instead of the single column for arranging patterns, how about the option to add more?
e.g.
pattern 1 contains a 2 bar drum loop on tracks 1-5
pattern 2 contains a 16 bar string section on track 6
in the pattern editor i enter:
column
a || b
1 - 2
this plays through the whole of pattern 2 (the longer pattern) and loops pattern 1 until it’s finished
then, if the next pattern in the list is just pattern 3 on its own, normal service is resumed, it plays through pattern 3
another example in composition might be a short arpeggio on pattern 1, track 1
pattern 2, track 1 is the same instrument, on the same track, playing a much longer harmony line
so
2
1 - 2
we hear the harmony line play all the way through on its own - then it plays through again joined by the arpeggio which loops endlessly until the next pattern
there’s two reasons i’d find this useful - 1) when you’re knocking up ideas with very simple drum loops and maybe very lengthy melody or pad sections, it would save a lot of time not have to copy and paste the same data over and over, and also keep things much more organised to have the drum loop self-contained on its own pattern… e.g. i want to adjust a hihat i only need adjust it once at this stage
but of course, tracks still behave the same as always, so i can adjust fx, mixing and levels on all the tracks as normal, and maybe even see the looped data from other tracks where it should be, and where they don’t overlap, slightly opaque
i like being able to loop patterns in different phases sometimes - so i might have a tune with a pretty standard arrangement, all square numbers, 2 bar drum loop, 4 bar bassline, 16 bar pad, but then i have a 5 bar ambience, or maybe a 5 and a half bar ambience, which loops in all different phases with the rest of the tune and keeps things sounding interesting
I was thinking about something similar the other day too.
Being able to split your patterns into themes (drums, pads, bass etc etc) would make arranging a song a lot easier. Its ok now, but any improvements would be good.
Dare I say it, an adapted vertical version of the pattern arranger in FLStudio working in Tracker terms would be pretty nice (don’t shoot me)
i was thinking it’d be more like Live!'s loop page
there’s some really interesting things you can do when you’ve got sync’ed loops like this
you can have 6 bar loops sync’ed with 2 and 4 bar loops - sync’ed with maybe a 15 bar loop - then you get all these interesting effects as they change phase… lots of ppl used to do this with the 303, there was a trick to get it looping 14 steps, or 15 steps, like on 4d’s “pure ideas”
it’s the most efficient way to compose loop based music
floops style arranging is still back being set in stone and inflexible
another idea i was thinking of adding to this would be a merge pattern option
so i’ve got my 1 bar drum loop on pattern 1, and my 16 bar pad on pattern 2
1||2
i can see the looped drum loop in pattern 2, on the relevant tracks, a bit faded/transparent
i press Merge patterns when i’m done composing and want to add some variations and it combines both patterns and gives me
3
a 16 bar pad loop with the looped drums all written in
i spend so much time copying and pasting the same small sections of sequence data, and then having to go back and edit the same hihat over and over, or copy and paste them all again…
this way i could do the 1 bar of drums then straight away open up a parallel pattern and record a 32 bar pad section while it looped away
I think you would love the instrument patterns discussed in the “rni future” thread. Then you could set up a pattern which can be triggered with one note, and hopefully with a one-shot/loop option and quantize function, it would act pretty similar to Live’s loop system.
but imo this option would be a bigger hassle. just a “simple” multiple-pattern-in-a-row- solution would be easier to build and to work with. i think both ideas will be a more difficult mission.