^^^-here's the combi-^^^
vvv-and the video-vvv
first, a bit of background... been using Reason for years, but have never really done much in terms of messing around with combinators and the like, though I have seen how immensely powerful they can be. okay, that's it for background, actually, I guess.
I am lazy AF when it comes to programming drums. I'm a rock guy, who can't play drums for s@#$ (not having a kit doesn't help), so I usually want my drums to sound as realistic as I can get them. enter Addictive Drums... a great multisampled kit plugin gets me like 80% of the way there, which is great, but I need to actually program them, and, well, I'm not a great keyboard player either, so it's usually just me sitting there, hitting the kick for a few bars, then the snare, then the hat, and so on. otherwise, it's done using a grid, which doesn't sound very realistic, timing wise.
I wanted a better way. so, being the lazy bastard I am, I decided it would be a good use of my time to spend 30 hours and >$100 in Rack Extensions I otherwise wouldn't need to try and make one myself. surprisingly, I think I've gotten it to work (mostly).
here's what I wanted it to do:
- set percentage of each hit in the sequence [partial; I got it to set percentage to hit for the individual kitpieces, but not percentage for each individual note within the sequence]
- specify that certain hits within the sequence are required/hit 100% of the time [partial; I was able to get this probably 99% of the time, but when I add more randomness to the timing, there are occasional, but rare dropouts]
- slider to allow me to set the tightness/randomness of the timing [successful]
- slider to allow me to shift notes before or after the beat/kick [sort of successful; I was able to get the kick shifted before/after the other kitpieces, not the other way around]
- slider to allow me to set randomness of velocity [successful]
- ability to limit the number of concurrent drum strikes to four (2 stick; 2 foot) [unsuccessful ]
- ability to set priority for which of the four concurrent strikes possible would be allowed through (e.g. if kick, snare, hat pedal, and toms have priority over cymbals, any cymbal hits produced would be ignored) [nope.]
my point here is...this was a blast. I haven't done anything musical in days because of it, but it was fun, and should reap some rewards down the line. I can't imagine trying to develop this sort of thing with any regularity, and also expecting to actually make any music.
kudos to those of you who've figured that out. I have a newfound appreciation for the Refill developers of the world.
here's a thumbnail shot of the Combinator...