Plays free ideas

hey all - i made another video exploring plays free ideas. hope it gives you some ideas!

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that is incredible. I didn’t know you could do plays free with midi tracks to launch quantized arpeggios!! And, really creative use of multiple delays to keep arpeggios ‘running’ simultaneously alongside basslines on a monosynth! also love the way you laid out the melodic progression in four segments - super tactile and performance friendly. I’m definitely going to try this with each of my desktop monos;)

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nice one! let us know how it goes and what you discover :slight_smile:

Well done, really dig this and the demo jams sound amazing, really making a lot of use out the Octatrack!

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thank you! trying to get as much use out of it as possible… i live in vietnam and it’s difficult to get new equipment here so it pushes me to explore every possible way to use what i already have.

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Agreed with everyone- really enjoyed your vids. Don’t get everything lol, so requires further watches - but love your “no hype” approach to YouTube - very refreshing. The best YouTubers are those that keep it real and authentic, which you do definitely.

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thank you so much! yeah i feel the same way - there are a lot of superlatives flying around on the interwebz… no need to add to the already overtaxed levels of enthusiasm.

i would like to improve the quality in the future, and if I ever manage to recover financially from this (insert tiger king meme) pandemic then I’d love to equip myself appropriately in order to do that.

but as you said - no need for too many star wipes etc. concept is king imo.

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oh and if I’m not clear with something please do let me know and I’ll try to clarify it :slight_smile:

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Oh I will do ,but didn’t feel the need for creative criticism. You do explain what you are doing (it’s complex) and your jams sound boss.
I think it’s my small phone display and not reading the OT display (late at night in my bed) that is the prob :wink:

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Plays Free tip if not mentioned here : you can latch plays free tracks by switching audio/midi mode. Works well for Hold mode. Press plays free to unlatch.
(In the video, midi plays free tracks 1-3 are latched at 1m16s)

Poor quality video, messy, but here is an experiment with plays free, one shots and fills.

Midi loopback, (cable between midi in/out) 1 bar pattern with 4 tracks + Master track, one shots triggered by Plays Free midi tracks (CC corresponding to ARM), and additional Fill trig condition (1m02s, arrow down + up + page! :smile:).

Expressed differently, I’m using plays free track to send the Control Change corresponding to ARM, in order to arm audio tracks one shots.
It acts as FILL, but per track. You also get the benefits to use plays free synced to the sequencer whenever you press them.

Other ideas here :
Cascading playable fun - #5 by dustmotes

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i was waiting for the master to appear!

thanks for sharing :slight_smile:

edit: ok just rewatched again - awesome idea - definitely a fan of individual track fills! also, great performance and sound selection

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Man, that is a lot to unpack… I feel like I’m not at that level of octatracking to try and recreate that… sounds amazing though!

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For me too, especially with a cold.
Luckily I wrote some notes when I posted it the first time.

It can be tested on 1 track.

Midi cable between in/out.
Audio T1 : one shots
Midi T1 : Channel 1, CC1 to Control Change 52 (ARM TRACK), value 0, place trigless trigs.
*Fast square lfo with CC1 as dest, ONE mode.
Plays free, hold mode

Should be enough to work, if someone try, don’t hesitate to ask me why it doesn’t.

*I added an lfo because similar CCs are not sent consecutively.

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Thanks for the inspiration,
I tried this concept with my my Nord Lead 2 and I personally really dig the results…

I linked your video in the description…

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Simple idea for plays free with audio tracks, use to manually play “beds”, atmospherics, spot fills/drops, etc by assigning 1 track across all patterns in your set, then arranging slots for this type of sample, which can then be used with sample locks to first choose the sample to be played, where to play it etc, if it uses slices etc, then you can with a bit of preparation beforehand have quite a flexible way of adding interest and improvisation, introducing the next song by transition etc etc. You can choose by a part basis how to play them, pretty flexible I think. Endless possibilities really.

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sounds great dude - lovely stuff. so glad to see the idea was useful :slight_smile: how many tracks are you using there?

this sounds like a great use for them! i continue to struggle with this aspect - i mean, make a beat: ok… resample and move to the mext beat: ok… do some tweaking and get a bit weird: too easy…

but having something that can really create variety and help transitions feel more interesting is difficult.

more planning, more prep…

All of them :laughing:.
On the audio side I have four three tracks for input a,b,c (which is a,b,c from the NL2) track for are the drums (which is a sliced break with random trig locks)

On tracks 5-7 I am resampling input a-c with different length to each recording set to looping.

On the midi side I have one main arpeggio for each Nord program and one that is a sort of juxtaposition adding off beat melodies…

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…wow…must admit…even after years of using ot’s, plays free options are the only terretory i never crossed…time to change this, i guess… :wink:

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Another idea, prep some chain slices of say melodic sounds in scale/key of your project, use a couple of tracks, optionally set length of track to 1 step for each, assign the sliced samples to these tracks lay out a trig on each. Then set scene to select slice from these chains, set plays free tracks to quantised to 1/16, now you can tap the buttons and wrangle the xfader for improvised “solos”.

You can experiment with track and note lengths, patterns, locks etc, to come up with interesting ways to play these melodies, and you can of course use the track buffer to capture the magic :wink:

A good way of building up variations or improvising, try it with bass, acid, drums, dialog whatever.

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