Delta MIDI Computer - what can it do that other Players can't?

[antic604]

Like I said few times, I'd love to buy Delta because - on paper - it's one of the best & most innovative REs to come out in recent years. However, I'm fairly certain that once novelty wears off I won't use it because regular Players cover 100% of my needs, at least those that I realise I have

So please convince me I need it!

What can you do in Delta that you can't with other Players?

[Bes]

maybe it's fine that you don't need it?

[ab459]

Heh I would put the question a bit differently - do really Delta can do all what can do current range of players ? )

Or even at least full replace any of certain player ? (this is not irony, really i dont know)

Although, the interest is can say half theoretical. Because even if it will can do replacement, I assume it have to sacrifice convenience (and possibly stability). But of course it would be nice to find out.

[MannequinRaces]

Have you trialed it and gone through the presets?

[PhillipOrdonez]

Here's one: it can split notes to be sent to external CV, meaning they never reach the instrument it is connected to.

Another thing no other player can currently do, is to filter any given note once (or more) times every two times, or every 3 or 4 or 8... hope that makes sense ... Great for longer drum sequences programmed with stuff like drum sequencer...

[joeyluck]

It's incredibly versatile and an essential tool IMO. I find I get most use out of it when I need to do something and think, "How can I do this? Oh wait—I can do this with Delta!" I mean, that's how it goes with many tools and plugins.

Recently, I was using UJAM's Carbon, and I had the idea that I wanted the phrases (on the left side) to cycle automatically with each time a note was triggered in the playing range (on the right side). I don't know how else I could've achieved that in Reason without Delta.

Delta.jpg (276.76 KiB) Viewed 3523 times

[DaveyG]

It allows you to spend an unfeasibly large amount of time fiddling with a tiny aspect of your production.

But you should buy it if you can afford it, because you clearly want to buy it and you are long time dead.

[Yonatan]

Delta is foremost for cable guys. I will certainly get it one bright day but realized that I most likely wont spend as much time on it to make it justified at this particular moment. Might trial it in some subscription until next sale.
And yes, Delta is probably one of those "must haves" in the longer run, but the timing and priority may vary for each user. As said, if time and money is not an issue, one might just go get it. Seems to be an experimental lab on its own. Very cool device.

[PhillipOrdonez]

Variation is a huge aspect of my production. Not tiny at all. ‍♂️

He doesn't seem dead to me either ‍♂️

[chimp_spanner]

The biggest draw for me is that it's multiple tools, in one unit. It does note quantisation, timing, velocity processing, all sorts. So things I use it for;

Correcting the incoming velocity of my controller keyboard
Adding B0 as a kick, as almost every device stops at C1 and I like to have double kicks
Creating round-robin style transposition within a phrase so that a melody or chords will randomly jump around octaves/fifths
Sending a gate output from instruments that don't have it (for instance sending a gate out event when the kick of an NNXT drum patch is triggered so I can trigger Pump for sidechaining)

It's just a great all round powerful utility device; it almost feels like it should be a standard part of Reason as it does so many useful MIDI transformations!

[antic604]

Thanks all!

[1reasonable]

joeyluck - that is a brilliant patch! Any chance of posting it?

[Faastwalker]

I was sold on what I was doing with some of the presets. Not sure if it was something I couldn't already do with existing Players. But it was a very cool sequencer like patch. But beyond this a big draw for me is having something this versatile & deep available in the Rack. It feels more like something you'd expect to see in NI Reaktor. It's very cool having this kind of modular Player in the rack, even if you don't dig that deep. But it appears to be flexible enough that if you think of an idea for a Player you could build it in Delta

[joeyluck]

joeyluck - that is a brilliant patch! Any chance of posting it?

It's setup for Carbon, so if you want to use it with other UJAM instruments, you may need to make adjustments. And this only steps through 8 different phrases, which can be edited in Delta (which ones and the order).

Carbon Phrase Cycle -JL.repatch.zip

(1.72 KiB) Downloaded 185 times

[1reasonable]

joeyluck- thanks a lot! Unfortunately I think my Mac is too slow (late 2012 i5), as I’ve since trialled DMC today and it won’t reliably run some of the patches in UJAM VG. I was hoping that particularly the strum patches would be very useful, but they won’t run then thru the VG’s reliably. I know the VG’s are very sample-heavy, so hey-ho!

[Socram]

Full disclosure, I'm the developer of Delta, and I appreciate the excellent question!

My approach when it comes to assessing a RE purchase is "will this solve a problem I have run into or open up new creative opportunities otherwise not possible?", and if it doesn't do at least one or the other its a no go from me. This is also my approach when developing REs, so for me personally Delta checks both boxes. But of course I'm going to say that .

Delta has a dauntingly wide range of capabilities, I'm constantly discovering new things to do with it well after release, and with each Node Type I add (3 so far since release, over 20 total now with free updates forever) the possibility space blows up further. The fairly large patch set only scratches the surface, but its probably the best way to get an impression of its range. I won't deny, many of the things it can do are possible with other Players but I'm confident in saying no other Player gives you degree of control and flexibility that Delta does. This control can be a blessing and a curse, it might be overkill or take a bit longer to tweak compared to a dedicated device. But it can also be a huge creative boon when you can do these basic operations all in one flowing process. In summary, if you can think of a MIDI Effect stack, no matter how specific or contrived, Delta can probably do it, and once you get comfortable with it even doing simple operations with it is quite fast.

To elaborate on this unprecedented control in generating, routing, and modifying MIDI Events, I'll call out some things of note below:

The If Node, an extremely precise filtering tool allowing you to branch a MIDI Event by performing logic operations against its note number, note name, or velocity. This node makes all other nodes so much more powerful as you can selectively apply any other nodes effect. Usages go from the basic (transpose everything below a certain note number up an octave but leave others alone) to unique and highly experimental (use velocity to determine the octave of a note).

