4x4 pad grid "sampler" that plays a MIDI loop instead of sound

So you probably know the MPC style playing a 4x4 grid of pads, each triggering a sample. I would like to set up the same thing, but instead of samples, I would trigger different loops/arpeggios. The idea is that it's way simpler to change parameters/sound/whatever/play a solo with one hand and alternate between different melodies by triggering the pads. Feels like it would be a really powerful thing if you're able to change the original sound itself instead of just mangling the sample.

Off the top of my head, I could do something like this in Live by just setting up a bunch of clips (4 clips on 4 adjacent tracks) and setting the launch quantizations and whatnot so that I can switch the playing clip quickly. This seems clunky as hell - I would prefer something like setting up a Drum Rack, and then being able to drag individual MIDI clips on the notes.

Curious how to set something like that up in Ableton Live...

As dumb as this may sound, I think accordions sort of have this functionality with all the buttons on the back side (i.e. not the keyboard part) corresponding to some chord. I could never figure it out what the logic there was though...

Maybe you can do something with external instruments on drumrack pads and have those notes trigger clips that are on different channels? Still clunky I guess but you'd be able to "hide" the grid of clips in a grouped channel and have your focus on just the drumrack. Haven't thought this through at all btw.         

M4L, I guess. Use the step sequencer object and make it trigger when a note - doesn't matter what it is - comes in.

Using multiple M4L sequencers on a single drum rack might cause some weird problems if you don't program your devices right, dunno. You'd have to try.

I don't know of a grid style thing but there are a ton of keyboards that will do this.

This is obviously the only valid choice though.

Yeah M4L is the way to go probably, I was just wondering if there already exists something somewhere that does the trick. I think the usability part is really key - you should be able to drag and drop your MIDI clip directly from the session view and have it mapped in the sampler thing, just like you can do with a drum loop. I am not sure you can take M4l devices to that level of integration though.

Apparently there exists some mechanism for M4L to accept dragged dropped files, but will it be hell to make sense of the clip MIDI...? https://docs.cycling74.com/max5/refpages/m4l-ref/live.drop.html

I'd be surprised if there wasn't a way.

Problem is the M4L Live API documentation is really bad so it won't be easy to find how to do it. But it should be possible - hell, Richie Hawtin had a complete setting recall application built in M4L and I'm sure that involved reading and writing MIDI clips at some point.

Off topic: a workstation keyboard made for "up and coming groovers" is, of course, awesome. I need one in my life.

I don't even have M4L at the moment although I was considering to update soon from 9 Standard to 10 Suite. Pretty sure this MIDI sampler thing is possible to do but could be a lot of work. Wish someone else did it so I could just coast on that.

You can sort of do that in the "Megababy" sequencer that ships with Reaper, and since it's written in JS you should be able to run it in another host with the JS VST plugin although I've never tried.

Someone on Gearslutz claims that FXpansion Geist 2 can do this but I can't tell for sure from the product page.

I think Genome can do it.

I posted that specific video as a joke but any Roland hardware that has "Realtime Phrase Sequencing" does what you want, and that's just about every Roland product with an onboard sequencer since the mid 90s until at least the late 2000s (the new "retro" stuff might have dropped it since the trend there seems to be fewer features, but the workstation keyboards still do it). An old MC-307 will hold 500-something RPS patterns. I'm pretty sure other major synth companies had their own versions of this, at least in the 90s and early 2000s when hardware sequencers were still a priority.  At any rate, on the hardware side there are tons of solid options - they won't work exactly how you described but they're essentially the same thing. Personally I'd try to pick up a Roland MC-80 except that the prices are kind of insane so never mind that. I know there was an 80s sequencer from Yamaha or Kawai or something that's really cheap now and has more or less this exact feature but I forget what it is.

I don't think that first link is what it should be.

Ha, fixed. I'll find the right URL when I get home from work.

I didn't actually click the link, just moused over and saw the first part of the URL.  Was it a guy farting in a karaoke booth?

It was some weird reddit style thing featuring some youtube video so I closed it without much thought.

I stumbled upon this and then remembered this thread:

http://blog.abletondrummer.com/play-loops-in-drum-rack-in-ableton-live-free-max-for-live-device/

Haven't tried it out yet but looks like it does what you want?

Thanks for remembering & linking.

Based on the description seems that it's the other way round - some way to trigger audio loops through MIDI. That's not quite the thing I was looking for, but it might get me halfway there... sort of.

I think in Live terms, what I need is a plugin that you can drop into the Drum Rack that plays just MIDI loops. Like when he demos it in the video, ideally instead of Simpler, there's another live session view in there that loops a clip or does a one shot.

Come to think of it, does Renoise allow this kind of stuff? Can you trigger loops on other tracks from one track/instrument?

  On 10/20/2019 at 9:28 PM, thawkins said:

Come to think of it, does Renoise allow this kind of stuff? Can you trigger loops on other tracks from one track/instrument?

No, but you can have phrases which, now that I think about it, might be exactly what you need. I never use them so I can't explain it very well but basically it's telling a sampler to play a sequence of notes (ie a phrase) when you trigger a note. Check out a tutorial video for more info.

Phrases are, however, limited to Renoise instruments, meaning the sampler, so you can't trigger loops on external instruments. Dunno if that works for you.

  On 9/3/2019 at 6:06 PM, thawkins said:

So you probably know the MPC style playing a 4x4 grid of pads, each triggering a sample. I would like to set up the same thing, but instead of samples, I would trigger different loops/arpeggios. The idea is that it's way simpler to change parameters/sound/whatever/play a solo with one hand and alternate between different melodies by triggering the pads. Feels like it would be a really powerful thing if you're able to change the original sound itself instead of just mangling the sample.

