organising songs and patterns - how do you go about it?
2002-08-05 by heinrich22001
Hi, sorry, long post! triggering patterns? I hope this subject isn´t worn out, but I need your help: When I write a song I organise some of my patterns/tracks different from the emu beats mode: At current I build up a patternbase of drumtracks to compose new stuff. My drum tracks are a bit complex sometimes (latin, afro-cuban etc.), so I reserve track 1 to 12 (and according midi-channels)to different drum voices like Track 1/ch 1 - bass drum track 2/ch 2 - snare ... track 9/ch 9 - bass track 12/ch12 - shaker/maracas/cabasa tracks 13 to 16 are reserved for keyboards so i have more flexibility to find a rhythm that suits me by muting (latching?) certain tracks with the trigger knobs. A whole pattern would form a certain songblock like: Intro or Verse or Chorus, bridge etc. A group of patterns would form a a certain style like Hiphop, Acid jazz or whatever... (in fact a bit like the rmx-1 or qy 70) To work this way you should be able to switch between patterns in realtime to try out a line of patterns. For all I´ve seen this seems not possible in song mode with the trigger knobs, right? Is there a work around? I was thinking about combining those song blocks in one single pattern with the help of cubase: One pattern track (set to multi channel) would hold a 16-channel songblock like Intro, Verse etc. The whole pattern would hold various songblocks under various tracks - You only trigger one track at once to get a single songblock like Chorsu or verse playing. The problem: When You add some new bass line and you want your "rhythm data base" untouched, you will run out of memory pretty quick (maybe the processor couldn´t even switch patterns because of too much data). If I then wanted to switch off a certain instrument (maybe the claves, channel 7), I wouldn´t be possible... Surely I´m writing a bit the old fashioned style (not so much muting, rather create new patterns)Maybe its all too complicated and I should go a simpler way with less flexibility - Whats your 2 cents? How do you go about this? Thanx for your help! Heinrich