Kitten for OSX

Elektron Gear Analog Rytm
#1

Loading kits on the AR is not a lot of fun, but it should be.

so here is Kitten:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/50830178/Kitten.app.zip

it’s a little app which lets you switch kits quickly.

Think Scenes, but with kits.

Kitten doesn’t have a UI - you control it from your Rytm.

Just use the pads or sequencer trig buttons to switch kits.
This means you can instantly flip between 12 of your fav+ kits at a time:
[ul]
[li]Use the pads in “normal” mode[/li]
[li]Use the Trig buttons in “normal” mode (rec disabled)[/li]
[/ul]

On the Rytm FX track:
[ul]
[li]use the SYN toggle to enable or disable Kitten. This will simply change a setting inside your GLOBALS, namely whether to use the pads/buttons to trigger notes internally, or send MIDI to Kitten. If you enable Kitten, the pads will not trigger sounds. It’s easy to switch back & forth with the SYN toggle.[/li]
[li]use VEL to select a kit range offset. 12 kits are mapped to the pads, and VEL chooses the offset. E.g. if VEL is at 3, your pads will trigger kits 3-14.[/li]
[/ul]

Update:

You can now send MIDI program change messages from an external source to switch kits.
[ul]
[li]Select the MIDI device you wanna use[/li]
[li]Send a program change message from that device on channel 1 to instantly switch the Rytm’s kit.[/li]
[/ul]

IMG_0221.jpeg3264×2448 1.97 MB

waht happens actually:
when you hit a pad, the kit of your choice is read from RAM and loaded to the current kit buffer. This means that your current pattern is still linked against its old kit, but the new kit’s contents are copied into it. So you can reload your old kit by pressing NO+KIT.
A consequence of this is that you may accidentally make (temporary!) changes to the kits which are linked to your patterns.
you can undo anytime, just a thing to keep in mind.

waht you need to do:
there’s some settings in the Rytm GLOBALS which you need to set up:
[ul]
[li]MIDI CHANNELS: track channels must be 1-12, FX = 13 (which is the default)[/li]
[li]MIDI Port Config: IN/OUT must be USB or USB & MIDI[/li]
[li]MIDI Port Config: OUTPUT CHANNEL must be TRACK CHANNEL[/li]
[li]MIDI Port Config: PARAM OUTPUT must be CC[/li]
[li]SYSTEM/USB-Config must be USB-MIDI ONLY[/li]
[/ul]

uh have fun I guess, would love to hear some feedback.
buy my other stuff
thanks.

1 Like
#2

…cool void! i like your effort. :slight_smile:

…finally i decided to let the Organelle go…and i have a lot of money to spend.

next week iam going to buy Strom 'cause i think you’re working on it (btw. it looks brilliant) and i had the chance to pick up an Ipad mini 3 for 155,-€ lightly used! damn. :slight_smile:

SDS Drop is in the pipeline aswell cause i wanna set up several tracks on my rytm for being just a Midi sound source and no drums! chromatic and stuff.

thought you were joking with ‘‘kittens’’ but it’s nice aswell.

#3

So Void-
Buy your other stuff?
Have you decided to finish work on the Strom in-app purchase yet?
Or have you decided to let it die as a nonfunctional corpse?

#4

oh look, it’s an Internet Man, demanding things be done for him. :smiley:
I bet you’re one of those assholes who gave a one-star rating?

edit: indeed!

Here’s what you had to say:

Abandonware. Iap is a total waste. Slices dont transfer to rytm. Random features will mess up your programs. Expensive crap.

I would refund the app to you if I could, but that’s not how it works - you need to do this yourself:

please, please get a refund and fuck off, turd. :wink:

#5

SERIOUSLY!

This is the exact reason why I’m visiting this place less and less. This place needs more moderation and hard moderation. If I would be the moderator here I would give you both a temporary ban and let you stand in a virtual corner of shame.

sammymyman I own Strom - I use it. It works for me. It doesn’t for you? Getting a refund on iTunes is easy - go to the App store. I’ve done it myself. If Strom is as nonfunctional as you imply, that’s what I would do.

void “fuck off” and “turd” - really charming mate. I don’t think you’ll gain more customers by openly being so rude. I don’t get it void - you develop an app that instantly gets a cult following. Most developers never get that kind of luxury. You disappear and people believe the app is abandonware. You come back but rather than taking care of your existing customer base you start developing new apps and utilities.
Just some food for thought - are you aware that if you would start paying some attention to Strom rather than spending your time on new & funny projects, all people who are bitching about Strom would disappear automatically in an instant?

/C

#6

I totally approve of being rude to assholes. It’s way better to tell abusive dicks to go fuck themselves loudly and clearly than to hope they’ll go away when you ignore them.

Just to be clear; I totally support void in this. That sammy dude is the asshole here and void has every right to tell him to stuff it. Don’t give me that “civilized language” crap; people who behave like whiny entitled pricks like this don’t deserve anything civilized. He’d never behave like this in real live because he’d be afraid he get punched in the face.

