Modalics - Beat Scholar/New drum sequencer

[OrLubianiker]

Is it an updated version that has midi out?

It's a version for iPad, and Beat Scholar already has midi out since release... unless I'm missing something here.

[j wazza]

Is it an updated version that has midi out?

It's a version for iPad, and Beat Scholar already has midi out since release... unless I'm missing something here.

Thanks, I think you're right, my bad I missed that before

[pdxindy]

Is it an updated version that has midi out?

It's a version for iPad, and Beat Scholar already has midi out since release... unless I'm missing something here.

The manual says one can drag a pattern pad into the DAW to export midi, but it doesn't work in Bitwig.

[innervisions]

Is it an updated version that has midi out?

It's a version for iPad, and Beat Scholar already has midi out since release... unless I'm missing something here.

The manual says one can drag a pattern pad into the DAW to export midi, but it doesn't work in Bitwig.

Hey! You can hold shift while dragging to enable that feature.

[pdxindy]

Is it an updated version that has midi out?

It's a version for iPad, and Beat Scholar already has midi out since release... unless I'm missing something here.

The manual says one can drag a pattern pad into the DAW to export midi, but it doesn't work in Bitwig.

Hey! You can hold shift while dragging to enable that feature.

Thanks! That works...

[pdxindy]

The manual says one can drag a pattern pad into the DAW to export midi, but it doesn't work in Bitwig.

Hey! You can hold shift while dragging to enable that feature.

I mostly use Beat Scholar to output midi and not the internal sample engine. Also, besides drum patterns, I use Beat Scholar for basslines and melodies.

It would be helpful if it were easier to set the pitch of a pad. For example a mode to select a pad and play a note on my keyboard and that sets pitch.

It would also be super useful if I could set the midi channel per lane.

[Straight2Vinyl]

Seems like this hasn't been updated in a while. Still waiting for midi mapping via key/pad press, mapping presets and more importantly randomize/chance during playback and also per track/lane length.
I have length per lane in Atlas which makes polymeter very easy, but they don't allow the infinite divisions, so polymeter choices are somewhat limited. Hope these get added soon.

[OrLubianiker]

Seems like this hasn't been updated in a while. Still waiting for midi mapping via key/pad press, mapping presets and more importantly randomize/chance during playback and also per track/lane length.
I have length per lane in Atlas which makes polymeter very easy, but they don't allow the infinite divisions, so polymeter choices are somewhat limited. Hope these get added soon.

You're right, after updating Beat Scholar frequently for the better part of the past year, we turned our attention to new products, sepcifically MINDst Drums and BitFuzzer (BitFuzzer is free for now, shameless plug I know...)
We will re-visit Beat Scholar soon and provide better integration with MINDst along other improvements, we're always on the listen for feedback such as yours.

[RichN]

Seems like this hasn't been updated in a while. Still waiting for midi mapping via key/pad press, mapping presets and more importantly randomize/chance during playback and also per track/lane length.
I have length per lane in Atlas which makes polymeter very easy, but they don't allow the infinite divisions, so polymeter choices are somewhat limited. Hope these get added soon.

You're right, after updating Beat Scholar frequently for the better part of the past year, we turned our attention to new products, sepcifically MINDst Drums and BitFuzzer (BitFuzzer is free for now, shameless plug I know...)
We will re-visit Beat Scholar soon and provide better integration with MINDst along other improvements, we're always on the listen for feedback such as yours.

That's great to hear. I'd also love to see some small usability updates. Like an option to make the Beat Scholar plugin remember its GUI size and a way to rearrange the drum icons (and use them any way that suits you). Like when I want to use 3 different kick drums, I'd like that to be reflected in the drum icons.

[cptgone]

Seems like this hasn't been updated in a while. Still waiting for midi mapping via key/pad press, mapping presets and more importantly randomize/chance during playback and also per track/lane length.
I have length per lane in Atlas which makes polymeter very easy, but they don't allow the infinite divisions, so polymeter choices are somewhat limited. Hope these get added soon.

You're right, after updating Beat Scholar frequently for the better part of the past year, we turned our attention to new products, sepcifically MINDst Drums and BitFuzzer (BitFuzzer is free for now, shameless plug I know...)
We will re-visit Beat Scholar soon and provide better integration with MINDst along other improvements, we're always on the listen for feedback such as yours.

Just found out about Beat Scholar (thanks to the generous BitFuzzer intro).
I love drum sequencers.
I use Sugarbytes Drumcomputer by itself, or to sequence Algonaut Atlas / D16 Drumazon (and many others, including the discontinued Tremor).

