Arturia Forums
Hardware Sequencers => BeatStep Pro => Topic started by: koochey on October 31, 2015, 09:09:00 pm
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Hey - why not upgrade the sequencer to a polyphonic ???
since you can play chords with the pads why not be able to record them...
then with the knobs transpose the chords - of course in the selected scale :P
would bring us a powerful polyphonic sequencer :)
i would buy even a second one
cheers
Den
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I know it would be possible with an adjustment to the MCC. As for example in Ableton I can bring up the Chord plugin and make single notes into chords (Cthulhu plugin does the same), so with the MCC as a go between I'm sure it's easily done. As for right into the firmware itself I dunno if such is possible.
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Hi koochey,
Dealing with polyphonic or monophonic sequences is really not the same thing. It's not as simple as just "recording the chords you play". How do you change your chords notes if you've made a mistake ? We also touch the limits of MIDI Din band width and many other points that make this just impossible. And the BSP wasn't designed for.
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Hey Valentin,
don't get me wrong - i love the concept and i understand it as well...
just playing a lot around these days with BSP and reached some points where i thought - hey that would be cool too !
so in this case i would say wrong chord = step new ;)
but if the MIDI data is limited seems i am sucked with Ableton for polyphonic sequencing :/
best
Den
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Come on Valentin you have superb Engineers in Arturia, dont mention is imposible, offcourse there would have to be some trade offs, posibly lowerning the max number o steps or disabling some feature while on poliphonic mode, but it would be great to at lest have 1 poliphonic sequence in there (at least 3 notes at a time). Just think out of the box (Cliche acnkowleged) and youŽll find a way to make it work with the current hardware. Think how microsoft was able to make Xbox One backward compatible with xbox 360 a feature that many thougt was imposible on that hardware, but their engineering team was able to make it work against all odds.
BTW If you play the wrong chord, just try again. One of the tradeoffs the user would have to accept when working on "poly mode".
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You can make duophonic sequences by programming the same sequence into both monophonic sequencers. At the moment the copying of sequences from seq1 to 2 is broken, but it's not hard to play/program a sequence twice.
Come on Valentin you have superb Engineers in Arturia, dont mention is imposible, offcourse there would have to be some trade offs, posibly lowerning the max number o steps or disabling some feature while on poliphonic mode, but it would be great to at lest have 1 poliphonic sequence in there (at least 3 notes at a time). Just think out of the box (Cliche acnkowleged) and youŽll find a way to make it work with the current hardware. Think how microsoft was able to make Xbox One backward compatible with xbox 360 a feature that many thougt was imposible on that hardware, but their engineering team was able to make it work against all odds.
BTW If you play the wrong chord, just try again. One of the tradeoffs the user would have to accept when working on "poly mode".
The key words in Valentin's post were "midi-din bandwidth". It's not a case of just fiddling the functionality. Midi is a 7bit protocol, an extremely hobbled bandwidth these days although in the early 80's it was fine. It's not just a case of "limit this function and you have the processing power free to do that".
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People routinely send chords over several channels of MIDI simulatenously, plus a ton of controller data. Two more polyphonic tracks wouldn't even come close to maxing out MIDI bandwidth.
I'm not saying it's possible for Arturia to change the BSP to do that, I think processing power is probably a more significant limitation, and there might well be other reasons too.
Also, don't forget, the BSP already has a polyphonic track. You don't need to use it for drums- be creative, and it can send chords to synths....
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Dur, I didn't think too hard on that.....
But supposing we did get two polyphonic midi tracks, what would happen with the cv outs? Which note would be sent to them?
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Good point, but I doubt we'll ever have to worry about that.... ;-)
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Your idea about using the drum seq as a polyphonic note seq is interesting. I've run drum machines into synths heaps of times but not this one for some reason. Well actually that reason is because it's usually a mess, but BSP has the pads assigned to midi notes in chromatic order, which will make it a little more musically usable.
Another reason I stopped running synths on ch10 is the note on/off time is nearly always fixed. But I wonder how long the longest gate time is with the drum seq on the BSP and if the gate time on the drum seq does affect the midi gate time as well as the gate-outs? No tied notes means crazy fast short still, but maybe make a guitar sound on a synth and play punk music?
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would be better to iron all the existing issues, bugs and limitations in mono. then start thinking about a poly mode.
