M4L Drum Rack mixer idea

[glitchrock-buddha]

Disclaimer: I'm not going to make this, as I just don't have the time for building Max for Live devices, however I thought I'd share my idea and leave it to the community in case anyone thinks it would be as useful as I.

The problem: Drum Rack sends are not available with control surface support. Therefor you wouldn't be able to access them with Push for example, or any other number of control surfaces. But Drum Rack sends may possibly be the single most important set of controls I'd want easy access to from hardware.

Sooo, I was thinking how I'd go about using M4L to solve this and my first thought was to use the Covert operators 16 macros (or Snapshot morpher) as a midi device before the drum rack to map 1 pad send for each of 16 knobs in the device. So then if you wanted to map 3 sends for 16 pads, you'd need 3 of these devices. Then if you had more pads, us more midi devices, they are easy to access from Push.

But then I was thinking yeah this is ok, you just have to map them all first. I wonder if there's a way to insert a device and have it automatically map to a selected send starting at a selected note on the Drum Rack of that track.
This is how I picture it: you'd still have 16 macros, but with two dropdown boxes to chose:
(1) Which send (ie. A/B/C etc,)
(2) Starting note (So the 16 macros map to the sends of the next 16 notes for the chosen send)

Then you could load several depending on your needs and have an easy set up drum rack sends mixer.

Yeah?

[JuanSOLO]

I used to be baffled by this.
THEN, I started nesting drumRacks on the cells and mapping those nested Macros to the sends in the nested rack.
In the nested rack I route the sends to either the hosting drumRacks sends, which are routed to the returns, which includes the nested racks preceding FX,
OR you can bypass the preceding FX by routing the nested sends directly to the Return Tracks.
PRETTY COOL!

From there I just built a simple device that bluehands each nested drumRack.
super fast, compact, organised.

You dont even need M4L to do this at all, because you can just midi map buttons/keys to title bars.

[glitchrock-buddha]

The problem: Drum Rack sends are not available with control surface support. Therefor you wouldn't be able to access them with Push for example, or any other number of control surfaces.

Not sure what you mean by this, because it seems there have been some heavy changes on this front.

For example; in M4l I can now easily access return chains (return_chain is now a child for the drumrack device) as well as the send settings in other chains, for example:

live_set tracks 1 devices 0 chains 0 mixer_device sends 0

I can get the value property and even set it (type float), this affects the send-a amount on the first chain the drumrack.

Needless to say; if I can access it using the API you can also access it using a control surface. Simply MIDI map it and you're done (tried before posting).


Then there's the return chain itself; same applies. Not only can I fully access all the devices in the chain using M4l (and thus MIDI map whatever I like); I can also control the return chain itself (chain send level & volume), example:

live_set tracks 1 devices 0 return_chains 0 mixer_device volume

So when you say you can't access sends using a control surface you're either talking about Live 8 / M4l5 or something completely different. In that case please elaborate.

Hey, thanks for taking interest. I'm not sure what was unclear here but I'll attempt to elaborate. Control surfaces (ie. blue hand auto-mapping) have no way currently of selecting send amounts in a drum rack from the hardware controller such as Push. Live 8 or 9m, this hasn't changed. This has nothing to do with Max for Live, it is an issue which I am proposing could possibly be worked around by creating M4L devices to control send amounts in a drum rack. And possibly avoid midi mapping lots of sends, because Max midi devices before the Drum Rack can easily be selected by your control surface such as Push. I'm fully aware that Max for Live can access parameters in a Drum Rack, that's the point of the device suggestion.

I wonder if there's a way to insert a device and have it automatically map to a selected send starting at a selected note on the Drum Rack of that track.
This is how I picture it: you'd still have 16 macros, but with two dropdown boxes to chose:
(1) Which send (ie. A/B/C etc,)
(2) Starting note (So the 16 macros map to the sends of the next 16 notes for the chosen send)

Totally unfamiliar with the Covert device you mention I can only theorize about "select the send setting for the pad just being struck".

That's going to be tricky, if not perhaps impossible (can't oversee it while replying).

Thing is; if you dump a sample on, say, C1 and A1 you'll only notice them as chain 0 and 1 in the API. And here's the nasty part: the chain's IO section where all of this is defined (Receive / Play) is unaccessible.

The only thing you do have is the chain mixer device, but all that gives you is volume, panning, sends and the activator (on/off) itself.

Therefor (at first glimpse mind you) I don't see any way to link a chain to a specific note. Unless of course you start naming your chains particulary, but that's obviously not the point here.

