Recording audio clips from external MIDI instruments
Say I am sequencing a Digitone from Drambo. I want to record the audio from that sequence back to Drambo to include it in my song, so I no longer need the Digitone hooked up.
I then want to be able to play that audio clip back, synced with the song.
How might one go about this? I have tried several ways. One is to use up a track with a Flexi, and use it to play back the clip.
The downside of this approach is that I can’t have a different clip on separate Drambo scenes, like I can with MIDI
Another option is to put Loopy Pro on a track, and use that to grab the clips, but it too requires manual changing of the clips
Any ideas?
Comments
For now you can do a synced recording using the FlexiSampler and trigger it at the beginning of the bar...
...currently there's no easy way to change the sample per scene when using the FlexiSampler so another option is to collect all the recordings in the sampler and map them to keys and trigger them from the scenes in the desired order.
Who knows, maybe Drambo will some day get dedicated audio clips, only @giku knows for sure if/and/or when that will eventually happen.
Dedicated audio clips would be perfect.
I wonder if I can trigger clips in LP using midi notes. That might work, and it would be a lot easier than arranging all my clips in the sampler.
I guess LoopyPro can do some midi-mapping so it should be possible to map midi-notes to trigger loops or something like that.
As I'm not a LoopyPro fan/user (it never 'clicked' with me so) there might be some others here that can assist.
I'm sure you can. Flexi is good enough though to help staying Drambo-native.
At some point in the future, Drambo will very likely get audio clips too but I wouldn't wait for it, as there are other options.
I would let Drambo send MIDI Clock and the Digitone receive it, in case you're sequencing inside Drambo but p-locking (maybe empty) sequences on the DT. Flexi can start and stop recording in beat sync and that's a big plus - you don't need to trim the recorded clips in multiple Flexi instances. All you need to do is fine tune the MIDI Clock Offset value in Drambo's settings so the recorded clips are perfectly cut.
If you like to use scenes to select different clips, and I perfectly understand why you want that, you could use a mixer after the Flexis and Scene-Lock the mixer knobs so you can smoothly crossfade or switch between two selected audio clips.
The big advantage of scenes is that every scene can have its own combination of mixer knob settings, so one scene might play only one clip while another scene might play 5 clips simultaneously.
@rs2000 That’s exactly how I’m using the Digitone. I think Drambo’s sequencer is better, plus I don’t have to keep track of a project across multiple devices.
The Flexi+scene-locks sounds very interesting, but it’s a bit fiddly having to set it up for every new clip. Although I might integrate it with a processor rack I made recently, which has 8 layers, each with a Flex, each recording from one of tracks 1-8. The record buttons are midi mapped to the R buttons on my Nanokontrol2. Very handy.
@samu I test Loopy Pro for this and it’s perfect. It can midi learn, so I just set up an 8x2 grid of donuts (to match Drambo’s 8x2 pads), and mapped a loop to each pad. Loops are set not to loop, so they are triggered only by the Drambo sequencer. I just put a trig on step one and it’s done.
Honestly, I think using Loopy Pro is the best answer. You can definitely trigger clips from steps in patterns by sending notes.
I'm not an expert in this kind of thing though.
Good ideas @mistercharlie! The NanoKontrol is such a useful little device.
Why not set up a project with a bunch of empty Flexis ready for take-off? 😉
I have though about it, but I always think that a ton of Flexis will max out the CPU or something, even though that’s probably not true.
No worries. Drambo is very CPU efficient, the only limitation might be RAM if you're recording many long clips in one project.
FYI for anyone following along. I got the Loopy Pro version working, although there are some specific setting you need to use.
Set the loop to stop playing after recording.
When you midi-map the donuts to Drambo’s pads, there are two settings to change. Set “toggle” to “play,” and set “Already-playing loops” to “retrigger.” Without those, the loops won’t play once and then stop.
Set like this, you have total control of loop triggering, just by using trigs in Drambo’s sequencer. You can set record trigs too!
Nice!
BTW, the Drambo native version would be to use the internal "MIDI feedback" port and MIDI map Flexi's REC/Remove controls.
Or just host Drambo inside Drambo ;)
I managed to get that working after a while. But I have ended up with the Loopy method, as I can just have a little floating window, and tap the donuts. The built-in Drambo version appeals to me more, but the LP method just gets out of the way, which is important when I'm live-mangling guitar with Koala FX :)
Well, I was going to say earlier that I experienced problems with multiple Flexi's in a project. I have a really outdated Air 2, and one patch that used a lot of them brought it to it's knees. I don't offer that as fact that each Flexi takes resources, but just something I observed and now avoid.
Also, Loopy Pro does claim to swap audio to disk when needed to conserve memory.
Disk streaming is a great advantage indeed @number37.
Good to hear that you've found a workable solution @mistercharlie 😊