Hello, I wanted to program some bass lines for the bass fill button. My line of thinking was to treat it like the beat fill where the rows are populated from “Bass” or “Synth” samples relating to the bass or chord function. these patterns were named and saved in the “MelodyFills” folder.
Putting these on the play and using them to fill had nothing in them. Did I miss something about making these pattern files?
Hi Aisjam, I’d also like to program my own bass and synthlines. Did you find a “best practice” to code? Would be nice if you can shed a light on this. Or how about making a video 
I need to do a bit more research on this one. It would mix up the bassline and melody. Or not pull in samples correctly. Feel it was my sample pack i built for making templates as my programmer brain feels is listening for not only a specific folder name. But a file name too. Will have to do another round of testing though.
Yeah I tried this tonight and my melody fill does nothing.
I’d love to use the fill feature with stuff I’ve created.
I haven’t tried yet, but it should probably be the same in the play and the play+.
The play+ manual has a detailed description for it on pages 121-125.
See https://polyend.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Play_Plus_Manual_Rev1.pdf
Thanks.
I didn’t notice a melody fill folder in beat fill. Likely I didn’t look. I’ll try again.
If you’re still having issues after trying that, do give a read in the manual about creating your own fills. There are some specific steps that are not that obvious, and Polyend stress to follow some steps in a particular order.
Ahh, I think I know where I stuffed up. i assumed track 4 was bass and 5,6,7 and 8 was melody. Not as seperate beat pattern and melody pattern. Will test tonight (maybe) and if it works ill finish making this video.
I might ask @Mitch or one of the smart people over at Polyend in for this one. Dropbox - PolyendPlay_MelodyBeatFillDebug - Simplify your life
This is a test following the steps from the manual and still have issues with the chord fill not populating. I am using 1.4.1 on the original Play. I have a folder labeled “Synth” and create the melody on tracks 1-4 bass on 5th. I have included my template folder which is the sample pack, and the project file with 0.pattern being the beat fill and 1.pattern being the melody fill.
Just wondering if i have something named wrong. of if the file name is throwing something.
Just to clarify, the fill function is specifically looking to see if the folder contains “Kick”, “Snare”, “Hat”, “Synth” or “Bass”. for example “Bass” and “Harsh Bass”, both would pass because it has ‘Bass’ in the name? or it specifically looks for a folder named “Bass”? What happens if you put “Synth Bass”? Does it also count for caps-lock so “Bass” and “bass” would be different values to the function?
I have noticed that the beat fill keeps the variables around the step. so tried to fill each folder to the maximum of 20 samples as it seems to randomize the kick samples array then assigns the new array from the pattern sample index, maybe some cheeky modulo to keep it in range. Is that how its working?
When I get this figured out and working, I will make a video of how to do it.
Yes you are correct Aisjam, the melody fill is a separate patter from beat fill. I’ll look at the folder and see if I can find the hang up but it should work as you described.
Bass or bass should also work. Synth Bass…untested but should work in theory, hihat or Hat works. Having 2 folders with bass in the name will cause the first one to be used.
Tried on the Play+ and still have the issue of the chord fill coming up blank Dropbox - PolyendPlay+_MelodyBeatFillDebug - Simplify your life
Its using the same template folder as before. Had bit of a aha moment as i used a euclidean to fill the section and then switched the folder to synth, I tried it in reverse to make sure i had a synth selected then did a fill. also manual programmed it in and still have the issue not populating.
Beat, Kick, Snare, Hat works, Its just that chord fill. Just wondering if there is a bug here?
Currently looking into this as @Aisjam you are correct, following these instructions in the manual do not work, nor do custom beatfills at the moment. Should have an update very soon, sorry for the delay.
No problem, ill keep an ear out for the update. Then get that vid out.
Also @Mitch, side/ maybe very programmer specific question. When you used different drums in a beat fill, does the beat fill pattern remember the index of the drum used? if so, does it try to use the index to reference the same index from the drum file first time? or does it use the index to select a random drum sample?
Just an idea however this would be an awesome feature for sliced breaks to save a pattern using the index of a slice, instead of manually populating slices.
Okay the chord fills work very different than listed in the manual. Manual will be updated soon. Here is how do to it, I tested and it works following these instructions. If anyone wonders why there are so many steps, this functionality was originally conceived of and designed to be used internally only. But we had a lot of questions on making custom fills so IF you want to make your own here is how to do it. Easiest thing to do is get this working 1 time and then just reusing the file.
now it’s ready for creating templates,
Thank you so much mitch. Will be testing this soon.
If it doesnt care for the name, just the order. I am going to modify my template sample pack to see if i can get it to load a sample pack, with out having to individually load each folder.
Will let you know how i go.
Spent a few hours following these steps this weekend.
I’m able to consistently make MIDI/synth chord fills, and have added 20 or so of my own to the Play+. Which is awesome and exactly what I wanted.
I can’t, however, get the chord/melody fills working on the sample page. I think it could potentially be because I added samples in the wrong order, or did something else incorrectly. I also didn’t add any bass lines - just wanted a whole set of chord progressions I like available with one button press.
But if you’re just looking to add more chord progressions like I was, I can vouch for the steps above.
One thing I didn’t test was whether the track scale feature could be stored in the chord fills.
I put all my chords on one page and turn the scale to 1/4 or 1/8 because it’s easier than jumping across pages.
For me, it’s not a big deal because it takes 1 second to change it afterwards. But could be helpful if I wanted to share these chord progression packs in the future
I made a video to show off the process. Also figured out that you could make a sample pack to help load the samples.