Yet without that info I don't see this working out.

Edit

...using the new 'DrumPad' class. That should make it doable to at least grab the right pad and then access the right chain with everything attached (sends/receive).

Sounds like it's doable. Keep in mind I'm only suggesting a quick way for instant send amount control with midi devices inserted before the drum rack, nice and clean. 16 knobs would instantly control the send amounts for the 16 pads of the chosen square (pad note range) and chosen send. So you load a midi device in, select Send A and starting pad C1. Those 16 knobs now control Send A amount for pads C1 - D#2. So to get a quick sends mixer accessible from a control surface like Push and you have a 16 pad drum kit with 3 return devices, you could just quickly load 3 of these midi devices and set them to send A/B/C respectively. Now when you select each device (blue hand), you control those sends with it.

Good idea?

Of course there are other options like having, oh say, 4 tabs of 16 macros which automatically map to sends A-D amounts for the selected pad range. That could work too.

And FYI the 16 macros device I mentioned is basically just a macro device, like racks but it doesn't have to contain the devices, it can be a midi device at the start of the track.

cheers

[JuanSOLO]

Control surfaces (ie. blue hand auto-mapping) have no way currently of selecting send amounts in a drum rack from the hardware controller such as Push.

yes they do, I posted how to do it, sans M4L, above.

[JuanSOLO]

[glitchrock-buddha]

Juan Solo, I appreciate that and sorry I missed your post. However this has many problems especially in Live 9:
-When you want a nested drum rack for a particular pad, you need to create a drum rack on a different track and load the sound into it, then drag that back into the pad.
-If you start with a whole bunch of nested drum racks on your pads for easy loading, then they don't automatically get the name of the sample/sound, you need to rename each pad from "Drum Rack".
-When kits already exist, you can't group to drum rack within them, so it's tedious to remove each pad into a new track, load to a new drum rack and bring back.
-When saved drum sounds are loaded which already have macro, you'll either lose those when moving to a new nested drum rack or have to remap them in the new nested drum rack for the pad.
-You still have to manually map the sends to macros. The idea was to avoid the manual mapping of using a MaxforLive macro device like 16 macros and just be able to load a device that automatically maps to a chosen group of sends.

So as you can see, although it is very convenient to have sends in a pads macros, getting there isn't always quick. Live 9 made this worse by removing "Group to Drum Rack". They just added it back, however only if the device isn't already in a drum rack, which would have been important for creating nested drum racks from devices already in a drum kit. I think a simple device with 16 macros that automatically maps to sends as I described would be pretty useful, don't you?

[JuanSOLO]

I think your idea could be useful no doubt, I just try to avoid M4L when I can, so I can use it in other more critical areas.

The group to drumRack is a killer feature, glad they are bringing it back.
However, there is a method that I have used for a long time, it's not terribly quick, but it's not as daunting as you think.

Here's my example.
For me I start buy building 1 drumRack, with 1 cell.
I drag a Sampler in a Cell, I drag all of the kicks I am going to use in that Sampler. (I used to use 128, over time I realized I was just choosing the same 5 kicks, so I deleted all the clutter.)
Then I create my return chains.
Then I map the Macros,
M1 Sample Selection
M2 Pitch
M3 Pan
M4 Decay
M5 Volume
M6 Send A
M7 Send B
M8 Send C

After that I drop some FX Racks I have made that I like to use for each drum hit
Maybe some kind of phaser/flanger/corus/ring mod rack
Definately an EQ/Comp rack at the end.

I save this drumRack out as my "KiCKS RACK"

Now I replace all the samples with Snare Samples, and save it out as "SNARE RACK"
and so on and so on.

For hats I combine open and closed hats into the same Sampler to get the same EQ processing etc.
combining the hats will require some I/O routing later down the line plus some zone stacking in a specific way that I cant describe off the top of my head.

Once I have all my Drum hit Racks built, I drag in a blank drumRack.
Now from the browser I drag each one of those racks to a cell, and make a kit.
Create Return Chains in this hosting Rack.
Go to all the nested Racks, and route the sends to the hosting racks sends, because I want the preceding fx to go to the returns.
This leaves me with 8 Macros on the hosting Device that I can use if I want to put effects on the returns in the hosting drumRack.
Somtimes I like using actual Return Tracks, sometimes I put effects directly on this hosting racks returns (good for freezing)

Once thats done I save this out as my "DRUM RACK"
Later down the line if I want to add samples I can hotswap them, or add them with very little effort.

