>I spent some time on the box yesterday at my local MARS.
>
I got mine from www.altomusic.com. I can't recomend them enough.
>I was a little concerned because it semed difficult to tell which tracks
had material on them and >which did not when muting and "building up" and
"breaking down" on the fly.
The preset patterns in the box all follow the same setup. It's in the
manual. I'm not using them, though I have pilfered a couple of cool grooves.
I've cut square overlays out of card for each song I've written, and placed
around the track buttons on my xl-7, like a channel strip on a mixer, along
with the chords changes of the patterns involved. At first, I tried to put
specific parts on consistent tracks - drums on 1, pads on 9 etc, but in
never works out quite that way. I picked up a mixer light (very cool) so I
can read my crib notes in the dark.
>
>Can you guys tell me about using the XL-7 live?
Well, if you suck, it sounds a bit like this :>
http://207.17.137.52:8080/ramgen/crosstalk(shortattentionspanmix).rm
>
>Do you use SONG mode or Pattern mode?
>
I haven't found much use for song mode yet. I'm not exactly sure I will. I
think it's probably for non-live work, rather than live stuff. I think I
would find it a lot more useful if songs acted like extended patterns
instead - looping rather than stick on the last pattern in the sequence, and
letting you switch from song to song, rather only to grooves. Then you could
make short, 4 patterns songs, and have extra long, complex patterns. This
would rock!
>What do you guys typically do to prepare for live work?
>
Practice, practice, practice. And those cards I mentioned. And get a clear
idea what you're trying to say with each piece you write, even if you are
improvising the song structure or whatever; no noodling about. And make sure
you know what all the knobs do, or you'll bore people. Of course, all this
is just my opinion.
>Also...what's the USB port going to be used for?
>
So you can throw away the midi I/O on your pc, or add a reaktor laptop with
no fuss.
>Oh yeah....why would I use the Trigger buttons? Can I use them in
conjunction with the repeat
>button, arps, and touch strip?
The triggers are for external gear - triggering samples etc. You sequence
them, but you don't need to, since you can send midi data to other gear
using regular tracks. They are for instant gratification - triggering vocal
samples, or sound effects.
If you don't have much in the way of other gear, you might want to look into
getting a Dr. Sample 303 or something so you can trigger crazy samples on
the fly. And some cheap, crappy effects unit; I can't live without them.
Those used, early-90s rackmount multieffectors are a fabulous deal these
days.
bIz