'One click' pattern to track for drum sequencers

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Fraxis
Posts: 91
Joined: 07 Apr 2015

20 Jul 2016

Not sure if anyone else has attempted this, but after the discovery that the ‘Send To Track’ functionality of the Players worked well with sequencers using the Robotic Bean Combinator technique (http://roboticbean.com/creative/2016/05 ... -reason-9/) but didn’t lend itself to exporting drum machine REs such as Propulsion and System 9 without a huge amount of repatching cables to render the pattern out lane by lane, I thought I would try to find a way to create a proper ‘one click’ solution to render all 16 lanes to trigger a Kong.

So I have created a Combinator made up of Spider CV Merger Splitters (to merge data from the drum lanes in the REs and generate individual CV note data to trigger each drum) plus the €9.00 Miranda CV Delay Mergers from Jiggery-Pokery Sound (https://shop.propellerheads.se/product/ ... ay-merger/) to spread out the gate triggers for each step for each drum lane within patterns so that they don’t combine and generate incorrect note and velocity data.

I have created these ‘Render’ combinators for both the System 9 and Propulsion drum sequencers so far.

Download System 9 ‘Render’ Combinator: https://www.dropbox.com/s/87etrcqd7n46c ... k.cmb?dl=0
Download Propulsion ‘Render’ Combinator: https://www.dropbox.com/s/87etrcqd7n46c ... k.cmb?dl=0

A few things to bear in mind:

The CV delay: As mentioned, the Mirandas spread the start times of each step in a pattern to avoid incorrect triggering due to summed CV data. This means that each lane plays a few milliseconds after the one before it, with a step in lane 16 triggering approx. 20 milliseconds after a step in lane 1. In practice this doesn’t seem too distracting to me, but may not suit everyone. I have tested patterns at high BPMs (over 400) without any issues, but haven’t extensively tried things like ratchets in Propulsion or the ReGroove Mixer to see if they cause problems under certain condition. Once you have used the ‘Send To Track’ function, you can of course quantize the notes rendered to the track in the sequencer.
Selecting drums to trigger: If you flip the Combinator you’ll see that the rotaries for the merging inputs to the left of Spiders 1-4 are set to trigger specific pitches (C1-D#2). I have tried triggering notes higher up the keyboard, where each Kong drum appears across three keys, but the maximum parameter value of 127 doesn’t reach far enough.
Gate lengths: Whilst System 9 generates very short gate lengths that don’t create overlaps of gate data when multiple delayed drums are triggered, Propulsion in its default setting does. So I have set the note length for each step to its minimum in each of its 16 patterns.
System 9 Main Velocity knob: Don't touch this unless you're feeling experimental, otherwise it will shift the CV 'pitch' position of each drum being triggered downwards on the keyboard and some lanes may not trigger.
Switch off!: To avoid playing the rendered notes AND the drum machine at the same time after rendering, use the on/off button in the Combinators. This simply switches the relevant playback sync mode (Propulsion) or Editor/Song mode (System 9) on the drum sequencer so it doesn’t follow Reason’s sequencer when that's playing back. To render another pattern, you will need to turn the sequencer switch back ON and also reset the 'Bypass all' switch on the player, as that automatically changes state after a render and can't be controlled by the combinator buttons or rotaries (thanks to GRIFTY for pointing this out).

If anyone can think of enhancements, fix any unseen bugs, come up with a solution that uses fewer and/or entirely free devices and/or can achieve this result more effectively, please share! And if any developers are interested in making a RE that brings all of this functionality together in one neat unit, with 16 rear CV inputs, one Gate CV rear output, one Note CV rear output, plus 16 tuning knobs and 16 delay knobs on the front panel, then even better!

Hope some of you will find this useful.
Last edited by Fraxis on 22 Jul 2016, edited 2 times in total.

GRIFTY
Posts: 658
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

20 Jul 2016

probably posted in wrong forum, but champion work if it works correctly. propulsion 16th/32nd notes track correctly at 400bpm???????? if so then ratchet should work fine right

GRIFTY
Posts: 658
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

20 Jul 2016

:thumbs_up: fantastic. worth the 9$ spring for jiggery. works exactly as advertised.

kinda got caught up on the way the player works. propulsion HAS to be enabled AND the player can't be bypassed.

when you copy to track the player automatically shifts to "bypass all" so it won't work a second time without resetting that switch.

great work though man 100%
+1 +1 +1+1 :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up:
:many_fire_emojis:
Last edited by GRIFTY on 21 Jul 2016, edited 1 time in total.

