Moved from BR (Solved) Notes With No Samples Mapped To Them Still Mute Their Mute Group

edited September 2017 in Support
I think I said it all in the title ..

For example:
If you have pad 5 mapped to G#7 and limit the sample mapping to only that note, then if you send any note data at all on channel 5, regardless of what note it is it'll mute any pads inside that mute group (but not the pad 5 itself). Is this how it should work?

Mute groups only being triggered when a zone where a sample is mapped is hit would make things a little more flexible regarding the present major limitations imposed by having to have one MIDI channel assigned to each pad.

Oscar

Comments

  • I'm not sure i understand this @OscarSouth
    If a pads settings include it in a mute group, then it should always mute the group no matter if it has a sample or not, that is used quite a lot in heavy dance drums for doing chokes while in one shot.

    Personally i use zero velocity choking, but i know some people do like a non mapped choke pad.

    I have no idea if this is intended behaviour in BM3 however @mathieugarcia

  • Hey @OscarSouth the deeper BM3 midi config stuff is a little over my head atm, haven't explored it at all yet, but wondering if maybe that retrokits volca sample cable might be of use for you with some of the limitations you're hitting? Or could be totally irrelevant, in which case apologies for wasting your time ;) Just that I often hear midi dudes recommending it to expand on problematic hardware midi implementations/limitations.

    https://www.retrokits.com/rk-002/
  • @5pinlink ok cheers, didn't know if it should do that or not. While it's inconvenient for my use use, it sounds like it is operating correctly according to 'standard' procedure.

    I'm basically still trying to get a MIDI controller with 16 pads and a keyboard (which are not uncommon at all) to be able to perform with both the pads and keyboard at the same time on different instruments. Because the pads take all 16 MIDI channels on their own (and this instrument uses sus pedal info & has all the pads inside choke groups 1-4), I can't use the keyboard on any MIDI channel without either choking pads at random every time I touch a key or sending incorrect sus pedal info to the pad of that channel etc.

    Still trying to work around this same problem basically.. I have a few more 'innovative' potential solutions that I'm going to get today. Taking fuck load of time to solve a simple problem!
  • I am a little lost, does BM3 only support one single set of 16 channels ?

    16 channels is only one MIDI port/Driver, two USB MIDI devices should give you 32 channels minimum, for example an 8 way USB MIDI interface would give 128 channels.

    I think i am totally misunderstanding the issue, can you explain exactly what you need so i can have a think Oscar ?

  • edited August 2017
    @5pinlink I'm using an M-Audio Code series and a separate MPD32 pad controller. No probs with the MPD of course as it's on a different port and mapped to focus actions, but the Code has both pads and keys on the same port. This means that to use a performance layout on the pads with anything but bare one shot samples and disabling mod wheel and pitch bend across all pads, if you touch the keyboard or it's controls it's going to interfere with whatever pad number corresponds to the MIDI channel the keys are assigned, trigger its sus pedal and activate any choke or link groups assigned to that pad. As the pads require all 16

    Very limiting when trying to build and compose with interesting sampled instruments. It seems like such a simple task to have one bank listen to the pads and another listen to the keys, with extra controls like mod wheel and sus being allocated to the appropriately defined channels. Because the pads require all 16 channels to operate it's not simple at all.

    The only way I could get the 16 pads to respond to their notes as well as listen to the mod wheel and sus pedal while not 'in focus' (pressing sus then hitting a different focus pad would result in the second pad not sustaining and first left latched on sustain) was sacrifice one pad, set the sus pedal and mod wheel to that channel and tell every other pad individually to listen to that pads channel. When the bank was also set to the same port and 'all' channels, each pad simultaneously listened to info on its own channel and on the empty pads channel.

    I couldn't use any sample on that pad because touching it would choke all other pads simultaneously. Only solution I found to allow me to use the keyboard without fucking with the pads was to just turn the banks port to 'none' while using the keyboard. Pretty crap solution and obviously not doable in a live performance. I guess I could sacrifice another pad to put the keyboard's bank on that channel, but then I'm down to 14 and it's hurting my instrument. Can't I use 16 pads and keys at the same time? (feels like a deep and philosophical question)

    As an aside, logically I thought that as all pads were reacting to mod and sus from a single channel, that I could just map the notes across a key range and send just that channel into the bank, but that just results in silence and clicky attack sounds, which I guess is probably the pad groups instantly choking themselves.

    I'm referring to my specific use case of course, but there are a lot of controllers out there with both pads and keys so can't see the wider issue one pad bank dominating all 16 channels being too niche of a problem.
  • Aaaah now i get you.
    The 16 pads that are needing the 16 channels, they all have individual instruments on right ? not just drum hits ?

    1 pad could easily hold all your samples mapped across keys, which i am guessing you tried but got some clicky madness, is that right ?

    I have to be honest, i think i would need to see the instruments set up in BM3 to maybe come up with a workaround.