Delay Node, basically Note Echo on steroids, can run MIDI delays infinitely which is a surprisingly powerful generative tool, especially along side Clock Division or the various switches of the device.

Speaking of switches, the recently added Trigger Switch basically allows you to program your own multi MIDI FX chain and toggle between different effects with Trigger Overrides or routed events. This is definitely a more advanced Node but using it in conjunction with If nodes or other filtering processes can create extremely elaborate systems that would be impossible even with multiple other devices.

The multi-mode Velocity Curve+ node offers a bunch of great ways to process your MIDI velocities, in particular the "Multiply Velocity" and "Offset by MIDI #" modes are not possible in any other device I'm aware of.

The CV Output gives you the ability to send specific/processed events to other player stacks and instruments, allowing you to drive multiple parts or even entire songs from a single Delta instance.

The Set Seed gives you the power to reign in your randomization to create repeatable randomness for generative music that isn't complete chaos.

If this is sounding like a lot to wrap your head around (and it is), I've done a lot to make the device as user friendly as possible whether you're a patch diver, power user, or something inbetween. Delta comes with over 200 patches and templates to use and learn from, organized in an intuitive way. The internal Help System teaches you everything you need to know about a given node type, all without leaving the plugin, which is something I've never seen before in a Rack Extension. Delta also has a ton of powerful time saving features like robust copy/paste, tons of shortcuts, and quality of life features like the minimap. Plus there's a in-depth manual (where most of these screenshots came from) that I make sure to keep up to date.

Wooh, that was a lot, I appreciate if you've made it this far. As you can see I'm quite proud of Delta and hope I've outlined a bit of its unique capabilities here. If you have any additional questions I'm happy to chat here or take it to an email: info@staticcling.io

Thanks!
Marcos
Static Cling

[1reasonable]

Joeyluck - an update to your patch - A real world example of how flexible this amazing Delta MIDI Computer is! I've managed to add the final three notes to the phrase selection of VG Carbon - a bit of an education for my furrowed brow, but well worth it. Ive also managed to get VG Carbon to respond acceptably reliably on my vintage iMac! Thanks for the post, Marcos - having delved deeper into the trialled version - its become a must-buy! the flexibility is amazing, its enabled me to experiment with more chords on VG Carbon! And its on sale til 31 May! A no-brainer for me! Everyone welcome to download!

Carbon Phrase Cycle -JL 2 1R edit.repatch.zip

(1.94 KiB) Downloaded 170 times

[edx500]

Socram
This looks amazing!
I'm wondering, could you set up program changes as a sequenced midi pattern is playing? A sort of in-house RE for performing live....?

[VariableX]

Here's one: it can split notes to be sent to external CV, meaning they never reach the instrument it is connected to.

Another thing no other player can currently do, is to filter any given note once (or more) times every two times, or every 3 or 4 or 8... hope that makes sense ... Great for longer drum sequences programmed with stuff like drum sequencer...

neat! I didnt think of this! i love that my op-z can do this!
Gonna be setting this up today. Is there a preset for it?

[PhillipOrdonez]

Here's one: it can split notes to be sent to external CV, meaning they never reach the instrument it is connected to.

Another thing no other player can currently do, is to filter any given note once (or more) times every two times, or every 3 or 4 or 8... hope that makes sense ... Great for longer drum sequences programmed with stuff like drum sequencer...

neat! I didnt think of this! i love that my op-z can do this!
Gonna be setting this up today. Is there a preset for it?

No idea, but I can tell you how to make it, just which of the two do your want to try?

[VariableX]

neat! I didnt think of this! i love that my op-z can do this!
Gonna be setting this up today. Is there a preset for it?

No idea, but I can tell you how to make it, just which of the two do your want to try?

Tell me plz

[PhillipOrdonez]

No idea, but I can tell you how to make it, just which of the two do your want to try?

Tell me plz

Will explain the second one, as I imagine the op-z cannot do the other one...

Say you have the drum loop set up on drum sequencer, and you have a cymbal on the first beat, but you want it only playing every 4 bars.

Let us say G1 plays the cymbal.

Using the "if" node, you divert the path of the midi and isolate this note from the rest, selecting == on the if node, and selecting G1, this means that G1 will go through the upper slot, to which we will connect a "sequential switch" node.

Set the sequential node to 4 (this is the default) and only connect the 1st slot out to the output.

That's it!

[VariableX]

Tell me plz

Will explain the second one, as I imagine the op-z cannot do the other one...

Say you have the drum loop set up on drum sequencer, and you have a cymbal on the first beat, but you want it only playing every 4 bars.

Let us say G1 plays the cymbal.

Using the "if" node, you divert the path of the midi and isolate this note from the rest, selecting == on the if node, and selecting G1, this means that G1 will go through the upper slot, to which we will connect a "sequential switch" node.

Set the sequential node to 4 (this is the default) and only connect the 1st slot out to the output.

That's it!

yeah sorry this one, thanks!!
I needed a hand! I will try setting this up now!

I have ( trying to do your awesome idea before you reposted) come up with a kinda randomizer type thing that seems kinda good ( although im just mucking about )
Set up my drums on Reason Seq to play kong ( just kick snare hat and closed hat) Then chucked on a chance node with two outputs, feeding two clock dividers then merge... playing with start, count, dividers and weights its randomising the rhythm...

I am gonna save that and set your idea up thanx for the reply

[PhillipOrdonez]

Cheers! No worries at all