Fraxis
Posts: 91
Joined: 07 Apr 2015

20 Jul 2016

GRIFTY wrote::thumbs_up: fantastic. worth the 9$ spring for jiggery. works exactly as advertised.

kind got caught up on the way the player works. propulsion HAS to be enabled AND the player can't be bypassed.

when you copy to track the player automatically shifts to "bypass all" so it won't work a second time without resetting that switch.

great work though man 100%
+1 +1 +1+1 :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up:
:many_fire_emojis:
Glad you like it. I have added your notes about resetting the switches for subsequent renders to the original post.

Mods, if you think this should be in another forum by all means relocate it if you are able to.

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BPGeez
Posts: 202
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21 Jul 2016

@Fraxis you are officially my favorite person of the day!! :puf_bigsmile:
Reason is my girlfriend. Sometimes she mistreats me, but I still love her.

Checkout my tunes made with Reason: https://soundcloud.com/geez-musicals

GRIFTY
Posts: 658
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

28 Jul 2016

I gotta bump this.

People! This is copy pattern to track for the Propulsion and System 9 Rack Extensions!

It works flawlessly! It's free!! Download it!!!

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pothole
Posts: 124
Joined: 17 Aug 2016
Location: Ireland

15 Jan 2017

Fraxis wrote:
I have created these ‘Render’ combinators for both the System 9 and Propulsion drum sequencers so far.

Download System 9 ‘Render’ Combinator: https://www.dropbox.com/s/87etrcqd7n46c ... k.cmb?dl=0
Download Propulsion ‘Render’ Combinator: https://www.dropbox.com/s/87etrcqd7n46c ... k.cmb?dl=0
very very good -- thanks

but can you repost the system 9 link again --> you posted the propulsion combinator by mistake twice

thx :puf_smile: :puf_smile:

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fotizimo
Posts: 285
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Location: Canada
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18 Jan 2017

So I have just spent some time looking around, and I must really thank you Fraxis! I am not as versed in REs and after having picked up Propulsion in the recent holiday sale, I couldn't figure a way to do exactly what you have here.
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ljekio
Posts: 962
Joined: 21 Jan 2015

30 Apr 2017

Bump this thread.
I was looking for some ways to achieve work of drum sequencers with VST by CV and found this.
CV Note/Gate signals from 8 channels of Propulsion merged into MoPol free RE and resulted Note/Gate pair might be connect with any internal device (Kong or Redrum as example) or with VST in Reason.

Also that way is more simply solution for render Propulsion's notes (while 8 channels only). Just drag the Kong outside from this Combinator and combine it separately again. CVs wires move to Combinator two and put some bypassed Player into it. Voila.

P.s. That render will have light dislocation of some notes which played together.
Propulsion to PolyCV (ljekio).zip
(9.28 KiB) Downloaded 166 times

Fraxis
Posts: 91
Joined: 07 Apr 2015

17 Jun 2017

pothole wrote:
15 Jan 2017
Fraxis wrote:
I have created these ‘Render’ combinators for both the System 9 and Propulsion drum sequencers so far.

Download System 9 ‘Render’ Combinator: https://www.dropbox.com/s/87etrcqd7n46c ... k.cmb?dl=0
Download Propulsion ‘Render’ Combinator: https://www.dropbox.com/s/87etrcqd7n46c ... k.cmb?dl=0
very very good -- thanks

but can you repost the system 9 link again --> you posted the propulsion combinator by mistake twice

thx :puf_smile: :puf_smile:
Oops! Only just saw this, many months too late...

Here you go!:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rs4vq5zdd96rv ... k.cmb?dl=0

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pothole
Posts: 124
Joined: 17 Aug 2016
Location: Ireland

16 Aug 2017

:thumbs_up: :puf_smile: great

just saw this now

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holocule
Posts: 42
Joined: 11 Jun 2017
Contact:

28 Aug 2017

Fraxis wrote:
20 Jul 2016
Not sure if anyone else has attempted this, but after the discovery that the ‘Send To Track’ functionality of the Players worked well with sequencers using the Robotic Bean Combinator technique (http://roboticbean.com/creative/2016/05 ... -reason-9/) but didn’t lend itself to exporting drum machine REs such as Propulsion and System 9 without a huge amount of repatching cables to render the pattern out lane by lane, I thought I would try to find a way to create a proper ‘one click’ solution to render all 16 lanes to trigger a Kong.

