Export Stems - Conditional Trigger Question

Hiya.

Currently if you export a pattern with stems, it exports up to the end of the number of steps that exist in one cycle. However, that means if you have triggers with are set to conditions, it won’t capture them. e.g. If you have 4 bars, and triggers set that skip 1 round then play 1 round, you won’t get that variation.

Is there any way to capture this/export stems of different lengths?

I’m not aware of a workaround for this, but I think it would make an amazing wish!

The workaround is just to make your pattern actually 4 bars long. The pattern length is determined by the length of the longest track in the pattern. Set one track in your pattern to 64 steps and it’s 4 bars. Another way is to set track speed to 1/4.

Track length in bars can be calculated like so:
track_length_in_bars = steps_number : 16 : track_speed

For example,
64 steps : 16 : 1/1 speed = 4 bars.
16 steps : 16 : 1/4 speed = 4 bars.

I usually sacrifice one of the MIDI tracks for this task. In my internal monologue I call it the master track. It contains no notes, it’s only purpose is to define pattern length.

I don’t even think this is a ‘workaround’. Supposedly this is how it was indended. The Play doesn’t know when you want your pattern to stop, so it assumes that when all the tracks have played from the start to the end the pattern ends too. Taking into account all trigger conditions set across the pattern to determine pattern length would be too complicated. Imagine my pattern suddenly plays longer just because I’ve set a tricky trigger condition like Skip 4 Play 3 on one of the steps.

I understand that there is no perfect way to do it, though the way that other devices I know deal with this is to allow you to set the number of cycles to render - which seems like a fairly neat solution.

I don’t really understand the point of the concept that you’ve outlined though, in the sense that… it still limits us to 4 bars, which makes the trig conditions effectively redundant. In other words:

  • If I have a snare hit set to Skip 1, Play 1 only on the first page of four (so step 4 out of 64).
  • I export the full pattern.

I will have a four bar/64 step pattern where that trig never plays.

Whereas if I could manually set the length or the number of cycles to 2, that would allow me to have 8 bars, thus getting the number of events I want.

In simple equations this can be replicated by the use of steps alone, but if you have anything even slightly more complicated, it fizzles out at the four bar mark. Unless I am completely misunderstanding what you’ve described!

Maybe I wasn’t clear enough, my fault.
Of course you can have pattern durations much longer than 4 bars, because you can change both track length AND track speed. Up to 64 bars if I’m not mistaken.

To get 8 bars with 64 steps, you’d need to set track speed to 1/2. See my formula above. There are two variables, the number of steps and the track speed.

I actually like this way more because I think in bars, rather than in loop iterations, like ‘this section lasts for 2 bars’ and ‘that section lasts for 8 bars’ and so on.

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To simplify calculations, usually on my ‘master’ track I don’t even expand step number and leave it at 16. I just change the track speed. 1/4 - 4 bars. 1/8 - 8 bars. Easy.

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Right, though in that case you are then fundamentally changing the composition, as some of the tracks are running at a different speed - no?

As an alternative method for creating arrangements which can be exported it’s a smart one - though it doesn’t help with all of the projects I’ve already created, or really address exporting stems with trigs that have skip arrangements. If the tracks are running slower, that means there is even less ch…

Or hang on, I think I might just have clicked. Are you saying that you would have a master track set at say… four pages/64 steps at half speed, which would provide the time for eight pages/128 steps at regular speed?

If so, that does actually make a lot of sense as a clever workaround. :slight_smile: Apologies for being dense.

Yeah, you got it right. The master track is empty, the other tracks play as usual. In my case the master always happens to be the eighth MIDI track, so I can quickly find it when I need to change the effective pattern length.
I don’t use export, but this is useful for song mode as well. Can make a pattern with one bar loops and expand it with trig conditions and with this trick.

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Yer a genius, thank you. :slight_smile:

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