clip ends unintentionally before its section boundary.

Classify an arrangement as beginner when its main challenge is establishing or repairing these fundamentals. If fundamentals are incomplete, report Beginner — fundamentals incomplete, not a lower invented level.

Level 2: Intermediate — evolving energy and identity

The intermediate goal is a track that remains compelling across repeated phrases, supports more than one energy state, and varies its identity without losing the central groove.

Require the beginner fundamentals plus:

• A deliberate macro arc with at least two distinct high-energy states, such as Main A and a transformed Peak or Main B.
• A meaningful change every 8 to 16 bars, with major state changes still reserved for 16- or 32-bar boundaries. Changes may be subtractive, orchestrational, rhythmic, or processing-based.
• At least two transition types across the track: subtraction, automation, fill, silence, send throw, reversed material, impact, or rhythmic pickup.
• Transition consequences. For example, a rising send resolves dry, a filtered loop opens into a denser groove, or removed hats return with a new pattern.
• Variation of an existing motif through register, rhythm, call-and-response, timbre, or effect state rather than simply adding unrelated hooks.
• Controlled asymmetry at the micro level: a one-bar interruption, delayed entrance, fill, or phrase extension that does not damage DJ-readable macro phrasing.
• A reduction or breakdown whose duration and content fit the subgenre.
• A peak produced by arrangement contrast, not only by turning everything on.
• Intro and outro lengths chosen intentionally for club mix, hybrid, or streaming use.

Classify an arrangement as intermediate only when the basic form already works and the dominant opportunity is evolution, transition quality, or a stronger second-half payoff.

Level 3: Advanced — authored long-form tension

The advanced goal is an arrangement whose pacing expresses a specific artistic and dancefloor strategy. Every recurrence should preserve recognition while changing context, expectation, or intensity.

Require the intermediate criteria plus most of the following:

• Multiple independent energy dimensions evolve across the track: low-end weight, rhythmic density, spectral brightness, spatial depth, hook exposure, syncopation, and perceived scale do not all rise and fall together.
• Repetition is transformed through micro-variation, automation, resampling, pattern mutation, or changing foreground/background roles.
• Tension operates at nested timescales: one- or two-bar details, 8- to 16-bar phrases, and a complete-track arc.
• Returns are recontextualized. A familiar hook may return filtered, displaced, reharmonized, rhythmically answered, or supported by a changed groove.
• At least one expectation is manipulated deliberately, such as a false drop, withheld kick, shortened phrase, delayed hook, extended plateau, or transitional overlap, while the larger form remains legible.
• The arrangement uses negative space confidently and does not fill every frequency range or every bar.
• The strongest moment is earned by earlier restraint and is not necessarily the section with the greatest raw layer count.
• The form reflects a defined subgenre strategy rather than generic EDM habits.
• Every unusual section length, overlap, or off-grid event has an audible purpose and a clean recovery into the phrase structure.

Classify an arrangement as advanced only when its fundamentals and intermediate evolution are already reliable. Do not award advanced status for length, automation count, sound-design complexity, or unusual structure alone.

Subgenre strategy

Choose the closest strategy before recommending changes:

Hypnotic, minimal, or raw techno

• Favor long 16- to 32-bar plateaus and subtle continuous mutation.
• Keep dramatic breakdowns rare; use rhythmic or atmospheric reductions.
• Change processing, accents, and foreground roles before introducing new melodic material.
• Preserve mix continuity and let small subtractions create large perception shifts.

Peak-time or driving techno

• Use firmer section contrast, assertive kick withdrawals, and clearly prepared returns.
• Reserve rides, brightest percussion, strongest hook state, or added drive for peaks.
• Avoid generic festival build-ups unless the reference specifically supports them; the groove should remain the authority.

Melodic techno

• Allow longer harmonic or atmospheric breakdowns and a wider dynamic arc.
• Track melodic exposition, withdrawal, and transformed return as carefully as drum energy.
• Protect the drop from harmonic overcrowding and avoid exposing the complete melodic story too early.