So I have created a Combinator made up of Spider CV Merger Splitters (to merge data from the drum lanes in the REs and generate individual CV note data to trigger each drum) plus the €9.00 Miranda CV Delay Mergers from Jiggery-Pokery Sound (https://shop.propellerheads.se/product/ ... ay-merger/) to spread out the gate triggers for each step for each drum lane within patterns so that they don’t combine and generate incorrect note and velocity data.

I have created these ‘Render’ combinators for both the System 9 and Propulsion drum sequencers so far.

Download System 9 ‘Render’ Combinator: https://www.dropbox.com/s/87etrcqd7n46c ... k.cmb?dl=0
Download Propulsion ‘Render’ Combinator: https://www.dropbox.com/s/87etrcqd7n46c ... k.cmb?dl=0

A few things to bear in mind:

The CV delay: As mentioned, the Mirandas spread the start times of each step in a pattern to avoid incorrect triggering due to summed CV data. This means that each lane plays a few milliseconds after the one before it, with a step in lane 16 triggering approx. 20 milliseconds after a step in lane 1. In practice this doesn’t seem too distracting to me, but may not suit everyone. I have tested patterns at high BPMs (over 400) without any issues, but haven’t extensively tried things like ratchets in Propulsion or the ReGroove Mixer to see if they cause problems under certain condition. Once you have used the ‘Send To Track’ function, you can of course quantize the notes rendered to the track in the sequencer.
Selecting drums to trigger: If you flip the Combinator you’ll see that the rotaries for the merging inputs to the left of Spiders 1-4 are set to trigger specific pitches (C1-D#2). I have tried triggering notes higher up the keyboard, where each Kong drum appears across three keys, but the maximum parameter value of 127 doesn’t reach far enough.
Gate lengths: Whilst System 9 generates very short gate lengths that don’t create overlaps of gate data when multiple delayed drums are triggered, Propulsion in its default setting does. So I have set the note length for each step to its minimum in each of its 16 patterns.
System 9 Main Velocity knob: Don't touch this unless you're feeling experimental, otherwise it will shift the CV 'pitch' position of each drum being triggered downwards on the keyboard and some lanes may not trigger.
Switch off!: To avoid playing the rendered notes AND the drum machine at the same time after rendering, use the on/off button in the Combinators. This simply switches the relevant playback sync mode (Propulsion) or Editor/Song mode (System 9) on the drum sequencer so it doesn’t follow Reason’s sequencer when that's playing back. To render another pattern, you will need to turn the sequencer switch back ON and also reset the 'Bypass all' switch on the player, as that automatically changes state after a render and can't be controlled by the combinator buttons or rotaries (thanks to GRIFTY for pointing this out).

If anyone can think of enhancements, fix any unseen bugs, come up with a solution that uses fewer and/or entirely free devices and/or can achieve this result more effectively, please share! And if any developers are interested in making a RE that brings all of this functionality together in one neat unit, with 16 rear CV inputs, one Gate CV rear output, one Note CV rear output, plus 16 tuning knobs and 16 delay knobs on the front panel, then even better!

Hope some of you will find this useful.
Hi This is AWESOME, Many Thanks :) Have just one question , you said in your description about latency adding up to 20ms, but if you quantize the notes after the process will this cancel out the latency is in the transference?

Jonathan10
Posts: 31
Joined: 08 Mar 2017

28 Aug 2017

awesome thx
:refill:

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ljekio
Posts: 962
Joined: 21 Jan 2015

21 Apr 2018

Ive noticed what my midi renderer and new much more flexible and usable solution (with RE TM-1) works with some microdelays on 3-4 simultaneously note in line, can works without delays when I use slow tempo (60 or less BPM).

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guitfnky
Posts: 4408
Joined: 19 Jan 2015

22 Apr 2018

Fraxis wrote:
20 Jul 2016
A few things to bear in mind:

The CV delay: As mentioned, the Mirandas spread the start times of each step in a pattern to avoid incorrect triggering due to summed CV data. This means that each lane plays a few milliseconds after the one before it, with a step in lane 16 triggering approx. 20 milliseconds after a step in lane 1. In practice this doesn’t seem too distracting to me, but may not suit everyone.
I just created a combinator that lets me mimic the feel of a live drummer by introducing randomness into the timing and kit strikes... I have a knob that scales the amount of randomness, but no matter how far left I turn it, simultaneous hits always occur (very) slightly off time from one another. the Propulsions I’m using are going through Robotic Bean’s TM-1 Multiplexer so I can use it in a VST. is what you describe here what I’m likely experiencing?

it doesn’t bother me in any audible sense, it’s just been messing with my sense of OCD. xD
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