When recording a song, some of the changes (parameter locks and mutes - any other?), overwrite the played patterns. If you use a pattern more than once, it gets successively overwritten with all of the changes along the way, so you end up with the final version of the overwrites, with some interesting but rather undesirable effects, i.e. changes in the track get added to the earlier ones in the actual patterns, so if a pattern is used for the intro and the outro, and tweaked, you end up a collage of beginning and ending tweaks both in intro and outro, and in the pattern itself, so if you want to use it for take two of the song immediately while keeping the take one, some heavy housekeeping will cool you down.
So even before you start messing with song, here is the preparation:
Create as many chunks of up-to-64-step patterns as you believe will be needed, ideally, in the sequence expected to work best for this version of the song.
Create a copy of the string of patterns to a new bank each time you want to do another take.
Not sure if I understand you correctly.
But if you use pattern A in two parts, and make changes to that pattern, it will of course affect both parts, any part, that uses pattern A.
If you e.g. want to have an outro that is slightly different, you could just duplicate the pattern so that you have a separate pattern for each part.
OK, so that is one of the aspects: you need to plan in advance how many times a pattern will be used. For convenience, you could just copy more versions, but then need a system of knowing which patterns are where, assuming you will improvise rather than sit back and key sequence in.
The other aspect is that once you tweak patterns in a song, you lose the original version, so can’t do song take two right afterwards unless you create a copy in advance - or two copies - one for take two and one for untouched version.
[Side note, with the restrictions in mind, it would be great to have an option to record a song without recording locks. You could do a complete full-fledged performance, have sequences (or song structure) stored, and patterns would remain unchanged.
Next time you could play back the song with just parameters tweaked live.]
Any ideas on how to streamline would be much appreciated.
That’s a great idea, given the number of available projects.
A bit tricky here is that projects may contain more patterns belonging to different songs. We are reaching some decisions on how to handle content on Rytm.
So far, I have been looking at projects as containers for a single live show, thus, many motives per project. An advantage would be much shorter loading time, and samples could keep sounding upon motive changes.
If at one point you come up with a v1 of a song, even before that, you had better save v0 as mother copy.
Assume you have a project called free roam containing patterns readied for a live act, no songs yet.
when inspiration comes, save project to keep its original version.
save it immediately as This Song v1. This is the one you’ll be working on.
Hit record and go for it. Save song and save project if successful. Reopen project without saving to try again.
For another version,
open project This song v0
save as project This song v2
I think we might be erring relative to Elektron guys’ idea because we’re using Projects for versions of songs. Not an issue if this remains consistent
see point 2
The follow-up depends on whether you
treat the project containing the best version of the Song as the one to keep working in on free patterns. Tricky because with more songs you end up with free pattern versioning issues.
want the patterns to be kept in Free Roam, so that the songs are only for other purposes. This would be my choice, so that dedicated songs Projects are space for practicing and to retaining some good ideas for future reference. Perhaps also for remixing on a laptop, mastering and publishing.
Free Roam or the main project would be for developing material for a live act, with no songs, so that patterns are in their original state, and all the sequencing, muting and pattern tweaking is to be done live. Not bad.
In this case, any Song projects would be had only for the song, and one per project for most clarity, and any patterns there are to be ignored as further developed in the Free Roam.
I think this option is good enough, but feel could be better.
It would be interesting to hear how people handle that. Rytm has been around for years, so there must be some neat solutions.
So what I do is make a pattern and then copy it to a blank pattern. That copied pattern I mess with a lot and that becomes my part B. Sometimes that is enough or I need more.
I then go to song mode and program the mutes and build the arrangement with the patterns.
Thanks.,
OK, so patterns are automated before putting them in the sequence, thus you have intro and outro separate and given their character.
Doing some more research I found the song settings for muting does not change throughout the pattern.
What use do you make of such a song?
Is it already completed and ready for exporting tracks into daw?
Do you use it to play live? If so do you just hit play and focus on other instruments? If you tweak Rytm song to what extent?
Do you do Scenes / Performance on a ready song for further control? They are not made part of the song, so that would be the time, I would think.
I record into my DAW. Usually split the kick/snare and run all the top stuff through the mains. then I do another take with chords or vocals or whatever else I put down.
The song mode lets me arrange the track so when it is in the DAW, the arrangement is done and I can throw down some long filter movements or whatever else I think it may need. I also tweak the filters live when I record in, usually on the chords and vocals. I map a few performances to the knob as well - maybe the pitch on my hi hats for example, and play that while recording in.