In regards to accessing the sends on these nested racks with the "blue hand"
I can do that in a variety of ways.
either hard map buttons to the title bars
or build a simple M4L device that selects them, which still requires buttons, or maybe a knob?

I prefer to build a simple conotrol_surface patch in M4L where my APC40 selects these title bars of the nested racks using the Device Control Buttons.
In other words, If I select the "KICKS RACK" with a drumPad via control_surface patch,
the top 4 Device Knob buttons on my APC40 select the title bars of the
Kick Rack, Distortion Rack, Phasing Rack, EQ rack.

Very fast workflow, easy to understand and remember even under the pressure of performing.
Now that we have Automation to Session, you can sculpt crazy beats ultra fast.

Hope that helps.
Dont forget you can enable "-MapToSiblings" in the options text too, gives to fast mapping of identical parameters throughout a drumRack.

[glitchrock-buddha]

That sounds like a good setup if you only want to load samples, as opposed to drum sounds that were pre-created and saved. Live 9 actually comes with a pretty good library of drum sounds, already saved as racks. I also like to use different devices - sometimes impulse for example for a single drum sound, or one of the new Max for Live drum modules. I suppose you could hotswap the sampler on your default drum pad for a different drum sound using a different device and maintain the send mappings eh? I'll have to experiment more.

Either way, with Push on it's way, I'm sure it's still going to be more of a workaround than just browsing to a different sound for each pad. I was hoping to make use of this quick workflow with the Push browser for drums. So having a M4L midi sends device would be ultra handy because you could use existing kits as they are. For now I think the fastest thing is to use a M4L midi device like 16 macros to just map the sends to.

[JuanSOLO]

16 Macros is a pretty flexible device, it will probably get you what you need for your working style.

[glitchrock-buddha]

Actually a combination of what you suggested and using 16 macros works really well. I also noticed that you can save the default sample loading device as a drum rack, which creates a nested drum rack when you load a sample. Not only that but you can save the drum rack with already mapped macros for sends so it ends up being really quick when you load a sample and already have sends mapped. Plus it keeps the name of the sample for the cell, which doesn't happen when you have empty nested racks already. Adding 16 macros to the mix, it works great to save a default drum rack with empty chains and a few 16 macros midi devices before the drum rack already mapped to the sends as well. Then save the whole thing as an instrument rack. The great thing about Max for Live macros is that it doesn't disable the mapped parameters, so you can access sends either from the macro device (all Send A's for 16 pads for example), or you can access the mapped sends on the individual pad.

I'm just getting back into the Drum Rack workflow coming from Maschine because I'm going to want to use Push for a lot of Drum programming. I just wish there was a convert to drum rack from instrument rack option for pre-existing kits. And they took away the ability to group to drum rack for devices in a drum rack, which is a huge pain, I don't know why they would do this when nested drum racks are so useful.

[JuanSOLO]

I am not using the latest beta, I heard they brought group to drum racks back?
They should if they haven't.

I used to be heavy into drumRacks, got frustrated and bought a Tempest.

[glitchrock-buddha]

I am not using the latest beta, I heard they brought group to drum racks back?
They should if they haven't.

I used to be heavy into drumRacks, got frustrated and bought a Tempest.

They brought it back only if a device is not already in a drum rack, which to me is the situation I'd want to use it the most!

Funny that you've moved away from Drum Racks. I was only using Maschine for Drums. Got frustrated by bad integration and lack of parameter automation and now moving to Drum Racks...

[JuanSOLO]

drumRacks are way cool, I still have my go to kit that I slaved over.
It wasn't so much frustration with drumRacks.
More over sound of samples,
Computer screens and mouses
and trying to get generically labled knobs to access all things drumRacks.
Also on Live 8 and still somewhat in Live 9, there is no real "Save Parameters to Clip" like presets responding to program changes.
Also, even an optimized drumRack with everything I want in it, takes about 9-14% CPU, considering Live gets really funky at 50% not a lot of headroom.

A lot of little quirks like that kind of drive me nuts, just about computers in general.
Also the whole, "millions of possibilities" just had me chasing my tail and never feeling satisfied.
Granted hardware has it's limitations, but I kind of felt like letting that guide my creativity.

I spent 3 years trying to build the perfect Live Set, dicking with M4L and Bomes and the APC40.
Learned a lot, produced very little music.

Since moving back to hardware I have been having more fun, and concentrating more on music and sound creation, less on how things work.