Midi Looper Support Thread

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Musical Gym wrote: Sun Jun 30, 2019 8:26 pm I printed out the manual and read a lot of it. Definitely baby steps for me on this one. Took me an inordinate amount of time just to get some sound out of target vst.
In Studio One Pro 4.5 drag/drop to track(s) not working in current song. S1 wants to open a new song with the midi file inserted. I can always copy/paste from new song to current, but I hope I'm doing something wrong or fix will be forthcoming. Emailed Andy about it, but he's probably in the lab still.
I honestly don't think I can do anything about the drop behaviour, there aren't any parameters to change for the drop widget. Is it the same with both Multi and Single? I know its working correctly in Bitwig.

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Musical Gym wrote: Mon Jul 01, 2019 9:14 pm Andy, can you add prev/next arrows for scales?
Also, would it be possible to assign specific scales to specific variations?
I don't know if it would make sense to be able to assign specific scales to specific recorders.
I imagine it's that I don't know the instrument well enough yet, but triggering which recorder is active via KS doesn't seem to match which SEL button is active.
The SEQ Edit page is more of a view, I think, according to the manual, but I find myselt using it to affect output. Used in this way, it seems that randomize buttons would be useful on this page for each vel/note? I don't see the randomize buttons affecting the seq grids yet.
Also, I'm only seeing moving cursor under note 2 and note 6 on seq edit page.
Variations Random buttons only appear to be affecting variation 1.
I was able to get midi drag/drop to track in daw for one track.
Multi-track isn't working yet, but hopefully I'll figure out why.
Adding prev/next markers would lead to confusion I think. The Scale Presets aren't the stored Scale they are just 1 shot presets to update the actual scale which is defined by the buttons. I think if it had prev/next people would expect it to be stored?

I tried out multiple Scales and it was a mess tbh, I don't think it makes any sense to have that option considering the unmusical output it generates :)

There is no randomize for Note Data, the whole point is that you record note data and then manipulate it with the playback parameters. Generating such complex polyphonic note data randomly wouldn't be useful unless it was extremely sophisticated with a complex rule system. That's not somewhere I want to go with it, It's about Jamming.

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Musical Gym wrote: Wed Jul 03, 2019 12:46 am Looking forward to randomization of recorders/variations. Only number 1 of each still working for me.
Would be nice ot have drop-downs or ability to type in values of common objects such as freq (rate). Also could use T and D rates.
I notice when I trigger variations, the scale will change but it isn't reflected in scale "text" anywhere. Would be useful to have specific scale of variation shown in a field each time scale changes if possible (may be too difficult).
I've fixed the randomizers for the next version.

Unfortunately the way I have had to use the clock, it was not possible to get T and D reliably working, but you do have individual Step sizes which in combination with frequency can emulate it. Its the most sophisticated and complex sequencing system I've made in Kontakt and it took a lot to get it right as it's hard coded to the DAW Timeline.

Again with Scales, it can be anything you want defined by the buttons on the Scale display, it would take a very sophisticated system to work out what a 24 note Scale was named from the selected buttons :) Having the ability to create any Scale you want is the price for that, the other option is to just have the list of pre-defined scales. Personally I think the flexibility is worth it and encourages exploration.

In Kontakt, only sliders and buttons can be automated. The most important design aspect right from the start was that every control should be automatable and so they are all Sliders. Every control is 1 control per function for this purpose. The only exception to this are the Modes because I felt they needed to be selectable and it makes it easy to add new modes as I go.

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Welcome back, hope you're feeling MUCH better!

Thanks for clarifying; this thing really IS brilliant:)

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I will admit to often driving it into 100% CPU use in Logic—which is effectively a crash, as I have to at least close the project (EDIT: Noticed the little ! icon next to the CPU/disk usage figures; clicking this clears the "crash" so I don't have to reload). This must be amongst the most complex Kontakt devices you've made in some sense…

Most recently I did this (with K6), trying to record some existing MIDI files into it. It worked fine with the first attempt into slot 1, dragging the short MIDI phrase into the track, setting ML to Record with slot 1 armed, then hitting play: Success—This thing is so cool! It was when I tried to repeat this for slot 2 with a different MIDI clip that things went wonky…Nothing, then…chaos, sputtering sounds, 100% crash…! Ouch—This thing is so complex/I'm so dumb/Is my computer too old/Mac problem!?:)

There's so many buttons to make sense of (nowhere near that goal!), I never quite know if I'm doing something wrong when things don't appear to be working. Is recording from MIDI clips supposed to work?

