Layer selection during performance
Hey peeps!
I am a BM3 newbie, but been working with electronic music for many years...
Loving BM3 so far! Since I’m sorta setting up my world here, I have a pretty basic question... probably many more to follow...
I’d like to make pretty heavily layered kits with the goal being to change the sample being triggered live without changing the kit or pattern. Sorta like velocity layer mapping or pitch mapping, but I want to keep the option to use actual pitch and velocity variation as well. Since there is a per sample pitch adjustment, I have been thinking I would, for instance map 5 kicks to different zones on a key map..
How would I assign a focus action or macro to be able to change the kick live without altering the pattern? Basically, for a key map it would change the pitch of the midi being sent to the bank, but not the pitch of the sample, nor permanently change the pattern...
Let me know if there is a workaround to get this effect, cheers.
Comments
In theory this should work..
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Turning the macro (or binding it to a physical controller will enable you to switch kicks based on the dials position (0-20% = kick 1, 21-40% = kick w, etc.)
Crap. It turns out you can't map the fixed velocity slider to a macro, so you won't be able to select kicks from a midi controller. You can still adjust the fixed velocity slider directly on-screen though.
.. And the more I think about this.. my suggestion would only work for midi that was triggered live, not the ones coming from patterns (as there's no way to modify the velocity of a note played in a pattern)
Has anyone else got a better solution?
If you are using the built in sequencer, it is simple.
While you say you don't want to change the pattern, that is exactly what you want to do
You create your first pattern with the first set of drums, you duplicate the pattern, then move the events so they are triggering the second set of drums in the bank, duplicate the pattern and move the events so they are triggering the third set of drums in the bank etc etc etc.
Now remove all the patterns from the song, go to scenes, create 5 scenes, put pattern 1 in scene 1 put pattern 2 in scene 2 etc.
Go to scene mode in pad view and trigger the scenes, each scene will now switch the drum hits as you press a focused MIDI pad/key.
If you are triggering the drum sounds live and not using the built in sequencer but wish to change them, then that would be down to whatever you are using to trigger the drums, just put the drums on different keyzones and have the external triggering change.
Thanks, was hoping there was a simpler way ala pattern lock style to keep clutter down, as changing several samples multiplies patterns way above 5, that is 25 patterns for 5 kicks and 5 snares...
Being able shift the key map per layer would be better... Or just change the pad note being sent real-time. Or pad velocity... The idea is to have it on a dial or fader for fast changes of sample.
Use a MIDI remapper like MIDIFlow in Audiobus before Beatmaker then
I was thinking that... Because, like Mick Jagger says, “You can’t always get, pa-ra-meter locks...”
Maybe pitch bend could do it... but I think that’s assigned to the sample not the midi? Will try tomorrow, this damn iPad is keeping me up waaaaay too late.
This isn't really anything to do with parameter locks though, for parameter locks to be able to do this there would have to be a parameter "Switch layers" if there was a parameter "Switch layers" you would just be able to assign it to a MIDI dial, so you wouldn't even need Parameter locks.
Parameter locks would only be relevant if you wanted the parameter to switch in sequence really.
But that aside, P-Locks are often requested, and so is layer switching ala random/round robin etc, so yeah both would be nice for sure.
I just meant that if u can parameter lock, u have control of the sample loading / playback in a dynamic way...
But yes, you are correct, I’m used to Maschine where you can adjust, record, sequence etc any parameter dynamically, so I’m changing my way of doing things here.
Some of this stuff would be pretty easy to add down the road.
There is a switch layer parameter, it’s just not exposed to the user, because you can map the sample to only play on certain conditions, dev just needs to pull it out for us to use elsewhere
Well Maschine doesn't have layers in the strictest sense, so you couldn't do what you wanted in Maschine either, and to be honest the scene switching idea i posted would take less time to set up than switching sounds like this would in Maschine because of the 16 pad per bank limit.
I'm a fan of Maschine but it doesn't really have P-Locking unless you include the realtime version of it on Jam, and that is only with the Jam Live effects it has automation and other than Beatmakers automation being vastly superior but a bit of a pain to use (UI/X needs tweaking) I would rather do what you are trying to do in Beatmaker than Maschine.
In reality all you actually need is a super simple MIDI AU that has a single stepped dial, turn it round once and it moves all MIDI notes up one, do it again and the same thing happens again, then you could just put that between the sampler and the sequencer inside Beatmaker, everytime you turn the dial it would change the drum hits.
Unfortunately it seems MIDI AU is mostly @brambos right now and he is in another direction with his plugins rather than utilitarian stuff like mappers etc.
Again you are correct, it’s late and my brain is mixing and matching Maschine and MachineDrum features, ha! I agree on the AU midi manipulation idea, i don’t really know how that would flesh out in BM3, if the midi between the sequence and the pad or sampler as u say could be subverted, is that not hardwired in? I’ll look closer tomorrow, thanks again.
It would be nice to have an AU Midi plugin that could transform incoming midi notes (either played live or from patterns)
You could, for example, transpose incoming midi notes +/- semitones, or change their velocity. And then you could setup macros or automate the required transformation.
It would mean you could record midi patterns that triggered the plugin directly, then feed the plugin's output to your key-mapped or velocity mapped drum pads.
@Brambos, sounds like this would be quite simple to build
This is a return to E music from a pretty long sabbatical, so none of it is fresh in my head... I was close to going all in on Elektron stuff, but I figured I’d try iOS first. So far pretty happy with it, nice to see a great community here.
Midiflow or some similar plug should be able to do it, but it’s sorta clunky because you would have to send midi out of bm then through the app and back. AU would be great, but seems like u still might have to write patterns on a ghost channel instead of using the samplers own midi track, but I don’t know how midi is handled inside bms internal world.
http://ruismaker.com/au-midi-plugins/ Looks like Bram has delved pretty deep into this subject.
I find this whole thing compelling because a midi only device could be used to do some amazing non-music related things, like generate video or 3D data, run lighting systems, tell your coffee maker when to brew... My field / profession is doing live video improvisation, to help design some video AU plugins would be pretty cool...
Here is a vid synth I made in Max/MSP, could easily port to M4L, but AU would be amazing: