apc40 Step Sequencer...

[hobbycore]

Is there a way to setup an apc40 as a step sequencer in use with live? I dont mind if it uses monome apps or whatever...

[yur2die4]

I made this: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=73e4 ... f6e8ebb871

There are a few bugs, and it is unfinished. In your MIDI settings make sure the APC is not set as a control surface and instead purely as MIDI IN and OUT for both Track and Remote.

I did not change the bpm of the clips. If I had done half-sized, 16th notes, it might be more fun.. but you will have to deal with 8th.

The length of the note that I used on all the clips is a tad buggy, it might be fixed by assigning Note-Length before Drum Rack??. Because of the bug, notes directly next to each other might be ghost notes.

I set the faders as emphasis/volume control on each beat. A few of the buttons in Scene Control turn on arpeggiator so that your notes double up per note that is lit (8ths turn to 16th). I had controls for variating the arp length to give it a swing if wanted but I think I turned it off.

Blue row of lights tracks the sequence, press any button to retrigger at any point. Red plays the corresponding vertical row. You can play beats out on it, fun because you have layers. Blue is quantized to the master, red has no quantization, anything goes. haha

I think that is all, its been a while since I've touched the file

[otralux]

could you post that again? or have more info on the subject?? I want to make my apc40 unique to my way and could use some help! thanks!

[delicioso]

I think you'd have to wait for Max4Live to be released and buy it for however much it's going to be (probably not cheap knowing how much Max standalone costs) unless you know how to program in Python. Novation is supposed to have one for download for Launchpad.

Or you can do what I did and just get a NI Maschine. It's pretty much a hardware step sequencer with MPC/Electribe features that utilizes the power of a computer, and integrates with Live. You can even have your laptop closed while performing thanks to its two LCD displays.

[Slightlydelic]

i made one yesterday,


step 1 set up a midi clip drop a 1/32 note on c3, set a follow action of 1/16th & next clip. duplicate the clip so you have 16 of them & set the last clip to go back to first.

drop a midi rack into the midi track

buid a chain of midi effects consisting of > velocity, note length, pitch.

duplicate the chain so you have 16 of them. open the chain selector and set each of the chains it own possition of 0-15

go back to you midi clips and from the top enter each one, go into clip envelope select the "midi effect rack" then chain selector clip 1 needs to be set at 0 clip 2 at 1 etc etc till each midi clip has it own chain selector value set.

go back to the chains and its time to start mapping to the apc. unfortunalty you need to do this chain by chain knob by knob.

heres how i have mine mapped to the APC but you can do it any way you want.

first you need step on/of i used the chain mute for this and mapped each chain mute 1-8 to the clip stop then 9-16 to the track select buttons.

i mapped the pitch for each note to the pan knobs for steps 1-8 9-16 to send A knobs, and altered the range to +/- 24

i then set the note length in the same manner to send B & send C and limited the range to 10ms to 500ms.

i then set the velocity to run of the device controll knobs but shifted into banks 3 & 4 for them, so that 1&2 would still auto map to instruments and effex.

thats the sequencer done. you can now controll each steps pitch, length & velocity from its own dedicated knob, and can mute any steps using the clip stop and track select buttons.

next set up another midi channel set its midi in as being the sequencer channel and set to post effex. drop which ever midi instrument you like into this channel press play on clip 1 and it will cycle through,

LIMITATIONS.

youve prety much knocked out a lot of the APC funtionality, this is why i use a seperate midi channel for the instrument, as it lets me record the step sequence midi data for use later in other projects.

you could set up an audio track just the same to record the audio though.

also as you go from bank to bank tweeking the kobs as you go back to banks the lights jump but the encoder needs a good turn back and forth to latch where it was set. (bare it in mind if your tweeking the knobs while recording)


since doing the above, ive duplicated the 16 clips into 2 more midi channels then highlighted the 16 clips and set the follow action in 1 set of clips to 1/4 note the other to 1/8th note. i send these to two more midi tracks containing instruments.

all 3 step sequences will share the same pitches but 1 runs at 1/4 note 1 at 1/8 the other at 1/16th by knocking steps in and out you can usualy find something woth recording to a clip at each measure.

if you want to add anything to the sequencer just remeber that fundimentaly each midi note in a clip belongs to its own midi chain in the rack so if you need note specific controll any addition needs to be added to each midi chain. if your adding something that will work on all notes just drop one instance out side of the midi rack all chains will then pass through it, (another pitch plugin will allow you to transpose the whole sequence)

im realy pleased with the result, its doing exactly what i want and as my plan was to be recording the midi data anyway, its not a big deal for me to have knocked quite a bit of APC funtionality out.

[Slightlydelic]

also if you can be bothered you can make it 32 step by maping all pitches to the track controll knobs length to device controll banks 1-4 velocity to 5-8 you could turn the steps on and of using 4 rows of clip launch buttons.