I would buy Beat Scholar in a heartbeat, if it had the sequencing features I want.
- variable lane length (this is the main one for me, by far)
- step probability (preferably including some conditional logic)
- other per step settings/effects (pitch, MIDI cc...)
- probabilistic pattern chaining
- MIDI mappings that can be edited/saved to suit various sound engine plugins (as implemented in Sugarbytes Drumcomputer)

As you don't confirm variable lane length will be added, I won't be buying this (getting used to the mouth watering "pick any segment of a circle" feature would spoil other drum sequencers for me, and without variable lane length I cannot switch to Beat Scholar altogether)

[cptgone]

I succumbed to Modalics' marketing fu after all (well played, Modalics).
Quick first impression:

Beat Scholar's strengths, to me, are:
- segmented steps (that, I could do in Cubase's Drum Editor)
- the colours: instrument-agnostic lanes (that is new to me and really useful combined with the above)
- the wealth of instrument selection pads (16) this approach allows

Beat Scholar has the potential to be king of drum sequencers, one day.
Once you have a taste of its special sauce, you'll want more.
But if you're like me (if you like evolving, polymetric, aleatory music) you'll end up using 2 drum sequencers in most projects for the time being

[pc2000]

I really dig the video demo of this product. This would likely be my go to if it didn't suffer from the trend that's going on with so many software drum machines. Nobody offers real-time recording anymore like hardware drum machines offer! Everything is click, copy, paste programming. Not everyone is inept at recording drum beats in real time. I wish someone would offer in one product features for both finger drummers and click klack programmers!

[Dr.Gunjah]

I've played around with this plugin today and while I love the core mechanic with the slices (literally the first sequencer that is fun to me) I feel like there are a lot of features missing to make it actually useful for production and not just be a gimmick. Most notably:
- Swing/nudge per lane. You can't let just the hihat play late? Well, I could set it to something like 32 slices and let it start on the second slice or something. However, that gets fiddly pretty fast and it also doesn't work if your sampler reacts to note-off events. Which leads me to the next point...
- Tie or similar mechanic. Again, that's mainly an issue if the sampler reacts to note-off. If I want a sample to play at 3/16 and 8/16 I can set that via slices, but it will be hella short. It would be amazing if it was possible to tie the pieces 3-6/16, so the note-on happens 3/16 and the note-off happens 6/16. An alternative would be to just set the note length, but it seems more natural/fitting the concept to me to let the user tie pieces together.
- Better Midi output routing AKA you can't send the kit pieces to different midi channels. I wanted to send the kick to kick2 and the rest to battery for this test... Turns out, this isn't possible. Took me a few minutes to workaround this in Reaper with midi filters and whatnot. And that's Reaper... not sure what kind of nightmare this has to be in another DAW. Also configuring the midi notes for the midi out is literally the worst method I can imagine. You can't type it, can't use the mousewheel, can't select from a list, but instead have to click and drag a way too jittery pad up or down.
- The internal sampler is pretty much useless. I didn't like any of the onboard sounds but had hopes I could use own samples, which is possible. However you have to literally load samples one by one, since the left/right arrows disappear. I think even the most simple DAW samplers can scroll/browse through a folder.
- After posting this it took 5 minutes to remember another feature I totally forgot about - play on midi-note or some call it "as played" or similar. Currently, if I hit play in the DAW, beat scholar starts playing whichever pattern is selected. It should also be possible to just play the patterns like an instrument. If it's not clear I'm talking about something like this: Hit play in DAW, beat scholar is silent. Hold C3 on midi keyboard, beat scholar starts playing pattern1. Release C3, beat scholar stops. Hold C3 again, beat scholar starts pattern1 from the beginning again, and so on. Hope that makes sense.

I think this plugin has the potential to be exceptional, but it's not there yet.
Is there a roadmap or something about what improvements are planned?

edit: added 'play on midi-note'

[c0nsilience]

I've played around with Beat Scholar a little bit and while I think it has potential and, no offense to the devs at all, it feels a little clunky and disjointed compared to Playbeat, Microtonic, 2020 Beat Machine, Atlas, and XO. Here are some thoughts:

Pros:
- randomization works nicely and is very intuitive
- mapping is laid out extremely well and is easy to use
- a good amount of factory presets in a wide variety of genres

Cons
- standalone on macOS Sonoma running on an M1 Max isn't optimized. Regular spikes of 30-40% CPU usage
- No drag & drop features (i.e., drag MIDI or .wav) out
- overall, it just sounds really weak. I crank the dB on an 808-style kick and it just doesn't hit right

[OrLubianiker]

Copying what I wrote on another post here as well -

Hey, Thank you all for the comments about Beat Scholar! We read through every single one and take them to heart.
We definitely have a roadmap for improving Beat Scholar and we'll even be releasing major updates relatively soon - such as a major improvement of the sampler engine quality & performance updates.
We also really want to implement step probability & variable lane lengths, as well as create seamless integration with our acoustic sampler MINDst Drums... we're trying to figure out the timeline for these features right now. Alongside additional smaller free plugins and interesting releases in other categories.

Keep the comments coming and thanks again!