Message
Triggers as "RPS", I think I have it sorted !!!
2002-03-18 by erik_magrini@Baxter.com
I was thinking of a way to get the Trigger Keys to act as phrase triggers, similar to the way certain competitors' RPS or RPPR work. I think if you used custom User Arps, that it might be possible, depending on how many MIDI channels you typically use in a Pattern or song. Here's what I was thinking of doing, I'm just curious what everyone thinks, and whether or not I'm forgetting something that might cause this not to work.
The goal with all of this, would be to trigger internal drum loops, or synth parts that are actually phrases, not just single notes. For this example, I'll assume we want to trigger a basic drum beat, with a simple BD, snare, and HH Pattern. By selecting one of the KIT Presets, and setting it's Arp to ON and Latch, you could then program the arp to provide a simple beat. There's probably already Factory Arps set up for this in fact, I just haven't checked yet. You just need to remember the "root key" that you're pressing to make the arp trigger correctly and sound like a kit (more on this below). So far the only limitation is that you can't have more than one arp step at the same location, so only one drum hit could happen at any one time. IF this whole scenario works however, you could have separate triggers for your BD, your snares, your HH's or whatever, so it might not even be an issue. Once you set up the arp and save it to a User location, you then would save the Preset with that arp selected and in it's ON state.
Here's the fun part. You would need to select a blank Pattern, preferably one you've set up already as a "template" Pattern that you use as a starting place for composing all of your Patterns with. Now assign that Preset you created to MIDI channel 1B (or whatever channel you want to use) and save the Pattern. I assume that most of us typically just use the MIDI A channels, so this leaves us 16 "B" channels for our phrases. So Trigger 1 would be a Preset on MIDI 1B, Trigger 2 would be a Preset on 2B, etc. Now you would go into the Controllers Menu, and set your first trigger to MIDI channel 1B, and the trigger note as the one you pressed from the second paragraph above. Now when you press that trigger button, it will sound your drum Pattern!
Now for the possible negative aspects:
1. Assuming this works so far, this will only work for the Patterns that you saved the correct Preset to on the B channels. So if you've got a lot of Patterns already, you would have to go back and save them all again with the new Presets on the right B channels. ;If you've set up a lot of "RPS Persets"' on more than one channel, this could be very time consuming.
2. If you don't have a lot of Patterns saved already, it's less of a hassle as you can make a template Pattern with all of your "RPS Presets" already saved to the correct channels, and just use E-Loader to copy it to all of your blank Patterns. This way, no matter which empty Pattern you start writing with, the "RPS Presets" are already saved and hidden away on the B channels and you don't even need to think about them.
3. Of course if you regularly use the B-channels, this method won't work either. I'm sure a workaround is there though.
4. You have to make sure you never, ever touch the Arp Presets or User Arps you created. With so many banks available though, it shouldn't be an issue, just use one of the last ones and be sure to Sysex back them up.
I'm tired and haven't tried this yet, but it seems feasible in theory. Emu? Is this possible? What menus would you need to access to do this? Can you save Presets on channels 1-16B, without losing the use of 1-16A for programming your Patterns? Ideas anyone? I'll give it a go tonight and see what happens regardless.
rEalm
(BTW, the list of new OS features and bug fixes coming is mighty impressive, you guys will all be happy I think)