I wonder if it could ever be possible to enable dragging of MIDI clips to either slots or the Seq Edit page (about which again I so far have no idea what that's all about…)
Last edited by David on Thu Jul 11, 2019 10:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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David wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 7:18 pm I will admit to often driving it into 100% CPU use in Logic—which is effectively a crash, as I have to at least close the project. This must be amongst the most complex Kontakt devices you've made in some sense…

Most recently I did this (with K6), trying to record some existing MIDI files into it. It worked fine with the first attempt into slot 1, dragging the short MIDI phrase into the track, setting ML to Record with slot 1 armed, then hitting play: Success—This thing is so cool! It was when I tried to repeat this for slot 2 with a different MIDI clip that things went wonky…Nothing, then…chaos, sputtering sounds, 100% crash…! Ouch—This thing is so complex/I'm so dumb/Is my computer too old/Mac problem!?:)

There's so many buttons to make sense of (nowhere near that goal!), I never quite know if I'm doing something wrong when things don't appear to be working. Is recording from MIDI clips supposed to work?

I wonder if it could ever be possible to enable dragging of MIDI clips to either slots or the Seq Edit page (about which again I so far have no idea what that's all about…)
Thanks :)

hmmm, no that shouldn't happen, I have a report from someone else about CPU spikes in Ableton but haven't been able to reproduce it yet. It uses a lot of loops to accomplish things and it sounds as though some of them aren't finishing although usually Kontakt deals with that with an error message at the bottom. I'm looking into that. It should never use much CPU and certainly not cause a crash.

Yes Recording from any incoming data should definitely work. Now there's 2 reports from different DAWs that makes me think its a problem at my end.

Kontakt doesn't support dropping of Midi clips on Kontakt sadly, only exporting. The only way to load them is via a file Browser which I'm already using for preset storage (you can only have one in a script slot). Plus it can only process a single Midi buffer internally which I use for Recording.

I was thinking about your other problem with no sound on playback, I wonder if it's to do with Patchwork not reporting the DAW playback status which is 100% necessary for Midi Looper to work. In that situation can you remember if the sequence indicators are running (the numbers at the top which count the current steps)?

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Welcome back and glad you're feeling better.
As per email, I doubt drag/drop is an issue now. I need to look at it again to see why/when it is and when it isn't. Will report back conditions if useful.

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"…can you remember if the sequence indicators are running (the numbers at the top which count the current steps)?"

No, they weren't.

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I must say I've gotten so much pleasure out of MLooper using it in the most basic way I can figure out (straightforward triggered looping of slots processed with variations and transposable) that it makes me wish for a simplified version, edition, mode, or companion product which does ONLY that and makes that process as simple as possible, too, more like very basic audio looping tools. So for instance, it'd be easy to, or not even necessary to, fix start points for recordings right at the beginning (my recording from MIDI clips made no sense in this regard), with only 2 recording modes (replace, layer)… etc.

EDIT: Weird how making a statement about confusions, like the above, or maybe it's simply taking a second look after declaring what you think…whatever… can clear the head and force a fresh look, like a sort of slow-acting psychological auto-correct function.

I just went back to the ML after writing the above and my earlier post about the Seq Editor and both saw how that works (pretty obvious really, and so powerful!) and also saw how this thing is already very like a basic audio looper… (Learning to use it, like with most all software, is as much about learning what to ignore for what YOU want as it is about what the features do.)

Still, it might be an advantage for new users to have an "Easy Screen" view with fewer options visible. Or a few more very basic introductory tutorial videos; maybe I'll take a stab at that myself…:)

I wonder how others are making out with this; could certainly be that I'm just a slow study with it…

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If you go back to page one of this discussion, I put in a short demo, using 5 Sequencer/Loopers of the 7: listening to it now, it is quite easy to differentiate the different and relatively simple 'arps/seqs from one another: each may be turned On/Off at will. To create a Reich-style crescendo or a rhythmic pattern which potters away in the background...
I used a 10% voucher on this purchase and feel almost guilty and looking at how much (some of which is quite buggy & limited), stuff which is out there, asking 2-4 times HG prices: Andy deserves our gratitude, for this instrument and it ain't cheap being ill, wherever you are😷

