Feature request: effector attribute restart track

[Mike]

I’d like to see an effector attribute that restarts a track or forces the current step of a track to specific step (step 1 would imply a track restart).

This would programming stutter type effects…

cheers
ripe

Post edited by: ripe, at: 2008/05/08 18:24

[gseher]

This feature would take care of that (and more!):
http://genoqs.net/index.php?option=com_joomlaboard&Itemid=50&func=view&id=375&catid=3

Ok, is works only on page level, but it covers a lot of ground IMHO.

Post edited by: LDT, at: 2008/05/08 21:41

[Mike]

yes, I would like to see something similar for tracks as well as pages. Maybe a hardcoded map of MIDI note to page or track triggering, then you could use an internal MIDI channel within a track to trigger other tracks.

This could be a real nightmare though, keeping the mapping straight for so many tracks and pages.

What about choosing a master control channel, and then use a specific note that isn’t really used much in practice, like C0. then the velocity of this note is the value used to identify which page to trigger. Maybe restricting the trigger to only the active page in a row (0-9) and then the specific track to trigger would be the 1’s value of the velocity.

So, velocity 09 would to trigger track 9 of active page in row 0.

still complicated

cheers
ripe

[gseher]

Can you make an example of track triggering that justifies it compared to page triggering? I am just thinking that if I had a track that I wanted to trigger, I would copy it to its own page and then trigger that.
Track triggering would be cool, but I am just trying to picture strong argument for it.

I think using midi notes for triggering has huge benefits over anything else (vel, cc, whatever). First of all they are playable. Secondly they are mutatable in so many ways because the midi notes are the "meat and potatoes" of a seqencer.

But IF we say "yes we want track triggering" I think I would suggest taking my plan for "midi note page triggering" and say "you can also link midi notes to tracks the same way as you can link them to pages."

[Mike]

Yes I would definitely think using all notes on a particular channel would be a more elegant solution, but only having access to 127 values makes it a bit ugly. You either need multiple channels, or need to exclude some pages from the triggering scheme. Maybe only allow triggering of pages 1-12 in each row?

My original intent was to trigger tracks to get effects like arpeggiation, stuttering, inter-track craziness. Then the concept of triggering a "page" is just triggering all component tracks of that page.

If you just have page-triggering, it would lend itself more to "outside" song building or live improvisation, the octopus becomes a sort of MIDI sampler. Definitely cool also, just not my direction I don’t think there would be much need to trigger pages from within a page itself because we already have the grid construct for this.

Anyways, I’m sure Gabriel has more words of wisdom in this respect.

cheers
ripe

[gseher]

Quote:

but only having access to 127 values makes it a bit ugly.

Do you expect to trigger more than 127 tracks/pages in a setup?
The concept of my proposal comes from: Ok I want to trigger this page so I assign it to this note. And then I assign this track to the next note.
Very different from: Ok, to trigger this particular page I have to *reads the manual* play a g#5 on midichannel 14 at velocity 78.
I am not trying to be able to trigger everything there is to trigger at anytime. I just want something that is musical and intuitive.

[Mike]

ah, understood! Yes this would be a good way to do it if there is memory in the octopus remaining to define a note assignment for a page trigger (and a UI paradigm to fit it).

Actually I just noticed something else, the octopus has a keyboard legend at the top silkscreened, so if the values were hardcoded, it would be easy to determine which keys to use, just look at the row to decide the octave and the keyboard legend at the top to determine the specific key, and this naturally limits you to 120 possible pages to trigger.

Either way though would be cool.

Also, let me say I enjoy the thoughtful and polite discussions everyone seems to have on these forums. Everyone seems to have a good grasp of some of the very technical details of a MIDI sequencer

cheers
ripe

[gseher]

I think I may have mentioned it a while ago that on my sketch pad right now the keyboard legend at the top and the row numbers play a central role in the note assignments to the page for page triggers.
Yes, you will not be able to trigger all 144 pages, but I tend to agree with Lars that this is not necessarily the point. Intuitive access to the function is the key and I think that is a good way forward.

[Adam Wilson]

I REALLY like the feature being discussed here!

I agree with Lars and would prefer notes for triggering, couldn’t be more direct.

I agree with Ripe that the possibility to also trigger tracks within a page would yield more fun stuff, whithout the need to lift those tracks out of the page and asign them their own page in order to get the track triggered. It would get messy very soon, data wise. So both pages and tracks should be addressed, imo.

But could you define what it means to ‘trigger a track’? Will the track get ‘started’ somehow? That is, unmuted and retriggered to the first step? And will the track loop then? How to switch it off?