#7

Oh, and here’s an example of how you can inquire about the status of a products without being a total asshole, just to show that it is in fact possible:

“Thanks void, that looks like a really cool little hack. By the way, how is Strom doing? Any idea if you’ll be able to fix the issue I sent you an email about a few weeks back? I know I can get a refund, but I rather support independent developers so that they can continue to build cool niche apps.”

#8

t - thanks! :slight_smile:

Bloatfield - well, thanks for the constructive criticism I guess. Sorry, but if someone throws shit at me, I’ll react. Just because someone bought the app, you think it’s ok to talk to me like that? I don’t, and indeed I don’t want or need customers with that attitude.

I’ve had reasons for taking a break from Strom and they are none of your business, but let me tell you this: pissy Internet douchebags sucking the fun out of everything were among them. Nobody should have to endure Internet assholes. It’s a problem of our society. White, male, entitled Internet pricks with a lack of empathy for others and general sensitivity issues - they do a lot of damage, the world would be a better place without them :imp:

as for Strom, maybe these new utilities (especially this new free Kitten one) are test suites in disguise for new features? Maybe SDS Drop can pay a bit of bills so that I can afford to spend time actually working on STROM? How about that? :wink:

so - back to Kitten?

#9

http://youtu.be/eCfU44cnbCc !

#10

Seriously !!! You can be sure i will never buy anything else from you. You disappeared from the forum for about a year just letting Strom die without answering any customer. Incredible … I was going to buy your new app but this, i cant approuve.

#11

your loss.
I won’t bow down to Internet dickheads, and I hope I made my point clear. :wink:

#12

updated the app to work with program change messages from an external source.
it will switch Rytm kits when you send a program change on channel 1 from the selected interface.

#13

Thanks for this void, look forward to giving it a go.

#14

Meeooow some people just can’t be satisfied, why don’t you build your own apps then? Yeah, didn’t think so… Thanks for your awesome work Void!

This has me wondering, if patterns are linked to kits then could we not have both change via this new method? Maybe only tabula rasa would work?

#15

^ I’ve tried it with patterns, it works, but it’s less good, just doesn’t feel quite right.
the AR can send & load kits really fast, so pressing the trigs/pads feels satisfying, but patterns take a short bit of time to load so there’s a bit of lag…

decided to leave it out, just to keep Kitten as simple as possible.

but could add it if you folks want it? :slight_smile:

#16

hi void,

would there also be a lag if shortest pattern change time quantizing is 1/16th ?

could you please explain to me, why direct pattern jump is possible with no lag “onboard”, but not via this workaround from extern?

maybe you explained it before, but then i did not get it right, as i am really no tekky at all ;(

thanks !

but i really appreciate it a lot what you are doing,
i extra called some friends to tell them about the drop app
and they bought it too.

did you find a md in B already?

#17

hey, thanks!

ok so the lag stems from the fact that the app needs to do the following steps:
[ul]
[li]send a request for the current pattern, just to find out which is the current pattern position[/li]
[li]send a request for the desired pattern[/li]
[li]AR sends both patterns as MIDI sysex[/li]
[li]after receiving, the app sends the desired pattern to the position of the current pattern in the AR[/li]
[li]AR loads the new pattern into RAM[/li]
[/ul]

I think the last step takes the most amount of time. For a modern computer, these steps are easy & run fast, but the MIDI transmission also takes time. It’s the same process with kits, but kits are much smaller and the AR loads them faster…

The lag with patterns is not terrible, it’s ok actually.

But essentially, doing this with patterns would mostly replicate the direct-jump functionality on the machine. It would add the following features:
[ul]
[li]possibility to switch pattern but keep the old kit[/li]
[li]use the pads instead of the trig buttons to switch patterns[/li]
[/ul]

I’ve tried re-starting the new pattern (to simulate direct-start mode) by sending stop/start MIDI commands, but couldn’t get it to work…

hm… One thing which could work is, instead of doing sysex, just sending a program change, stop, and start…? gotta try :slight_smile:

another thing I haven’t tried yet but could be pretty cool:
Copying tracks from other patterns into the current pattern.
It could also copy the sound from the other pattern’s kit to the current kit.
It’s something you can’t do on the machine but would be nice for live transitions…

#18

^ Oh yeah now that’s a grand idea, i find myself mixing and matching on occasion.

Depending on how long the load time is, it could certainly help running a live set. Sometimes I struggle with the short window provided by the two button combo.

#19

:slight_smile:

I vaguely remember, the Roland MC505 had this MEGAMIX mode, which was essentially this feature? I didn’t know anything about the thing, but it was fun doing weird mashups from the preset patterns/sounds…

#20

Thats a useful little app for quick kit surfing.
The offset seems out for me though, vel=3 gives me kits 4-15?