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hello, I just joined this forum today :)
I made a simple test recording when I got my Beatstep pro, using all three sequencers on the same midi channel. It played one synth sound polyphonically on a Nord Stage. I had to set the 16 drumpads to a keyboard scale. I exported the midi patterns while muting some tracks. you can hear it on my soundcloud page (my nickname is jocks13 there)
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Make some shift funktion to make the top/gray part(pc part) a polyphonic sequencer part! ;)
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Make some shift funktion to make the top/gray part(pc part) a polyphonic sequencer part! ;)
It won't happen; they have announced the Keystep.
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If anything, the KeyStep proves that polyphonic sequencing is manageable.
I can tell you from having read the MIDI spec, made MIDI hardware, and from having hit MIDI bandwidth limitations that allowing for 3-note polyphony on one or both melodic sequencer channels should be a non-issue, depending on certain hardware (rather than firmware) limitations of the device.
However, interface-wise, it can get weird. Right now, the BSP has all these knobs that can change the pitch assigned to a given step. What do you do when chords are stored in a step? You could shift the entire chord, you could ignore the buttons altogetherin that mode, or you could also get crazy and just shift the low note and erase the others. There isn't one particularly "satisfying" user experience. Off the top of my head, I'd probably do something like this:
In chord mode, touch a step's knob, and the notes that are on for that step will be glowing on the pad grid, with the octave up / down pads blinking to indicate the presence of notes up or down from the current octave. In step length and velocity edit modes, the knobs would affect all notes, and in note edit mode, the knobs would transpose the whole chord.
I'm curious about the KeyStep, but I'd be very pleased if I could also get chords out of the BSP. I'm of course only speaking for myself, but it would push me to buying the KeyStep (I love that it's so compact but has MIDI connectors).
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Hello everybody. I personally am fine with monophonic sequences programmed in the Beatstep Pro but i am encountering an issue that is driving me nuts. An issue that isn't directly related to sequences but to polyphony when using an external keyboard controller within BSP midi input. Here is my problem: When a channel is selected to a polysynth, I can play chords using the BSP pads. However, despite that, when i play through my midi keyboard (M-Audio Keystation61, plugged to BSP midi in, set to the same channel, etc.), the input from my keyboard remains monophonic, even if the same synth can play chords on PSP pads. It's ok for recording sequences (which will be monophonic anyway) but if i wanna play polyphonic using my keyboard, performing chords on top of my loops, i can't. Why is that ?! Is there something i am missing in the -quite cryptic af- MIDI Control Center (i've tried a lot of settings) ? Pls Help ! Cheers.
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...Also, don't forget, the BSP already has a polyphonic track. You don't need to use it for drums- be creative, and it can send chords to synths....
I use the drum track to play/record notes and chord, I've mapped the pads in MCC in order to get the same 1 octave keyboard layout as seq 2 and 3.
I can also play and record chords via a midi keyboard conected to BSP
But i can't make notes any longer than what's defined by gate parameter, wich is too short.
Any idea on how make ties or longer notes in drum seq?
It's really interesting to use it in this way, my drums come from drumbrute (i'm a loyal customer haha) please make polyphonic in drum seq easier!
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Questions:
Is the Beatstep Pro processor capable of handling many more tasks? Because I have the following impression:
1) The processor "chokes" when it saves without stopping the sequencing.
2) Was the program written in an efficient compiler? I imagine that the source code was written in high level language. Or am I wrong?
Does anyone know which processor the Beatstep Pro uses?
The Alesis MMT-8 has a medieval processor and works perfectly. I think it's just a matter of implementation, making Beatstep Pro a sensational sequencer. It can still improve a lot.
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Any idea on how make ties or longer notes in drum seq?
You can't. You can turn up the release on your synths.
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Thanks megamarkd, I was getting nice chords stabs and now maybe can record some sustain chord progressions...I'll try it!
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It's nice to move between stabs and pads, only without a hold type parameter as part of your envelope, you won't manage to get long attacks on your pads. Experiment and find the settings that work best with simple triggers.
Years ago when I only had one sequencer and one drum machine, it was a common thing for me to send the drum part to a synth. I even made a drum map where the common instruments were occupying the notes of the C minor scale so as to be able to have somewhat of a tune being played on ch10, or at least usable note once the synth receiving was transposed to the key of the piece. I'm thinking you can do the same here with the drum sequencer's pad map in MCC.