[gseher]

Robert, this is what I am refering to:

http://genoqs.net/index.php?option=com_joomlaboard&Itemid=50&func=view&id=375&catid=6

And to recap: I think the above could accomodate track trigger as well.

I think a "unique selling point" (now being a salesman, haha) is that even if you have a small keyboard controller, you can have the 7 pages and 4 tracks (that may be spread all over your matrix) that you want to be able to trigger in your particular project, set up on your keyboard on adjacent keys to your own taste. This is as I see it the only way to achieve some kind of playability.
Anybody who has ever set up (or played with) multiple sampled loops assigned to a keyboard will know that putting the assigned keys close together is what makes sense. If you have assigned C#1, D#3, B#3, A5 and F5, you do not have playability.
This playability again transfers to when you want a track in Octopus to trigger pages/tracks via virtual midi: Turn the pitch knob one or two steps, and you trigger another page. Otherwise you would have a hard time "finding" the relevant pitches with your pitch knob.

[Adam Wilson]

LDT wrote:

Quote:

Robert, this is what I am refering to:

http://genoqs.net/index.php?option=com_joomlaboard&Itemid=50&func=view&id=375&catid=6

And to recap: I think the above could accomodate track trigger as well.

I think a "unique selling point" (now being a salesman, haha) is that even if you have a small keyboard controller, you can have the 7 pages and 4 tracks (that may be spread all over your matrix) that you want to be able to trigger in your particular project, set up on your keyboard on adjacent keys to your own taste. This is as I see it the only way to achieve some kind of playability.
Anybody who has ever set up (or played with) multiple sampled loops assigned to a keyboard will know that putting the assigned keys close together is what makes sense. If you have assigned C#1, D#3, B#3, A5 and F5, you do not have playability.
This playability again transfers to when you want a track in Octopus to trigger pages/tracks via virtual midi: Turn the pitch knob one or two steps, and you trigger another page. Otherwise you would have a hard time "finding" the relevant pitches with your pitch knob.

Hi Lars, sorry for not being clear enough, but your proposal, extended with track triggering is indeed what I like to see. The idea that you can freely assign up to 127 notes to pages and tracks, in a fashion that allows for range of intuitively assigned notes is very tempting, yes. Much more preferred over a set of statically assigned notes, spread over the full range of the keyboard.

I truly dig the idea of using a virual MIDI port to trigger stuff in other pages. Oh man, life *can* be good!

[Mike]

I was thinking about this some more… what about using Lars idea for assign the tracks and pages combined with the keyboard legending and the rows.

So it would work like this, in the three different modes.

In GRID mode you can assign the master MIDI channel, hold down the GRID button, and the matrix changes to allow MCH selection (on row 0)

In PAGE mode, hold down the PAGE mode button and PROGRAM, then the MATRIX changes to show the MIDI note assignments. Rows 0 through 9 and columns 3 through 14.
Unassigned notes light green, notes assigned to PAGES light red, notes assigned to TRACKS light orange. You select the note to assign to the current PAGE by clicking it. The current PAGE assignment would be blinking. This would still be while holding PAGE and PROGRAM buttons

TRACK assignment would be similar to PAGE assignment, zoom into a track, hold down the TRACK mode button and PROGRAM, then the MATRIX changes to show the MIDI note assignments. The current TRACK assignment would be blinking. Assign a note the same way we assigned a PAGE.

How does that sound?

Would PAGES/TRACKS play through completely at least once with an incoming note, or would they only play as long as a note is held down? Meaning would a note off cause the TRACK/PAGE to stop playback immediately or would it continue for one complete cycle?

Now the question is, can the octopus support this? Does it have enough spare memory to make assignments?

cheers
ripe

[Adam Wilson]

Without Octo it’s a bit hard to imagine how the note assignment within that grid would work. But if I get this right, you are free to assign whatever note to whatever page or track, right? That is, muscially related page/track trigger notes can be placed right next to each other on the keyboard, right? If that’s the case, this sure sounds like fun!

Regarding track trigger style, there’s lots of options:

1. A track always loops when triggered, until it gets triggered again with a velocity of zero. So several triggers with non-zero velo stutters the track. A note with zero velocity stops the track.

2. We could use several ‘hot’ velocity values: 0 for stop. 1 for one-shot, 2-9 for the corresponding amounts of loops, anything higher than 9 for permanent loops.

3. We could use even more hot velocity values to encode track playback speed. Certain ranges for slomo factors, other ranges for hi-speed factors. The default velo value (64?) must be placed in the range for normal playback speed.

[Author]

Posts