Like a lot of Elektronauts, I like the challenge of coming up with ways to be as “live” as possible when performing, if not for the audience then for us to have moar fun, right? I am excited to share / ADD dump some stuff thats kickin around my domehead. Perhaps you have some of the same thoughts or everyone already knows all this stuff and I just got out of hibernation, or maybe none of it will work for you at all… I hope it does of course, ymmv
The arranger provides some very powerful stuff that the pattern playback alone does not:
- assignment of scene pairs per pattern
Normally, the pair of scenes assigned to the crossfader and scene slots are saved with the pattern’s part. Only one pair per part… this kinda blows, cause with 16 scenes in a part, you can get pretty far out with the parameter locks. Now, i personally don’t like to have to remember the sonic character of all the scenes i create for a given part. Its a lot of stuff to remember, like the best order to introduce the scenes. I would like to be able to give myself more suggestions when i get back to playing a song i wrote a week ago.
Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to save a new pair of scenes to each pattern?
You can if you use the arranger steps as your patterns.
So, to do this, you just sort of ‘wrap’ the pattern in an arrangement step that loops infinitely. Choose a length and make it loop forever. you can jump around patterns just by setting the next step manually. This is definitely different than just hitting the pattern button and smackin a new pattern on, but i usually hang out on patterns long enough to mess with a few scenes and make it squeal(or just sputter), so if i need to do some crazy fast pattern switching, just create a couple of steps in series that act as a loop and go improv on top of that. By giving up a quicker method of pattern access, we can gain more knob tweaking freedom and scene slots per step (256 max steps in an arrangement!).
- assignment of tempo per pattern / arranger step
I have noticed people asking for this feature, so someone prolly already had this as a workaround, not sure though. I like this a lot, since sometimes i like to change tempos in the same pattern, now i can mess with some sound as a transition, set the next arrangement step to play and then back to the previous pattern but at a slower tempo or whatever… powerful stuff!
- transposition of midi tracks per pattern / arranger step
Transposition is something I would do within my composition, not with a knob, but now I have a special use for it. I want to slave ableton’s much more capable midi sequencer(there, i said it) to my octatrack’s dragon soul. To do that I need to trigger ableton “scenes” (clip trigger groups) with a midi note. now, okay i just have to use one of the OT’s midi tracks somehow and make it trigger the scene. Easy enough, now I can trig one ableton scene per pattern.
But say i want to mix multiple scenes with multiple arranger steps?
blammo, use the transposition parameter and get a new scene per arranger step. depending on how many different ableton scenes (or cirklon reversals or whatever) you want to trigger per arranger step, just stagger the base trigger notes in the midi patterns.
and finally:
- partial playback and meta sequences of pattern pieces
Ever notice this part of the manual about the arranger step params?
OF sets the offset of the pattern. The pattern will start playing from the set step.
LN can be used to override the pattern length of the row. The default length is derived from the scale setup settings of the pattern. Move the focus to this column by using the [ARROW] keys. Use the LEVEL knob to alter the pattern length setting. If PER TRACK mode is used LN controls the MASTER LENGTH setting (see “SCALE SETUP” on
page 92).
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This is crazy awesome, its like you can play a quick remix of a bunch of pattern slices, what a great idea!
Now you can make slices of patterns of slices of samples! just like when you order a pizza and they give you a free appetizer by accident… mmm octatrack pizza
I hope something of that inspires you to explore moarr and make crazy beatz!