generative melodies
- Qu-Bit Bloom - soft sweet kind evolving melodies
- Some sort of rungler - more random, a bit more aggressive usually, you can lock it in.
- A random source and a quantiser.
Polyphonic chords
Because of the nature of eurorack it doesn't handle polyphony well.
For example I have the Mutable Instrument Yarns, that I can use to control four voices polyphonically. But then I need four voices, four filters, four envelopes and four VCA. Quite a big and expensive case. And every time I want to change a sound I have to change all of those options. That doesn't allow for very immediate live playing because I don't have enough hands to change four filters at once. There's ways around it, with more modules that would send the same CV to multiple modules. But what do you really gain here that is not better in polyphonic instruments.
If you just want chords to play from one 1v/oct, there's a couple of options like a sample player with chords in it, or I also like the Intellijel Shapeshifter which is a double wavetable oscillator with a chord mode. Keep in mind that you'll usually only be playing one chord variation (Cm, Dm, Em, etc) which usually sounds a bit primitive and not unlike early gabber. I also find that these are never as full or lush as real chords played with multiple oscillators or a regular instrument.
Ambient drone backdrops + Sonic exploration
- Befaco Oneiroi is very hands-on and playable, great for big washes or screeches from hell itself.
What didn't make it: ADSR envelopes
You'll really want at least ASR when working with a keyboard so that it keeps playing when you hold down the key. I really prefer an ADSR where you can set the sustain level for keyboard playing.
I didn't touch on everything you asked, but I hope this will give you some new insights!
EDIT: One more tip about hands-on playability. If you can get your drums out of Ableton through an OUT on your audio interface and into an Eurorack filter, that already gives a lot of sculpting options and live playability for build-ups and breakdowns etc.
EDIT2: You can see the waves in Ableton using an oscilloscope. I use this one https://maxforlive.com/library/device/1918/jo-floating-oscilloscope . There's also a tuner in Ableton. DATA feels a bit useless to me, but maybe you have better uses for it then just looking at waves.