Track modules are also sequencer modules
It seems like Tracks don't get enough love for how powerful they are. They are pretty much their own Rack modules that come with multiple ins and outs. On top of that, they also come with their own jacked-up sequencers...
I've decided to start making Tracks with mainly 4 sub-Tracks inside of them, laid out like this:
TRACK 1- default routing
MIDI- Track 1/1: default routing (module in/output); "Transpose" mode
Sound source- Track 1/2: default routing; receives MIDI from 1/1; "Receive" mode
FX- Track 1/3: default routing; receives audio from 1/2
Post- Track 1/4: default routing; receives audio from 1/3; sends audio to the Master
So this seems pretty convoluted, but if you're like me and have very few tracks typically(or if you don't mind scrolling), this affords you a ton of immediate control over individual elements.
Remember, every Track module is also a sequencer, and Drambo's sequencer is one of the most powerful. This means I can sequence and automate all my MIDI, my synths, and my FX independently, within a single "Track". All these separate elements can have their own pattern lengths and playback speeds. That's pretty crazy on it's own, even though you can already do that anyway with regular sequencer and clock modules...but when you factor in both P-locking, and step components, things start to get crazy.
Another thing I do now is insert a Punch-In FX to track 1/3. So I can have it act as purely an FX sequencer for my synth, while still being contained within in the Track 1 ecosystem.
Before Drambo I haven't really messed with anything modular, so maybe some of this is pretty obvious to someone more experienced, but I felt like it was worth bringing up in case anyone out there is still in the mindset that the "Main track with 8 tracks" layout is a completely static thing. I also wanted to find out if anyone else has been experimenting with routing and might have any cool tricks. I don't come from a modular background, and Drambo documentation is relatively sparce, so this could just be reinventing the wheel as far as I know. I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts and takes!
Comments
Its pretty crazy. If I understand it correctly theres no limit to how many tracks you can have which is so awesome.
something interesting is that you can easily rearrange the order of the tracks by just dragging them around BUT more interesting than that is that if you move a track to the left of another track it will retain all of its patching. Adds a tiny latency but still super cool.
I hate it when people say omg. but omg. I did not know you could do this!
I don't think I'll use it for any fancy routing, but for organizing tracks and doing things like sub mixes it's insanely useful.
It would be great if there was a gesture of some kind to toggle collapsing or hiding of the sub tracks in the track selector.
I've decided to start making Tracks with mainly 4 sub-Tracks inside of them
How do you do this? I can only add a Track module when on the Main track. Is it a beta thing?
It doesn't show up on the menu right away like it does on the Main track, but you if you manually search it up you can add it like a regular module.
I'm with you there! It doesn't take long to fill up that little bar.
That's really good to know! Even with the latency that'd be really useful for the overview sequencer. I was stuck wishing I had a way to move tracks closer together for visual reference without messing up my connections, so it's cool that it turns out I can!
Inpired by this thread I think I just had an epiphany re: the ultimate conga
every resonant mode is a track
Somewhat related: are subtracks meant to be hidden in the module list? I can only find them by searching
Derp, sorry, I saw it was already mentioned above
Back to this, a question: are nested track modules really supported or just a hidden feature for now? I tried setting up a track preset for drums with a number of subtracks, which doesn't work, and sometimes adding and removing subtracks leaves empty placeholders which can't be moved. Also, the very few times I've had crashes over the last couple months it's been when I've tried to use nested tracks.
@NoiseFloored nested Tracks is still
being developed so expect issues.
Thanks @gravitas, I figured as much but wanted to make sure
wow, what a cool thing are those subtracks! thanks a lot for heads up.
i mainly use Drambo as MIDI sequencer for external hardware.
played with this for a couple of hours, and this instantly puts it light years away from other iOS sequencers, and … probably makes Numerology redundant.
Someone help me out here because I am intrigued by all this
I can't seem to find Subtracks ,, is it a module ?
New Tracks can only be created from the main mixer window , and when on a regular track 'subtrack' is not in any of the categories ( not even a search field )
What am I missing ?
Edit :Found it
Typing 'track' while on a regular track will insert a subtrack .
NOte to developer , this should show up bewteen the modules ,no ?
It seems to be more of a "bug" than a feature from what I've heard, so omitting it from the list might be intentional. I haven't had any major problems using subtracks personally, but I do get occasional crashes in my projects that do contain subtracks, I just save more frequently when I use them now.
I don’t know if this has been mentioned yet but I just realized sub track sends are pre sends. If you mute the group track (group master? Idk) you can still hear the sub tracks feeding the sends. Which is kinda fantastic.