Expanding Mark Egloff's Step Sequencer...NEED HELP.

[JuanSOLO]

For months I have been using Hanz Pertov'e script, along with Bomes, plus some extra M4L devices I made to get a lot of the functionality I want out of my APC40. After getting frustrated with running Bome's and being locked into a few of the quirks that Hanz's script offers, I decided to dig into Mark Egloff APC Sequencer to see if I could modify it to do what I have already been doing and more, without Bomes help. I really like this device, and the inside is beautifully built, making it easy to learn from and possibly add too.

My goal is to, use the Track Select buttons 1-8 to put the APC40 in a specific mode for the selected track:

Track Select 1 would do what it already does when Mark Egloff's patch is on it, "Sequence Mode." However I want to add a few things. I've already changed the way the CUE Knob works. Instead of changing the note, it changes a pitch knob nested before my sampler in the selected cell, which is my way of scrolling through samples across the 8 cells. Basically when I hit a clip stop button as a drum pad, my Device Control Knobs "blue hand" a device in the selected cell controlling volume, pan, pitch, decay, sends A and B. I can get the blue hand working, but I cant get the device in focus.


Any help would be greatly appreciated.
How do I blue hand a device on a cell in a drumRack AND get that device in focus?

Track Select 2-8 would:
-Disable the Matrix and implement features like Note/User Modes on different Channels.
-Have the Device Control Knobs "blue hand" the first device in the selected track
-Have the Track Control Knobs emulate the blue hand, on the second device in the selected track.

2. How do I disable the Track Control Knobs? I have an extra menu in the patch that gives me the component number for different stuff on the APC40. I believe the component number for the track_control_modes is 72. I thought I would be able to enable/disable that component and assign the knobs to do something else but they still act as pan and send knobs after I thought I had disabled them?

[JuanSOLO]

OK after some reading about disabling the Track Control Knobs, I realized I was sending a command to disable the pan and send buttons, using the track_control_modes component? I think I should have been disabling the mixer component?

OR which component is just the Track Control Knobs?

[skatr2]

I haven't a clue where to start, but I will be following this thread because I am interested in making some small changes myself and would like to see where people are going with it. LOVE it as is, but I still am way into Hanz's remote script (which doesn't port to the APC20). Would love to be able to use ME's que knob to scroll up and down the keyboard (or drum line) and each line a different key. (or maybe even scroll left and right across the keyboard to keep things relatively simpler). This wont fix a specific sound to a channel and not limit you to 8 sounds. Probably way out of my programming ability, but worth looking at I guess.

[JuanSOLO]

@skatr2, I'm not following you 100% but if your saying you'd like to access "more" samples with the cue knob, thats fairly simple, but first you have to use samplers in your drumRack cells and load each one of those up with samples. In my DrumRack I use 8 cells, each with an instance of sampler. Each sampler has close to 127 samples loaded in it. If you want PM me your email address and I'll send you some stuff showing you how to do that.

I have not had a chance to work on my modification to Mark's patch in the last couple of days. However I will be doing a lot of work on it this weekend. I'm not sure if I will be able to combine all the ideas into one patch, or if thats even necessary. In another thread Mark says the patch is designed to work as different instances on multiple tracks, and it does that really well. I'm almost done making a "note mode" version of the patch. So right now it looks like my modifications are leaning towards a hybrid between Mark's patch, and Hanz's script, mixed together with some of my own ideas about efficiency, and more modular than either one.

[Mark Egloff]

@JuanSOLO: Looking forward to your modification! Let me know, if you have some questions about the interior of the patch (I tried to make it as self explanatory and modularized as possible, but sometimes it's still quite overwhelming for me when I want to add or change a feature.)

Have a nice patching-weekend!

-Mark

[JuanSOLO]

@Mark, at the moment I only have 1 question. Is it better to combine everything into 1 efficient patch, or make them more modular, and leave them on separate tracks.

For example, if I want a "note mode" on a track, and a step sequencer on another, should I leave these patches separate? I am wondering if it matters to Live in the realm of CPU consumption.


So far your patch is ultra elegant and I can manage to understand most of it, but the heavy use of send and receive objects and lots of encapsulated things make it crazy to dig around in. Maybe I should hook up an extra monitor to work on it this weekend. Seriously the patching work is beautiful, which seems very rare for most devices.

[JuanSOLO]

I have noticed that when editing the patch, sometimes it completely looses connectivity to the APC40 and I have to completely restart Live to get it back. This only happens in editing, and it only happens sometimes, usually after saving. Any ideas on what causes that?

[skatr2]

@skatr2, I'm not following you 100% but if your saying you'd like to access "more" samples with the cue knob, thats fairly simple, but first you have to use samplers in your drumRack cells and load each one of those up with samples. In my DrumRack I use 8 cells, each with an instance of sampler. Each sampler has close to 127 samples loaded in it. If you want PM me your email address and I'll send you some stuff showing you how to do that.

I have not had a chance to work on my modification to Mark's patch in the last couple of days. However I will be doing a lot of work on it this weekend. I'm not sure if I will be able to combine all the ideas into one patch, or if thats even necessary. In another thread Mark says the patch is designed to work as different instances on multiple tracks, and it does that really well. I'm almost done making a "note mode" version of the patch. So right now it looks like my modifications are leaning towards a hybrid between Mark's patch, and Hanz's script, mixed together with some of my own ideas about efficiency, and more modular than either one.