    Personally my workflow here would be this...

    1 I would map any individual samples that need to be triggered in one pad as a mapped set of samples, this would use 1 MIDI channel.
    2 AUi i would put on their own pads within the same bank, these would take 1 channel per pad.

    But again, i can say that, but i can't see your set up, that might be complete tosh and useless to your set up.

  • edited August 2017
    @5pinlink kind of, it's a series of instruments which emulate the overtones of my various basses. Each pad only has one overtone sample on (well, two velocity layers but that'd be nitpicking).

    You can hear an electric and an acoustic bank here (most recent upload):
    https://oscarsouthbass.bandcamp.com

    I just tried to reproduce the bank on a single pad, but it's impossible to use mute groups inside one bank - the instruments themselves can obviously only sound one overtone at a time per string (in practical performance terms - I could get nitpicky about advanced techniques!) so the mute groups are essential for correct performance application. You'd also not be able to work with the instrument to compose away from MIDI controllers unless the notes were available on the pads. Not suited to a keyboard mapping at all.

    Another major loss would be not being able to sequence at 'bank' level - the banks 'custom labelled' sequencer is much better suited to composition with this bank than a piano roll. I also need to automate the mod wheel for 4 of the pads (one mute group) independently from the others, which is probably a lot easier on bank level. Redundant factors though because without mute groups it's flat out impossible anyway.

    So the 'one channel per pad' rule is really dicking me over here. I can see the virtue of it, but if I could just get the pads to all respond to a different note number inside a single bank - oohhh it'd be such a simple and perfect solution!
  • But if only one not can play at a time, why use mute groups (Not nitpicking here, generally don't understand your set up yet)

  • edited August 2017
    Yea no worries, it's a pretty specific use case.

    Take the upright bass overtone bank for example - the instrument has four strings and I'm using the first four overtones of each string. So the G string overtones would resemble G, D, G(oct+) & B. D string would be D, A, D(oct+) & F# etc.

    It's only physically possible to play one overtone per string, playing any others on that string would stop the previous one ringing - so each of the four strings has its own mute group. It's possible to play a maximum of four simultaneous overtones on this instrument (for the purposes of this bank) - one per string.

    To be playable as they are on the instrument, they need to be mapped to pads. Putting them on a chromatic scale (regardless of the other issues preventing a one pad instrument) doesn't resemble where the overtones fall on the physical instrument at all. That can be gotten around by mapping a midi pad controller to the samples, but lack of mute groups, the need to modulate the pitch of different strings independently for some banks (you can hear this in the example) and such like make it performativly impossible.

    I'm recreating the physical instruments in BM3 in a way that will allow me to compose/create digitally & later perform the parts on the real instruments later - I (irritatingly) currently have a forearm injury that's limiting the time I'm able to play the instruments themselves.

    It works brilliantly and I've been able to recreate the instruments so closely that it's very difficult to tell the difference! .. apart from I want to be able to use my controllers keyboard at the same time, to control a different bank!
  • edited August 2017

    Yeah i am still lost if there are 4 strings, each with overtones that can not ring out while its own strings is playing a different overtone, why not just make each pad with a single string monophonic ?
    Will that not work ?

  • edited August 2017
    @5pinlink different pads for different strings is something I haven't tried yet (just tried with 16 pads and with 1 pad). Negative point would be the complete fuckery of composing with one instrument divided out over 4 separate piano rolls (LOL!) but for performance purposes, it could work and free up a few MIDI channels in the process!

    I still hope for a more logical solution down the road but I'll try this and report back. Cheers for lending your insight to the issue!
  • Aaaah my mistake, i misunderstood how it was set up, when you said it needs to be mapped to pads, i thought they where, doh sorry

  • I've now set this up with one bank's 'instrument' on pads 1-4 and another on 13-16 (so that there is a clearly visual divide between the two 'instruments' in the pads level piano roll.

    Losing the ability to compose from the pad bank on the go by playing the pads in the same arrangement as I had them mapped to the controller is a bit of a bummer (I even had the colours set the same based on tonal implication!!) but freeing up 8 MIDI channels on that port is a MASSIVE plus.

    Composing with one instrument spread out over 4 piano rolls seems silly, but because it can't be operated without a MIDI controller any more its actually kind of logical - the pads level piano roll shows you which string(s) are ringing at what time and you can go into the next layer to dictate which overtone of that string is sounding. Kind of cool and an acceptable substitute for being able to compose on the go! I'll probably be able to make a MIDI controller in Orphion or something that I can jam on it with on the go too.

    I think it would also be possible to get each 'instrument' working on a single pad (thus channel), but as I can work with using 4 channels per instrument and it gives some visual advantages in the arranger, I'm going with that.

    Thanks very much for working with me on this. I'm really getting to grips with the various creative possibilities offered by BM3's workflow - cracking this use case has been a big leap forward.

  • Good to hear :)

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