Drambo update 2.48.
Excellent update, thank you very much @giku.
Built in help system works great and the new instrument presets are very impressive and genuinely usable.
Don’t personally understand what the step sequencer MIDI mapping is all about - hopefully Leo at SoundforMore will come to the rescue with a tutorial!
Thanks for your ongoing hard work, cheers.
Comments
Thanks a lot!
MIDI mapping lets you assign almost the entire Drambo interface, including the step sequencer, to MIDI controllers.
Check the manual:
https://www.beepstreet.com/drambo-docs/midi-mapping.html
Thanks for the update @giku.
I also have a question regarding this update. I like the idea of this new help system so I turned it on and checked out a few of the controls. I also tapped on the Play button and noticed this feature described: “Hold STEP + play - start playback from selected step”. This is something I actually wanted for a while and I immediately tried it but it doesn’t seem to be working for me. I held one finger on step 9 in the sequencer and then pressed play while still holding the step. I presume that this is how it is supposed to be done. Unfortunately it plays from step 1. Am I missing something?
I tested it on an iPhone 11, running iOS 18.7.1.
Edit: just tried it on iPad 5th gen., running iOS 16.7.11 and it doesn’t work there either.
Thanks @giku. Yes, i understand what MIDI mapping does in general, i just don’t understand what mapping the step sequencer specifically could/would be used for?
Do you have a launchpad? You could use it to enter steps on the sequencer, control transport, turn clips/scenes in the clip view, basically you can control pretty much all of the ui elements without touching the screen
the big difference to what we already had (midi mapping) is that now it is bidirectional, so you press a pad on the launchpad and it maps to drambo, change the step in drambo and it reflects back on the controller
several other controllers are supported with specific mappings, and you can also roll your own
there’s also sysex support but that is not biderectional (yet?), but you can send custom sysex messages to your controller to select different modes, etc
Ah, okay, thanks for explaining @pedro. So, it’s the entering steps from the controller that it would be used for - i was confused because i was imagining/wondering what use it would be in the other direction, to have the step sequencer affecting controls on the external controller?
No, i don’t have an external controller beyond a very basic MIDI keyboard which probably explains my lack of understanding regarding such things. I do have Imaginando LK though which i guess could be configured to do similar things from a second device?
you’re welcome, I only have a LP mini but although it lacks velocity for playing, it’s a very handy controller for drambo. The image giku posted above is one possible template for it, having the most useful functions, you can have 32 steps and if you press the top right scene button it switches to another page where you can control clip launching (the blue chevron ^) and you can start/stop clips and scenes
Btw, I don’t think LK is useful for this scenario, but I may be wrong. Been a long while since I used it and it’s a fine app, but it’s targeted at ableton and I haven’t used it in like 10 years (except when I need some stems elastic-audio’ed but then I have used the lite version which suits my needs, and export to the ipad for using in other apps
Again, my understanding of such things is not high but LK has a MIDI mode and a Live mode with only the Live mode being specific for Ableton. The MIDI mode makes it available as a MIDI controller for anything. Also, it got an update recently where the controller module layout is fully customizable. Might be worth checking it out again if you’ve been away from it for 10 years? Then again, sounds like you’re covered with your LP mini! Cheers.
If you mean using lk as a launchpad replacement for mapping into drambo, I don’t think it’s possible. And would defeat the purpose as for me midi mapping is a way to not touch the screen, not to have another app to switch to
yes, a custom controller layout in LK could make sense, to have your most used functions/controls on one page.
I like LK a lot as well, it has excellent MIDI file import and a great piano roll with generative functions and advanced editing.
Hey. So glad to see you guys working more on Drambo. It’s my favourite app to make music in. I was wondering if the Preset Selector from the new update can be hidden. I have no use for it and it just takes up space.
Not saying it’s a bad feature just not something I need.
Thanks for any feedback
In the meantime maybe use a custom rack, recreate the inputs/outputs, copy the contents of the instrument/fx rack you want inside (those are the ones that have the new preset selector, I believe), and then you don’t have to see the preset selector
the thing about the selector is that it’s midi mappable, but yeah a “hide when compacted” option would be nice (but maybe not easy to implement, as that seems to be on the main part of the module, not a sub-module)
I too would like to be able to hide the preset selector.
Guys, just use the "Rack" with its freely definable inputs and outputs like pedro said.
I don’t wanna :)
Try it, it’s fun
I like to nest midi and processor racks in instrumenracks for example. And of course I can go through all off my old patches and replace the midi and processor racks with adapted racks, but for all my patches that would be a lot of work. Maybe legacy midi-, processor- and instrument racks, that can access the same presets, but don't have a preset selector may be a solution.
Each Drambo update keeps previous versions of racks included for project compatibility's sake. If you really want to use the previous rack version, you can always save a project with these and re-use them.
It may be worth considering configurable compact rack views though, as there's likely more to come.
Just in case it came off, like I meant the new rack should be replaced by the old one... No I meant additionally. I like that there is a preset selector, when I want it. Like the legacy, I think it was, integrator, that lives at the bottom of one of the menus.
considering configurable compact rack views sounds exciting, as does, there's likely more to come :)
Is there a way to midi map Drambo so that if you change scales or octaves, the pads on your controller reflect this? In other words 16 pads on your controller would play whatever notes were onscreen, regardless off what notes they were normally on the controller?
If you map Drambos 16 pads to your controller instead of using the controllers MIDI notes directly you get exactly this behaviour. Changing root and scale of Drambos pads is reflected on your controller.
Thank you! I had this app for so long without knowing that I could do that. 🙃
A big part of the fun that comes with Drambo is that there’s always something new to discover.
@giku a couple of things in regards to dRambo on MacOs.
dRambo doesn't state save at all.
Whenever I load dRambo as a plugin it asks repeatedly for the dRambo folder and that's with each instance in one session.
So if I load up dRambo five times, it askes five times etc...
I've checked for file permissions etc.
I'm using Reaper as my DAW.
MacOS Tahoe latest and Macbook Air M1.
@gravitas - Turn off
Settings > Filesystem > Public filesystemif it isn't already.Thank you and the same goes for my post. :)
One shouldn't be posting issues at something o'clock in the morning.
I hope all is well with you. :)
excuse me for going OT but how do you go about turning just some text on the line monospaced? I tried several times it always changes the whole line. Maybe it’s a case of trying on iphone?
That worked.
Thank you.
@Pedro, I wrote that on a Mac, which makes it easier.
Highlight the word or phrase after typing it, then select
{..}from the pop-up (not the ¶ paragraph formatter at the left of the line). The problem with the phone is the Apple Cut/Copy/Paste popup covers the forum pop-up. Flipping the phone to landscape and back to portrait should get that one out of the way so you can get to the formatting popup.The forum's Rich Editor gets in the way more than it helps, imo. I prefer the Advanced Editor with markdown support. Even that can be challenging at times on the phone though.