Well I was thinking kind of a combination of the two. When you load a synth and activate Hanz's script, each line is a note (5 notes viewable). As you bank select up and down it scrolls up and down that keyboard and allows you as many notes in any range you want to program in. If any steps are lit up, obviously they scroll up and down as you move it. So a thought on ME's was something similar. rather than having to scale up each individual column to find the next note, the knob would scroll the viewable area up and down the keyboard. This however would probably require a complete rework of what it does. May take my off day today to eyeball it though.

[JuanSOLO]

I'm pretty sure that can be done. I pretty much deleted alot of the original cue knob stuff in Mark's patch and left just what I needed to scroll through things. It could pretty much hook up to any feature in the patch. When I get home from work I will try to post some pics. Basically you could take the value the cue is sending out and attach it to the way the 8 stop buttons work, so instead of having 8 you could have the entire length of the drumRack.

[skatr2]

I'll keep an eye out for some of the changes you make Juan. May find some useful. Only thing about my ideas is as is, Mark's works just fine for what I technically need. Expands record lengths and does scroll as far up and down the keys as I need for each column. Where all I am looking for is to make it more basic. Rather than "selecting" notes for the sequencer, having the sequencer look at the entire note spread as a whole. When I looked over the patch, I can see where the control of que knob is setup...but I definitely am way too new on this undertaking. Still learning the nuances of live itself and finding a good sound...then throwing program language on top makes me think about all the time lost actually making music.

[marktakeshi]

@JuanSolo

Is it better to combine everything into 1 efficient patch, or make them more modular, and leave them on separate tracks.

For example, if I want a "note mode" on a track, and a step sequencer on another, should I leave these patches separate? I am wondering if it matters to Live in the realm of CPU consumption.

It's hard to say whether combining functions into one patch or creating modules is the better way, since both have advantages and disadvantages. Some quick thoughts:

Everything in one patch:
+ Less overhead if you create one master-patch that deploys its function globally instead of being limited onto one track, device, clip, etc. (e.g. instead of having to throw one APC Step Seq into each track, I could have created a master-patch that does the same thing across tracks. However, this would have made the LED feedback and sound-preview harder to implement)
+ No need to implement cross-patch awareness/communication. E.g. the APC-Step Seq patches are exchanging some information, which wouldn't be necessary if you just had one master-patch
- More overhead if you pack too much functions into one patch out of which only a small part is usually used.
- More integration and usability work (e.g. in your case you would need to add another button to switch between Beat-mode and note-mode
- More maintenance work, due to the increased complexity, especially if you haven't taken a look at the patch for a long time and need to first understand how it actually works.


Modules:
+ Less patching complexity
+ Less complexity for the user to understand and use the patch
+ Less risk for introducing bugs into your patch
- Requires more setup-time if you need several modules to create a basic functionality (e.g. take a look at the awesome Modulator from Prebenious: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device.php?id=651. If he would have chosen to make modules for each part of the device, the device would not have been so extremely user-friendly as it is now)

In your case, I would make separate modules for your Note-mode, since you are planning to use them on different tracks.

CPU-wise I wouldn't worry too much since you are not using any MSP stuff or live.remote.

I have noticed that when editing the patch, sometimes it completely looses connectivity to the APC40 and I have to completely restart Live to get it back. This only happens in editing, and it only happens sometimes, usually after saving. Any ideas on what causes that?

Yes, happens to me as well and I'm not 100% sure why. Normally, it's enough to reselect the APC from the drop-down and toggle the on-off-button or to just re-open the Live-project. I guess it's a problem of my patch and not a Live/MFL bug, but so far I couldn't really isolate the problem. And since this is only a usability problem for developers and not the end-user, I spent my time on improving other parts of the patch. But let me know, if you figure out what could be the problem.

Have a nice weekend,
Mark

[JuanSOLO]

So instead of posting my Note Mode patch stuff here I started a new thread, http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=164655 .

I dismantled Mark's Step Sequencer patch and hacked together some of my own stuff. It's still a WIP. I wanted to post here, to anyone watching this thread.

[JuanSOLO]

OK, so when the Seq Patch is active, the Scene 5 row of the Matrix Buttons do nothing. When you hold the Stop All Clips button you get the extra functions, plus the "accent note"

I want to change the row that does nothing to select a range of velocity from 10 20 40 60 80 100 120 127, and I want this to make the LED's in the Matrix go from Green @(10 20 40), Yellow @(60 80 100), to Red@(120 127).

I would like this rather than the Accent Notes. However, this seems to be a more complex part of the patch. I have tried and tried to figure it out, but I am LOST.

Any Ideas?

[JuanSOLO]

anyone?

[JuanSOLO]

OK, so when the Seq Patch is active, the Scene 5 row of the Matrix Buttons do nothing. When you hold the Stop All Clips button you get the extra functions, plus the "accent note"

I want to change the row that does nothing to select a range of velocity from 10 20 40 60 80 100 120 127, and I want this to make the LED's in the Matrix go from Green @(10 20 40), Yellow @(60 80 100), to Red@(120 127).

I would like this rather than the Accent Notes. However, this seems to be a more complex part of the patch. I have tried and tried to figure it out, but I am LOST.

Any Ideas?

Mark, are you out there? I'd love some tips on achieving this. When looking through the patch I can find all of the "sel 0 1" objects which translate the velocity from 100 to 127. However these are routed in a tricky way. Not sure how to get a wider range of velocity, plus LED feedback, without screwing things up?