DRUM RACK: A Question About The Notes List in MIDI Clips

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otalgia99
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DRUM RACK: A Question About The Notes List in MIDI Clips

Post by otalgia99 » Thu Oct 14, 2021 3:29 pm

Hello, everyone

I'm working my way up Mt. Learning Curve here and have run into an odd thing:

I have created three drum racks. Each uses only some of the entire range of available MIDI notes.

When I create MIDI clips for these drum racks, two of them display only those notes which have been assigned to chains (and sounds). It's kind of like an empty "FOLD" for clips that don't have any notes in them yet. Visually that's just kind of neater which is very helpful.

Clips for the third instrument can scroll all the way past (and before) the area where notes have been assigned to chains. The names of the chains are shown on notes that are assigned to chains, and all the rest have the generic note letter & number.

It's not a big deal really -- i just wonder why the third one isn't like the other two.

But there is the fact that the basic visual appearance of the first two kinds of clips is very large-format and easy to see, while the the third instrument's clips display very condensed note rows. It's almost as if the clip wants to show as many notes as it can, and seems to think that all the notes have something on them or should be displayed whether they're in use or not. So it really squeezes the rows down tight.

Again, this is not a matter of "FOLD." Before I place hits on any of the note lines, and with FOLD turned OFF, only those notes that are actually being used in chains appear in the first two instruments' clips. Clips fir the third instrument simply default to showing all notes.

Is there a "note display" setting or something for clips that I don't know about, and perhaps inadvertently applied (or did not apply) to the chains or the rack as a whole?

Thanks!
O99
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Greenapples2019
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Re: DRUM RACK: A Question About The Notes List in MIDI Clips

Post by Greenapples2019 » Fri Oct 15, 2021 7:52 am

If you right click on the chain name within the chain list there should be an option to "Show names in MIDI editor". Clicking on that may help.

Cheers
D

siliconarc
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Re: DRUM RACK: A Question About The Notes List in MIDI Clips

Post by siliconarc » Fri Oct 15, 2021 10:08 am

otalgia99 wrote:
Thu Oct 14, 2021 3:29 pm
Clips for the third instrument can scroll all the way past (and before) the area where notes have been assigned to chains. The names of the chains are shown on notes that are assigned to chains, and all the rest have the generic note letter & number.
This happens when one of the drum rack's chains is set to 'all' notes in the chain edit/i-o view.

otalgia99
Posts: 111
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Re: DRUM RACK: A Question About The Notes List in MIDI Clips

Post by otalgia99 » Fri Oct 15, 2021 10:50 am

Thank you for your help!

In fact when I right-click on the chain name within the chain list I didn't see the option you refer to. I'm guessing I wasn't looking in quite the right place. However I am on Live 10 -- could that option be new in 11?

But just to clarify, display of the names wasn't the problem -- I was seeing the assigned names just fine, but in addition I was also seeing all the UNUSED MIDI notes in the clip as well, and that was a lot of unnecessary empty note rows to look at.

In any case I am happy to report that your suggestion led me to the answer:

As I was trying to find the "Show names..." option, I noticed that the third rack differed from the others in one important respect: I had it set up as nested racks for some reason -- probably a lack of understanding, since as far as I can now determine, nesting wasn't necessary on this occasion (my guess on that is below).

The parent rack had one chain, hosting one child rack with multiple chains. I think you see where this is heading....

In the parent rack, the one chain's MIDI NOTE RECEIVE was configured to "All." In the child rack, MIDI note receive was specifically designated on each chain.

For safety I made a copy of the rack and, working in the copy, moved all of the child chains into the parent, deleted the now-empty parent chain, and voila! The only note rows now appearing in the instrument's MIDI clip are ones assigned to chains (with their names displayed).

I just want to add that I had not assigned any functions to the parent chain's Macros, and that's why I guess that nesting wasn't needed in this rack. While I'm not entirely certain of it, I have a strong feeling that that's the main -- maybe even only -- reason to nest chains: allowing parent macro control from within nested racks (you map their macros to the parent's macros).

The child rack did have working Macros, assigned to control a bunch of effects returns levels. I can easily re-assign those up front (where they really belong anyway).

I very much appreciate your time and attention. Honestly, this maybe wasn't the worst problem that could ever confront me but as it was both an inconsistency I couldn't explain, and minorly annoying, I'm very pleased to have resolved it!

Thank you so much for helping me work it out.

O99
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otalgia99
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Re: DRUM RACK: A Question About The Notes List in MIDI Clips

Post by otalgia99 » Fri Oct 15, 2021 10:53 am

garyboozy wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 10:08 am
otalgia99 wrote:
Thu Oct 14, 2021 3:29 pm
Clips for the third instrument can scroll all the way past (and before) the area where notes have been assigned to chains. The names of the chains are shown on notes that are assigned to chains, and all the rest have the generic note letter & number.
This happens when one of the drum rack's chains is set to 'all' notes in the chain edit/i-o view.
Yes, exactly! I JUST posted about having stumbled over that fact. It's something to remember when nesting racks -- the parent rack's MIDI RECEIVE will control the appearance of its MIDI clips in that way.

Thank you!
O99
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siliconarc
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Re: DRUM RACK: A Question About The Notes List in MIDI Clips

Post by siliconarc » Fri Oct 15, 2021 10:59 am

8)

otalgia99
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Re: DRUM RACK: A Question About The Notes List in MIDI Clips

Post by otalgia99 » Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:12 pm

otalgia99 wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 10:50 am
While I'm not entirely certain of it, I have a strong feeling that that's the main -- maybe even only -- reason to nest chains: allowing parent macro control from within nested racks (you map their macros to the parent's macros).
Oops -- not entirely the case at all?

Is it the case that, in order to apply master effects to a rack's contained chains, you must nest it in a parent?

Example:
- In this drum rack I have 4 AUX SEND / RECEIVE lines with various groups of chains dedicated to them.
- Now I want to throw a limiter onto ALL chains.
- Currently, the end of the rack dedicates the limiter only to the current chain.

Must I throw the whole mess into a new parent rack?

It's working that way now, and by nesting the drum rack inside an instrument rack, the MIDI clips for the instrument still only display the note rows used by the drum rack.

Just figuring all this out now,
O99
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siliconarc
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Re: DRUM RACK: A Question About The Notes List in MIDI Clips

Post by siliconarc » Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:28 pm

There's no need to nest the Drum Rack inside an instrument rack to have 'global' effects. instead:

• Add a new Return Chain to the Drum Rack's I-O
• Set the Return Chain's output to 'Rack Output'
• Set all drum chains' outputs to the Return Chain's output (e.g. 'Drum Rack | a Return Chain')

Now you can add global effects to this Return Chain and map any controls to the Drum Rack's main macros.
For readymade example take a look at the included Drum Racks inside the 'Core Library' pack.
Last edited by siliconarc on Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

otalgia99
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Re: DRUM RACK: A Question About The Notes List in MIDI Clips

Post by otalgia99 » Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:39 pm

Thank you very much!

Neater that way, for sure.

Many thanks,
O99
Perform. rig
MacBook Pro 2015 | OS 12.6 | 2.8 GHz Quad Intel i7 | 16Gb RAM | 4 Tb External HDD (USB3) | MicroBook IIc | Akai APC40 MkII | LIVE 11 Suite

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Mac Studio M1 Max | OS 13.2.1 | 64 Gb RAM | MiniStack STX | ApolloX6 | Live 11 Suite

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