Hello, I’ve had a DT for about 6 mths now and I’ve learned it inside out, as far as I can see. I love the design ideas behind it. What it does is the things that floated my boat about 1990’s hardware samplers. It does what I could do with those devices plus, on the DT one can program it Live, which couldn’t really be done on 1990’s samplers. Thing is, some of the operational stuff is getting in the way. EG Ctrl All, great feature, but it needs two hands. A latch on/off would be great especially stored per pattern. Same with Reload Pattern, two hands are needed. Also would be great if that could be stored per pattern. Imagine this…
I’m running a pattern, after so many bars I wanna mess it up with some Ctrl All on pitch and sample looping and then slam into the next pattern. The next pattern runs for a bit and I want to do the same back into the previous pattern. It’s too awkward at a timing critical moment to have both hands on the Ctrl All thing and then hit the previous pattern which is still messed up and needs two hands to reload it. Just not condusive to good performance. Something that compounds the situation is when there are 16 beat tracks along side 64 beat tracks. If the 16 beat track happens to be selected it’s hard to rell where one is in the 64 beat loop. It’s kind off ok when just doing a Ctrl All on pitch as the general pulse is still there enough to count it in ones head, but counting against a Ctrl All on sample looping is really difficult, as the pulse goes so wonderfully all over the place!
I wondered if anyone else had encoutered and overcome these difficulties?
id second that. Copy/Pasting your “clean” pattern to a new spot is a good way to achieve this. This is one of the great benefits to the DTs per pattern work flow as opposed to per Parts on the OT. Not better, but different.
yeah, counting while playing is something that takes a great deal of practice. My teacher would yell at me about it all the time and he was right.
Thanks Tony, I don’t want to alter the patterns. I have a system where patterns 1, 8, 9 & 16 are 16 step loops for drops and the remaining patterns are 64 step for the main parts of the arrangement. I just want to mess up the end couple of bars of an arrangement part before I go for a change to the next pattern or into a drop. I generally don’t have spare patterns in an arrangement, not without changing bank at least
Thanks, been looking at that, and maybe that is the answer. Not sure about it, might be too much cash and surface area, at least just for something to add excitement at the end of sections or going in and out of drops. Obviously the OT can do tons more than that, but its hard to figure out if that other stuff would be useful to me
Hey Tony, this could be tricky, my patterns are mostly set to change after 64 steps. Except for 1, 8, 9 and 16 which change after 16 steps. I’m looking to just catch the last 16 or maybe 32 steps of the 64 step patterns on occasion before changing. In general I don’t have spare patterns avalable except by changing bank. Another thing that trips me up here is that the Pattern button doesn’t latch. I press it to engage the mode, in readyness to hit the next pattern and just before the moment the DT drops out of pattern mode and I’ve missed the drop. It’s really hard to control. I have folks round to the studio and we jam. I’m always coming in a bar late or early if I try to do anything more complex that just change pattern. Very frustrating indeed
@dwah Ive read your original message a few time, and think i am grasping what you want to do, but apologies in advance, if I am not understanding correctly.
Wouldn’t it free up your hands in theory to utilize either song mode or pattern chaining for your pattern changes, then use Control all/ plus the awesome trick i learned recently:
Use control all function > before releasing track button hit no to revert all changes made while using control all before pattern change without having to reload pattern with Function no (return to save state)
That could be worth a go! It would mean looking ahead somewhat. When chaining patterns they will start at the beginning of their length and play the full 64 steps. Ergo one would have to think about making a move 4 bars in advance, and probably at 4 bar points throughout the arrangement, but it would automate the process a little, and there would definitly be a pattern change in the right place thus escaping the dogs dinner that happens at times. I had forgotten about that “no” button function. Interesting!
It’s a curious scenario as it occurs to me that a few options in the system setup page would allow for a lot. Such as “always restore/reload pattern after change to another pattern” assignable per pattern. A Latch Pattern button mode. If the DT stayed in Pattern selct mode then I could copy Pats 1-8 onto Pats 9-16 and use the bottom row as fucked up versions of the top row. Leave them all on a 16 step change and bounce between them as the guys have suggested above.
I feel you, I’ve often though about rigging up a latch to hold down the TRK button so I could CTRL ALL with one hand. When I’ve experimented with it it just seems to make things more complicated. I wish there were a software toggle as well
The crossfader looks like a fabulous thing! Scenes look good on the Analog Rytm. Considering that as I still haven’t found the right drum machine. Thought the DT might do it but it’s not really doing it for me in that respect. The OT is in stereo, that’s appealing. Mono is fine for some samples, makes no difference but some samples don’t survive mono very well. The way Surgeon uses the OT is cool. I have a bunch of modular and some desk top mono stuff which are just brilliant, can’t beat the immediacy and the sonics of them. I guess I am feeling that I would need to be much more into live sampling as a music form to go for the OT. My partner im crime does it on the Akai Force with his voice and it’s astonishing how far he takes it and how much control he has. When we listen back to the stems of a live jam, one would think it had been programmed.
Yeah it’s seems like an obvious thing to design in, and with a few options in the sys menu, like “release track latch when moving to a new pattern” and “reload pattern when changing pattern” The rub for me is that, when my brain is focused on more complex or awkward operations that I stop listening. Especially when jamming with someone else. When I am listening to what they are doing and what we are doing together the music is always better. When my head dissapears into the devices operations (whatever the device) then the music comes out flat and meandering. This is one of the things I like about Eurorack, , everything is on its own control and always right there, brilliant for getting feel into things. I can get good feel out of the DT when editing one track at a time. I am going to have a go at the “no” button reset thing coupled with pattern chaining suggsested by @Sleepynumb
Hey dude, does that mean you have mastered the thing I am trying to do? The thing about practise is proper technique right. So one has to figure out what the technique is first. It’s like playing guitar, if one has bad technique one will not improve with practise. Finding myself in a similar situation, I spent a couple of days practising these moves and things didn’t improve, so I have to question the techniques and the OS.
It’s an interesting dilemma, @dwah. I agree that practice does help get those transitions smoother.
However, another possible solution would be a menu setting that allows users to choose whether patterns load in their saved project state or in their most recent state. I could see that being very useful for myself as well.
Yeah very useful, a few guys in the thread have made some good suggestions. So atm I am trying, change pattern before I make the Ctrl All move, on a change to some patterns that seems to work but on a change to other patterns the Ctrl All behaviour stays active through the next pattern, perplexing!
been looking at that, and maybe that is the answer. Not sure about it, might be too much cash and surface area, at least just for something to add excitement at the end of sections or going in and out of drops. Obviously the OT can do tons more than that, but its hard to figure out if that other stuff would be useful to me