Load project, keep notes...

Hi,

This might be a dumb request/suggestion.

I use Drambo mainly for drums. I’d love to be able to program a beat and switch the “drumkit” without loosing the notes. My Drambo projects are mainly Drumkits with Flexis, randomizers, etc... It’d be great if I could have a beat going and switch “presets” (projects) but keep the rhythm. That is, separate the sequencer from the tracks. Like in a “load project, keep sequence” manner. As it is I can’t switch kits without having to start over. It’s similar to how some reverb plugins keep the “wet/dry” setting accross presets.

if this is a stupid idea, is there a way to achieve switching “kits”?. I guess you could build a “mega instrument” with all kit parts in it, but that’d be a nightmare to sequence when kit pieces overlap, so I’d like to keep them in different tracks.

BTW, this feature is also missing in Digitakt where kits and sequences are tied. It’s very annoying, IMO. I have to resort to using 2 instances of Drambo, one to sequence, one to play the sounds, more complicated than it should.

Comments

  • @Tahiche That's what rack presets are made for.

    I had the same case when creating drum tracks: I wanted to be able to change only individual instruments or complete kits independently from the sequencer.

    Drambo is very flexible in its rack hierarchy: You can create an Instrument Rack with a full kit containing multiple Flexis or Samplers, and inside the Instrument Rack you can add more Instrument Racks containing Flexis with different samples loaded. This gives you fast and easy preset switching with ready-made Flexis including loaded samples.

    You then basically have a full drum rack with MIDI Note Filters for each drum instrument and you can exchange each instrument separately, plus you keep the possibility to sequence everything using the multitrack sequencer grid which is handy when writing drum tracks.

  • Yes, this would work. You could switch the instance of main and the containing tracks. Like it.


    So a huge instrument track that contains kit instruments... is this how you do it?.

    • you still use tracks for notes (sequencer) right?. Like BD on track 1, snare on 2... do you then route those tracks to the main instrument track with all the kits and note mappings?
    • how do you keep that huge instrument organized?. Layers?
    • If you have a “snare” instrument rack, that’s part of the bigger instrument track, you can switch the samples and it’ll save with the “parent” instrument, right?. I mean you don’t have to save every single instance.

    Would you mind sharing one of those presets?. Or a screenshot. It’d be really helpful.

    I still think that keeping a separation between sequencer and tracks would be a good idea.

    cheers!


  • Here’s something. Now that Drambo can host Drambo AU, you can basically turn an entire project into an Ableton style drum rack. Just add an instrument rack, load an instance of Drambo, and you can be as wasteful with the tracks as you want. I’m dedicating each track to a single drum voice.

    this works well because you can use the entire sequencer grid view to really quickly enter rhythms. It also means the main view is now available for finger drumming, instead of just switching tracks, if you want to tap in a beat manually. Multiple drum voices on a single sequencer lane is tedious to edit, not to mention disadvantages for solos and mutes, fx sends, etc.

    give it a shot, Drambo still is the best drum machine on IOS. Now you don’t need to conserve tracks - just dedicate a whole project to a single drum kit. Easy save, easy recall within an instrument rack.

  • edited December 2020

    It’s pretty simple

    (keep the rhythm change sound)

    creAte a drum folder with 96 samples (8 kits a 12 sounds)

    load them into sampler, create zones from folder

    bam

    switch kits by using transpose


    U can switch kits while the sequencer is running

    just press octave up or down

    u can also just switch individual samples or a few kits at once

    like this (press edit and transpose)

    ...


    copy pattern

    transpose random stuff

    here goes the break ;)

  • @Tahiche Yes, still being able to use different sequencer tracks for the separate drum instruments is the point.

    And yes, Layers are one way to organize stuff.

    Well, and indeed when you save an instrument rack with sub racks and samples contained, their content is saved as well! 😊

    I've tried to build a "master instrument rack" now but I'm currently struggling with routing midi from different tracks into one, still have to find that channel filter... 😉

    I might spread the drum instruments over different keyboard notes and still trigger them using track sequencers but that's an ugly solution because it defeats the velocity slices and requires keyboard transposition all the time.

  • layer 2 samples


  • Layer sample with noise

  • Thanks for your help!

    @lala using Sampler would indeed be simpler and a good choice to switch kits, but IMO using just Sampler to map a drumkit takes away many of the advantages of using Drambo as a drum module. Things like attack/release per kit piece, or individual compression and eq, speed setting, more than 4 velocity layers, and so on. There might be a way around but as far as I can tell Flexi and individual kit pieces offer a lot more versatility.

    @rs2000 i was trying to map midi from tracks, say your drumkit instrument is on track 8. I can see how to connect it to receive say track’s 1 midi, but only to one track so that’s no good.

    I also considered the option, for simplicity’s sake, of using 2 Drambos. One midi instance for sequencer and one as an instrument. That way I could switch drum kits using presets but not loose the sequence, since itd be on a separate instance. That’d obviously also work for sequencing Drambo from elsewhere... In this case I believe it’d be best to have every kit piece (track) to listen on all midi channels and each have their own midi note filter. This would make Drambo behave like a standard drum machine, right?. They usually listen on midi channel 10 and have note filters...

    In using in a daw (or AUM with LK) I can picture the following setup:

    • Drambo 1 is a sequencer, doing the main beat sequence. Patterns are switched from host via automation (verse 1, verse 2, chorus...).
    • Drambo 2 is instrument, no sequence data, just kit pieces. Listens to all channels and has note filter per kit piece.
    • from the DAW you can, as said before, automate pattern changes on Drambo 1. But also trigger Drambo2 from the daw midi region, adding occasional fills or crashes, maybe some ghost notes...

    Feel like I spend waaay too much time trying to get a “solid” setup. And the shitty thing is that I’ve already spent hours building a dozen drumkits, which I’ll have to redo. This time I’m gonna wait till I have a clear idea. I built the kits doing standalone and everything was fun and games until put to “real” use.

  • @Tahiche Let me ask you for a bit of patience. I've discussed such MIDI routing options with @giku and it looks like we're soon going to have a little module that will help tremendously in realizing our concept of using multiple track sequencers to drive a flexible drum instrument rack in one track.

    Keep your drum kits! 😃

  • That’s awesome @rs2000

    I’m in no hurry to get new features, Drambo is beast enough now as it is. However, one thing I’d truly love would be the ability to ‘bounce’ / record track generated midi onto the sequencer.

  • Hahaha.

    i must have adquired some kind of OCD!. I've been spending all the time trying to get a good setup to do songs, leaves me no time to actually do songs..

    I believe a big issue with ios music is that there's no mature "stabdard" yet. AUM is super comprehensive and solid, but seems like daws are doing all the midi fx and stuff on the go. Then Drambo has to adapt to that, and so on.

  • edited December 2020

    Yes, and my thoughts about the subject include that this might be a reason why we find iOS music more exciting than desktop OS software. We all know that desktop software is mostly mature and usually has an answer to our iOS app wishes.

    There are new challenges, there is still enough room for new ideas and regular new stuff to explore and that makes us feel good 😄

Sign In or Register to comment.