Industrial, hard, or fast techno

• Use shorter recovery windows and denser transition rhythm where appropriate.
• Preserve impact by alternating saturation and density with genuinely reduced states.
• Do not mistake constant maximum intensity for forward motion.

If the subgenre is unclear, infer cautiously from track roles and structure, state the assumption, and default to hypnotic/driving club functionality rather than melodic EDM form.

Assessment rubric

Score each dimension from 0 to 3:

Use scores as evidence, not arithmetic alone:

• Beginner: any foundational dimension is 0 or 1, or the arrangement mainly needs a complete functional form.
• Intermediate: all dimensions are at least 1, most are 2, and the form is sound but evolution or payoff still needs refinement.
• Advanced: no dimension is below 2 and at least four dimensions are 3, with clear evidence of intentional subgenre-specific authorship.

When evidence sits between levels, choose the lower level and name the exact criteria required to reach the next one.

Recommendation method

After classification, provide no more than five prioritized recommendations. Each recommendation must include:

• Where: exact bar range and affected tracks or musical roles.
• Change: add, remove, move, shorten, extend, vary, or automate something concrete.
• Why: the pacing, energy, identity, transition, or DJ-function problem it solves.
• Level gain: which next-level criterion it satisfies.
• Verify: what should be inspected or heard after the change.

Prioritize in this order:

1. Broken form, accidental gaps or overlaps, and unusable phrase boundaries.
2. Flat energy, premature peaks, and weak contrast.
3. Missing section purpose or unclear primary identity.
4. Repetition without evolution.
5. Transition polish and advanced expectation shaping.

Do not recommend adding material when subtraction, relocation, or automation of existing material would solve the problem. Do not prescribe advanced tricks until lower-level structural problems are repaired.

Required response

Report:

1. Current level: beginner, intermediate, or advanced, with any fundamental qualifier.
2. Evidence: tempo, total length, inferred sections, subgenre assumption, rubric scores, and the strongest and weakest arrangement decisions.
3. Section map: explicit bar ranges, musical purpose, active roles, energy state, and transition strategy.
4. Recommendations: up to five exact, prioritized changes using the method above.
5. Next-level target: a short definition of what must become true for the arrangement to earn the next level.

If the user asks for edits, present and preflight the complete section map first. Preserve existing material unless replacement is requested and avoid overlaps unless intentional.

For repeated contiguous copies of one Session clip on one track, use ableton_arrangement_fill_region once for the whole half-open region instead of calling ableton_arrangement_duplicate_clip for every tile. Obtain the source length from Session inspection; never create a probe duplicate merely to discover length. Group work into one region-fill call per source/track/contiguous region, apply dependent regions sequentially, and use single-clip duplication only for isolated placements.

Region filling places every complete source-length copy that fits and reports any uncovered tail. Report progress by region, not by tile. After each region-level mutation, verify final positions and boundaries. If a mutation times out or returns applied_indeterminate, inspect the Arrangement before any dependent mutation or retry.

The requested half-open regionEnd is a hard boundary. Never compensate for an uncovered tail by duplicating a full-length clip that extends past regionEnd. If the user requires exact coverage and a tail remains, use a shorter source clip whose length fits the boundary or explain that the tail requires a manual edit. Do not substitute one-off duplication.

After editing, verify final clip positions, section boundaries, total length, transition coverage, and that the observed changes support the claimed level.

Research basis

These defaults synthesize:

• Ableton Live 12 Manual, “Arrangement View,” for linear song structure, bar-based editing, locators, and automation lanes: https://www.ableton.com/en/live-manual/12/arrangement-view/
• TrackSensei, “How to Arrange a Techno Track,” for 16/32-bar club phrasing, DJ-oriented intros and outros, plateau-based energy, subtraction, and processing-led variation: https://tracksensei.com/blog/how-to-arrange-a-techno-track
• EDM Ghost Production, “Electronic Song Structure Explained,” for the functional roles and conventional lengths of intros, builds, breakdowns, main sections, and outros: https://edm-ghost-production.com/dj-knowledge-base/electronic-song-structure