Oh my GOD
Machinedrum is killing me!
So many limitations and random quirks
Here’s my definite plan. MCL isn’t stable and mature enough for me. I need external MIDI recording, some sort of way to do “kits” (no sound load on row change), a quicker access to Y grid mutes and probably more I can’t think of
I’d like to use the other features along minus the sequencer, but the recent disabling of mode switch while sequencer is playing has made it more of an all-or-nothing proposition, made things more complicated.
I spent enough time on MCL for now and I’ve already requested the first two so I’m setting it aside for now
I’m going with a plan I’ve come up with where I can use the MD in a live situation without being forced into quantization for everything in my patterns, or 4 bars.
I’ll just dump some things here should they be of interest to anyone
Tracks 1-8 - drums; loose layout incl. BD, SD, tom, CH, and OH
Tracks 9-12 - chromatics, phrases
Tracks 13-16 - utility/control: CTL-8P, CTL-RE (sequenced), plus two free, Track 16 possibly dedicated to RAM-R2
They are grouped in groups of four A-D for purposes of muting, locating sounds, and external sequencing
I came up with the best chart for CC’s, much simpler than the ones floating around. Ableton still doesn’t have the ability to load a simple friggin list of labels, and sadly Machinedrum Remote just will not work for me, so I decided to just learn the ranges. I will make a PDF of it. Where’s the best place to make it widely available?
Gain staging is an ongoing problem. Without trig velocity, I’ve use VOL for hardness, which will have to stop. Instead VOL will be off-limits for P-locking and hardness will be done with external sequence velocity, accents, DIST, and external automation of LEVEL.
It’s quite tedious to convert existing patterns to external sequences. There aren’t that many existing patterns, but there are a lot of p-locks, and hunting those down may take longer than simply triggering patterns from Ableton. Therefore I have two ways of going, 1) PC messages (cannot be sequenced in an intuitive way) and 2) the MIDI MAP, which I’ve used with success in the past. I have too much stuff programmed for the default trig mappings, but thankfully notes 64-127 are available for pattern launching which fits nicely to banks A-D. I don’t use E-H much so this is fine, and it can serve as a nice scratchpad area.
External sequencing adds a lot of power and I’m comfortable with the idea of a “base pattern” with enhancements on top. Though, it’s probably going to gradually move more and more into Ableton. Not great - I hate having compositions split across devices. But we’re learning to be less perfectionist and just get results… finished tracks.
I decided that I’m not even going to use the extra outputs after all, it’s just too complicated. I’m pretty good at mixing on-device.
I’ve got much more of a handle on the E-MU. It’s better than sampling in Ableton, less roundabout. It has its limitations. But, it’s nice to have a “global” sample pool independent of Ableton or the current project, with instantaneous program changes.
It sucks so bad there’s no output of p-lock CC’s. Even with turbo MIDI. The reason is muting. If you mute on machine it mutes not only external MIDI but the Trig Interface. This makes manual takeover of tracks impossible, and that’s actually something I like to do a lot (on other devices). If it only muted external MIDI I could finger drum on the MD. If I could sequence on MD and transfer over to computer, then I could mute on the computer’s end and finger drums from anywhere. The only OK solution is to devote a track or two to live drumming, possibly copying the sound from the desired track - Step Record, Copy, Switch Track, Paste, Clear, leave Step Record. Try doing that live - it’s gotta be ahead of time. Maybe track 15.
Or maybe the “feature” could be fixed. @JustinValer are you out there? Can you rescue me from this terrible feature with a firmware update?
If not I’ll forget it. Maybe bake “mutes” into the sequence when I want to takeover and do it at the same points each time.
Right, so, to sum up, track layout, no VOL p-locking, composition and arrangement in Ableton, give up on improvised manual takeover,
I think that’s all for now …
Working with Machinedrum, being the primordial Elektron box, resembles Linux. So much work and research put into configuring it to work the way you need. Each track is like a tiny program. I look less crazy when you realize that this was the intended use. Figure out how you’re going to use it, come up with a set of conventions / Global and make a set.