Arranger as alternative pattern play mode

interrupt · 2013-09-10T11:03:56.000Z

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).
<<

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!

interrupt · 2013-09-11T01:06:24.000Z

I posted this late last night, hope it was not missed. I am trying out these ideas this afternoon. If anyone else is inspired, I’d love to know your thoughts…

josker · 2013-09-11T06:24:15.000Z

Great ideas, thanks for posting! The scene assignment is something I noticed early on when I got my OT and was a bit disappointed to find out there’s no way to make such an assignment outside of the arrangement mode.

miketheman · 2013-09-11T07:08:31.000Z

Yes, the arranger is powerful. Although there are some features I´m personally missing in its aviable options in the steps. Coming from a guitarist perspective with attempts of “writing” song structures in the arranger. I´m not working with Scenes nor Patterns that much yet (still trying to learn my OT),but for now uses the tracks more like an bunch of channels in a DAW. Drumssample on one track, something else on another… etc…

Out of laziness I´m often having just one trig in the first step in a pattern of a track and let the playback loop (=ON) do the rest (pattern scale = 64). It can sometimes be a little problem in that if you got tracks running a sample, starts the “songstructure” with most tracks muted. Having the arranger unmute tracks in different steps, everything is alright.

BUT… muting that track again won´t do (because of playback loop = ON). I know I´m probably working my tracks, trigs and pattern scale in an not so optimal way.

But it would have been nice to have an extra feature like “mute+stopplayback”, so focus could be on “writing” song and its structure rather than doing the structure in the correct way from start in regard to how mute/unmute in arranger works…

Nice tips there though, thanks!

interrupt · 2013-09-12T08:35:07.000Z

Word!

@josker, I also wish the patterns stored the scene slots instead(or as well as) of the parts. I could see the arranger getting better if the steps were easier to navigate with buttons… 128 steps could be represented with the 16 steps and the ‘scale setup’ button. the leds above that button have two colors, so that could be 2 colors x 4 states x 16 step buttons === 128 steps

@Miketheman, I have this one sample that seems to just want to loop forever when I change the pattern. I am changing to a pattern with a different part that uses different settings for the same sample. I recently fixed it by using the ‘start silent’ setting on a track.

Perhaps in some way, you could use switching to and from parts that have a track with ‘start silent’ setting set to yes.

There are so many ways to set things up, thats what I love about the OT! Of course, it is kind of similar to building your own instrument, it takes time and patience but in the end you get something super rad.

I really love what you are doing on your tracks too, I gave my ears a good rinse with em!

miketheman · 2013-09-12T10:55:23.000Z

Wow, thanks alot for the kind words!

Yup the OT is a deep machine, so even things that I would have liked to have a bit different (or implemented) can´t really stop me from loving it. So full of potential…

There will be alot of explorations in the future with it combined with my other gears.
Just some few things that needs to be fixed/finished/setup first.

I´ve noticed the “silent start” some time ago but haven´t tried it yet, thanks for the heads up on that one!

/Mike

rhizome · 2013-09-12T12:22:55.000Z

this is a common problem. when switching patterns, the track goes into the release phase of the AMP envelope, so if you have that set to INF, it will just play forever, until you trig something new on that track. if you have it set to 0, it will stop immediately.

as for the arranger… it has a ton of potential, but programming it is just too much of a buzzkill for me.

soup-nazi · 2013-12-27T22:10:05.000Z

can you somehow interpolate between scene locks in arrangement?

or is it “full value only”

dubathonic · 2013-12-28T05:01:01.000Z

@interrupt -thanks for starting this thread. lots of :lvl: ideas in here.

sicijk · 2013-12-28T08:00:55.000Z

""soup-nazi"":

can you somehow interpolate between scene locks in arrangement?

or is it “full value only”

I think it goes where the Fader is actually…

rozzbud · 2015-03-23T23:31:21.000Z

""rhizome"":

this is a common problem. when switching patterns, the track goes into the release phase of the AMP envelope, so if you have that set to INF, it will just play forever, until you trig something new on that track. if you have it set to 0, it will stop immediately.

as for the arranger… it has a ton of potential, but programming it is just too much of a buzzkill for me.

midi out to midi in?

(disguised flag)