Off the top of my head, I could do something like this in Live by just setting up a bunch of clips (4 clips on 4 adjacent tracks) and setting the launch quantizations and whatnot so that I can switch the playing clip quickly. This seems clunky as hell - I would prefer something like setting up a Drum Rack, and then being able to drag individual MIDI clips on the notes.

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really not trying to sound like a jackass or anything, but you've answered your own question here i think. "I would trigger different loops/arpeggios" = you're just describing clips.  not sure i see any benefits to doing this in a drum rack wrapper than just setting them up on one track or a group of four tracks (like you describe) but i'm curious what you think would be different by doing it in a drum rack: only thing i can think of is maybe for Push/midi controller performance, i guess?

anyway there's this i found but i don't have Max installed at the moment so i can't test it. describes what you're looking for i think? https://maxforlive.com/library/device/3050/clip-trigger ....same author has a Scene Trigger device as well that might be of use. 

if not, or maybe just if you're looking for more creative ideas, maybe check out Ned Rush's YouTube videos, if anyone's done anything like you're talking about it'd be him. i browsed through a few videos but didn't see anything, so it may not be there. Isotonik may have something as well? been a while since i looked at any of their stuff (or just Ableton in general really)

Renoise has a feature where you can trigger an entire MIDI phrase with just one note input, so maybe look into that.  I'm not sure how the DAW works with MIDI controllers, but it might be very easy to do.

  On 10/21/2019 at 1:25 AM, drillkicker said:

Renoise has a feature where you can trigger an entire MIDI phrase with just one note input, so maybe look into that.  I'm not sure how the DAW works with MIDI controllers, but it might be very easy to do.

Yeah this is childs play with the phrase editor. You could even make the clips the same phrases but different root notes or completely different patterns. 

Pretty sure the answer to everything is renoise and not 42. 

  On 10/20/2019 at 11:39 PM, auxien said:

really not trying to sound like a jackass or anything, but you've answered your own question here i think. "I would trigger different loops/arpeggios" = you're just describing clips.  not sure i see any benefits to doing this in a drum rack wrapper than just setting them up on one track or a group of four tracks (like you describe) but i'm curious what you think would be different by doing it in a drum rack: only thing i can think of is maybe for Push/midi controller performance, i guess?

anyway there's this i found but i don't have Max installed at the moment so i can't test it. describes what you're looking for i think? https://maxforlive.com/library/device/3050/clip-trigger ....same author has a Scene Trigger device as well that might be of use. 

if not, or maybe just if you're looking for more creative ideas, maybe check out Ned Rush's YouTube videos, if anyone's done anything like you're talking about it'd be him. i browsed through a few videos but didn't see anything, so it may not be there. Isotonik may have something as well? been a while since i looked at any of their stuff (or just Ableton in general really)

 

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I know this thing is looking really damn similar to "triggering clips" and it would be nice if I could use the Live Session view for doing exactly that. BUT the catch is that you can only trigger one clip per track, which kind of spoils the idea.

Although you may be right.. I get a 8x8 grid from the Push, so it does not really matter if I can only trigger one clip per pad column. I should just try it out and set the launch quantizations not to start on the first beat, but instantly. I think launch quantizations are global though, so it's more difficult to launch time critical stuff and have it sync up properly, but that's another problem entirely...

Thanks for pointing this out! I think I was too focused on the thing I had in my head instead of looking at a simpler way to do this.

one clip per track, yeah very true. had sorta glossed over that pretty key point lol. like you said 8 tracks with however many clips in each (could always duplicate clips if you want into multiple tracks so you can play them against themselves at offset trigger points or whatever).

launch quantization can definitely get granular for each clip (tho this does obv take a little fiddling, but you're into that! ) and of course remember there's legato mode which is often overlooked but might come in handy if i'm imagining what you're going for correctly. good luck 

  On 10/21/2019 at 12:23 PM, auxien said:

one clip per track, yeah very true. had sorta glossed over that pretty key point lol. like you said 8 tracks with however many clips in each (could always duplicate clips if you want into multiple tracks so you can play them against themselves at offset trigger points or whatever).

launch quantization can definitely get granular for each clip (tho this does obv take a little fiddling, but you're into that! ) and of course remember there's legato mode which is often overlooked but might come in handy if i'm imagining what you're going for correctly. good luck 

Imagine this video, only that the pads are not triggering audio samples but MIDI loops. Then imagine that you can record your tapping of the pads as a separate MIDI loop that will repeat. 

Anyways going to try out something tonight/tomorrow, thanks again!

  On 10/21/2019 at 1:49 PM, thawkins said:

Imagine this video, only that the pads are not triggering audio samples but MIDI loops. Then imagine that you can record your tapping of the pads as a separate MIDI loop that will repeat. 

Anyways going to try out something tonight/tomorrow, thanks again!

 

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Again, you can probably do that with Renoise.

  On 10/22/2019 at 12:25 AM, drillkicker said:

Again, you can probably do that with Renoise.

That's true, but all my workflow is Live-based at the moment and porting all that over is an insane prospect so I am trying with Live to see how it goes.

  On 10/22/2019 at 2:21 AM, acid1 said:

 

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I don't know Renoise or the original track too well (mods pls don't ban me), but this is really nice! 

I actually tried out some things yesterday in Live to see how the looping would go if I just used the regular session view, and just experimenting with dumb loops was pretty fun actually. I am going to try to extract some loops from my existing projects and see how it works.