Controlling the arranger from a DAW, is it possible?

[OxD]

I’m afraid the answer to what I’m about to ask is that it’s not possible, but I figured I might as well ask…

Lately I’ve been playing OT & co. using Bitwig’s clip launcher to trigger patterns, so far so good, I’m loving this workflow since it allows me to create patterns that include the DAW (I mean I can have the same pattern assigned to different clips that switch between different processors on the DAW).

Now I’ working on setting up a transition, I’d like to trigger an OT pattern, making it start from half way through like one would do from the OT song mode.
I’d rather avoid copying the pattern and modifing it since that’s gonna take forever, I know that normally I could set all the different patterns in song mode to loop forever and trigger them from arranger mode using the arrows to navigate through the list of patterns, so I was thinking of doing something like that, but via bitwig.

As far as I can see this is not possible but I wanted to check: is it possible to control the arranger mode via midi?

The manual simply states: The Octatrack MKII arranger both sends and receives MIDI song pointer position.
but I think that this simply to generic transport functions (play/stop) right?

[sezare56]

@OxD

but I think that this simply to generic transport functions (play/stop) right?

Song Pointer Position allows to play from a specific step in the Arrangement instantly.
Works like a charm.

SPP messages with midi controller?

From the MIDI spec: A sequencer’s Song Position (SP) is the number of MIDI beats (1 beat = 6 MIDI clocks) that have elapsed from the start of the song and is used to begin playback of a sequence from a position other than the beginning of a song. It is normally set to 0 when the START button is pressed to start sequence playback from the very beginning. It is incremented every sixth MIDI clock until STOP is pressed. If CONTINUE is pressed, it continues to increment from its current value. Th…

[OxD]

Thanks for answering!

I’m trying to understand this but I’m still a bit confused…as far as I’m reading this is all related to using external midi processors to translate a midi message to SPP?
Wouldn’t SPP be relative to where I am in the timeline? Can it be used to tell a pattern to start from a given step like the OT’s arranger does?

I was reading you managed to set controllers to trigger different patterns from different steps based on notes you were sending (among all sorts of other midi tricks I read you do!), but that took an external midi processor, right? There’s no way of setting something like this straight from a DAW?

I know bitwig’s sync does send SPP if selected (I have it selected on the OT) but I wouldn’t know how to set a clip to send a message with pattern and SPP to the OT.

[PeterHanes]

@OxD

this is all related to using external midi processors to translate a midi message to SPP?

No.

If you have a device that can send SPP then it will work directly. If you do not, then you would need some other device to generate the SPP or convert other messages to SPP values.

@OxD

Wouldn’t SPP be relative to where I am in the timeline?

SPP is where you are in the timeline.

@OxD

Can it be used to tell a pattern to start from a given step like the OT’s arranger does?

In practice, yes. SPP can be used to tell an OT arrangement (not a pattern) where to start. So, for example, if you program an arrangement in the OT then the SPP message can be used to start at a point in the arrangement where a particular beat of a pattern occurs.

@OxD

I was reading you managed to set controllers to trigger different patterns from different steps based on notes you were sending (among all sorts of other midi tricks I read you do!), but that took an external midi processor, right? There’s no way of setting something like this straight from a DAW?

As above, if your DAW sends SPP messages then you don’t need any additional device.

@OxD

I know bitwig’s sync does send SPP if selected (I have it selected on the OT) but I wouldn’t know how to set a clip to send a message with pattern and SPP to the OT.

I don’t know bitwig. If it sends SPP then just choose the point in its timeline that corresponds to the point in your OT’s arrangement where you want to start. You wouldn’t send a pattern number to the OT.

(You can use MIDI Program Change messages to choose a different pattern on the OT, but you can’t choose which step that pattern would start on.)

Maybe an example would help. If you program an OT arrangement with sixteen 1-bar patterns (say A01 … A16), each playing only once before moving to the next row (pattern), then you send the OT an SPP message based on your transmitting device’s timeline, then you control the point in the arrangement (and therefore the pattern and step) where the OT will begin playing.

[OxD]

Ok, thanks for the detailed answer. Will definetely experiment with SPP and arranger soon, but I was trying to do something else in this instance.

I don’t have a structure in the timeline at the moment, I’m using clip launcher to tell OT and DT what patterns to play; the same clip also changes the set of FX I put on bitwig’s receiving tracks.
I have 2 patterns in OT and DT, 4 clips in bitwig (the 4 variations are due to different processing being applied for each in bitwig).

Now, I would like to create a clip that could trigger my first pattern and have it start from step 32.
Since I don’t think this is doable, I was thinking that, in the OT, I could do this from the arranger so I started imagining to set the arranger like this:

A1
infinite loop
A1 from step 32
infinite loop
A2
infinite loop

If I was working from the OT, at this point I should be able to simply move the “arrow” in the arranger to select the pattern I want to play. Of course I’m not working straight from the OT in this case so I started wondering if there was a way to remotely control the arranger selector or to avoid the arranger thing and just trigger a pattern from a given step.

The alternative would be creating a new pattern or maybe just jamming a bit and than rearrange everything in bitwig, but I wanted to check how far I could push this setup first!

Thanks again for your answer anyway!

[sezare56]

You can use SPP from a DAW, but it should depend on timeline, unless it has specific options.

With midi processing, you can start from any step of the Arranger from midi notes or CCs, hence from clips.

Ex with 3 x 64 steps patterns in Arranger.

Pattern 1 = step 0
Pattern 2 = step 64
Patrern 2 = step 128
Etc