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Thanks Paul :)

David, Really if you just ignore everything except the Pattern headers it is very simple, select Record Mode and Steps and that's it. Everything else is about manipulating playback of the Pattern but at it's core it's just 7 Record Buffers with a choice of Record Modes. Adding a simple Mode would be difficult because although it's easy to hide everything, I would have to be sure none of the hidden settings were not used, plus it would be a very empty screen :)

I have made a start on the FX version which will be a single looper designed to be used more like you would use a delay. I haven't really had enough Sales to make it part of ML yet but I'll see if I can get any more via a mailout over the weekend.

Anyhow, I've now uploaded v0.991 with the following main changes:

V0.991
• Added Tint Options to add a different Shade to the UI.
• Random Row now works correctly
• Added Single Mode to play 1 Pattern only, Patterns behave like Variations.
• Added Scale Increment/Decrement buttons.

I've also changed the way the underlying system works to try and get to the bottom of those CPU spikes you've seen. David, if you could try and recreate the scenarios where you saw the spikes that would be great, hopefully I've solved it.

I've also added a message that shows the current DAW playback setting that Kontakt has received so Paul if you experience no playback again in Patchwork could you check what that number reads, 1 = playback 0 = none, it's in the Kontakt status Bar where the control Help is usually displayed at the bottom. If you could test that as quickly as possible it would be great as I'd like to remove it so all the help messages can be displayed again. If it is that I'm not sure what I can do about it, but ML needs to know when the DAW is playing and receiving the song position to work.

I've added Scale inc/dec buttons, but please remember that the Scale selection isn't a stored parameter, the buttons are the stored Scale :) It does make it easier to scroll through presets though.

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Astralp wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 6:36 pm Thanks Paul :)

David, Really if you just ignore everything except the Pattern headers it is very simple, select Record Mode and Steps and that's it. Everything else is about manipulating playback of the Pattern but at it's core it's just 7 Record Buffers with a choice of Record Modes. Adding a simple Mode would be difficult because although it's easy to hide everything, I would have to be sure none of the hidden settings were not used, plus it would be a very empty screen :)
Yeah, that's what I saw right away, once I had posted that I DIDn't see it, as reported in my EDIT above:)

I've also changed the way the underlying system works to try and get to the bottom of those CPU spikes you've seen. David, if you could try and recreate the scenarios where you saw the spikes that would be great, hopefully I've solved it.
I've tried this in various DAWs I have, and while not completely consistent between them all (and while I can't be absolutely sure I was completely consistent in each test, either), the easiest way to recreate this (in Logic, Waveform9, and Reaper) seems to be to load a midi file on the ML track (longer ones—bigger than the record buffer, I guess—seem much more problematic), set ML to MIDI Control off, run the playhead and switch on Record. Often this works the first time, but when switching to a different seq to do it again, blows up. In Live 9, I can't get recording this way to work at all, but at least it doesn't max the CPU when failing:)

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Thanks for the info, in the hours of testing since yesterday it happened just once for me. Let me know if the new version makes any difference. Also if you have a particular midi file that causes it, if possible could you email it to me?

I think I’ve eliminated what I hope was the cause regarding internal loops, and I don’t think that note lengths should cause a problem but that’s worth investigating. In all but the note repeat modes notes are generated by note offs, so that ‘shouldn’t’ generate any stuck loops.

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I've tested Patchwork and all is fine, the reason it took me so long, is that if I kept my user presets, which I have alongside Factory, then Kontakt crashed and took DAW, it was in, with it!?
I had a backup shortcut within the folder, which 0.991 did not like, at all🤔
Have deleted this shortcut, made new preset closed/reopened: all is fine. 😀 Oh and old ones work, also.

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Felt compelled to do my bit towards ensuring adequate interest in this cool thing, and the insane genius and generosity of "Astralp", and so made this "ultra-basic" intro to ML; HIH!

Note to Andrew: I DO NOT need—nor do I imagine many of us do—for any further development of this looping tech, as in the FX version you mention, to be packaged up with ML as a built-in bonus! I'll be thrilled to see it someday as an additional HG Product!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmT6BmT0A_A

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