Tutorial: LENGTH Tab

[chardin]

I was inspired by Mark R to explore Kirnu Cream more in depth. I was interested in the LENGTH tab so I took some screen shots.

I started with a blank Cream preset. I set the Rate knob to 1/8 notes to better hear what was happening. Everything else was left at defaults. I then clicked the LENGTH tab, set the LENGTH Loop points from 1 to 4, and moved the first slider up to 2:


I also had a separate track running with a drum loop so I could hear things in context. I pushed Play in Reaper and held down a C4 note for 8 bars. I watched the bouncing blue and white segments. The blue one is the LENGTH cursor and, as expected, it wrapped much faster than the white global cursor:


I heard some very interesting rhythms going on from Cream, so I recorded the MIDI output and opened up the Reaper piano roll to see what was happening. I saw the LENGTH 2 notes were quarter notes and the rest were 1/8 notes. However, the pattern didn't repeat until bar 6:


Here is what it sounds like: Kirnu Cream LEN. Certainly not a masterpiece but it's a start.

Simply changing the LENGTH loop point from 4 to 5 changed the feel:


Here's what it sounds like: Kirnu Cream LEN 2.

I hope this is helpful. Feel free to add comments, criticism, or questions.

[chardin]

Today I wanted to get Kirnu Cream to repeat a pattern more predictably, say every 2 bars. I started with a fresh, blank Cream preset. The Rate knob was set to 1/8 and I clicked on the LENGTH tab.

I set the 1st and 7th sliders up to 2. I picked the 7th just to see what would happen. I held down a C4 note for 8 bars and to my surprise, Cream put a 1/4 note on the "and" of beat 4 in the 2nd measure.

That's when it hit me about how Cream was generating notes. Based on the first LENGTH slider, Cream would wait 2 beats before moving to the next slider. And it would wait 2 more beats when it arrived at the 7th slider. So I set the LENGTH loop points from 1 to 14. Here are some screenshots:


And this is what it sounds like.

So it looks like the formula for setting the loop point is "number of beats you want" minus "number of sliders set to 2." So in this case, I wanted 2 bars of 1/8 notes (16 beats) with 2 1/4 notes thrown in. The loop point would be 16 - 2 = 14.

But the droning C4 notes were too boring so I wanted to add some octaves. I clicked on the TRANSP (transpose) tab and set the 2nd slider up to 12. I held down a C4 note for 8 bars and got this:


And this is what it sounds like.

I discovered that changes on the LENGTH tab affect the loop points for the other tabs. To get the octaves on the 2nd beat of each bar, I had to set the TRANSP loop points from 1 to 7.

But what if I want the octaves on beat 1 of every measure? Here's what I ended up having to do:


And this is what it sounds like.

Notice that the 2nd octave note doesn't land exactly on the first beat of the 2nd measure. This is because of the 2nd LENGTH slider. It's really neat how the Cream tabs interact with each other.

Another experiment would be to set the Rate knob to 1/16 and set the 2nd LENGTH slider to 3.

I hope this is helpful. Please post any comments, questions, or criticism.

[chardin]

Today I wanted Cream to arppegiate some chords with both 1/8 and 1/16 notes. I started with a blank Cream preset and left the Rate knob at 1/16. First, I tried turning off some steps in the ORDER tab. I held down a C chord (C4, E4, G4, C5) for four bars.


This is what it sounds like. http://picosong.com/Frmu

This is a good start but notice that the E4 doesn't get played much. And I wanted some 1/8 notes for rhythmic interest. So I started over with a cleared preset, left the Rate knob at 1/16, and clicked on the LENGTH tab. I randomly pushed 4 of the sliders up to 2. I moved the Loop slider to 12 to compensate for the 1/8 notes.


This is what it sounds like. http://picosong.com/FrmN

I hope this is useful. Post any comments or questions. Thanks for reading!

[dexterbella]

Thanks for posting these. I'm just beginning to scratch the surface with Cream and I've found these tutorials very helpful.

[harmoney]

nice tut, thx.

i'll recapitulate your 2nd post. quiet redundantly, but maybe helpfull.

first i would suggest taht u activate this "reset on PTN" (and using the stepsize below instead loopcircle in evry tab) for all tabs u want affected it. it automatically synces all tabs, in which it is activated. its very helpfull during the understanding process and more comfortable than setting the lenght in each tab. (but make shure, this is activated for the tabs u want, its unfortunatly not global, u have to set it again and again...) iwould also suggest that u use for understanding only the lenght and that transpose tab. set a transpose for the fisrt and another (other) for e.g. step 6.

the formula to get "straight" repeats is that # steps + the xtra lenght (u have set) = 8, 16 or 32.
this is true for all non triple/dotted rates.
example: on one lenght u set 3 steps, to another 5 steps. that means u have in sum 6 xtra steps (3+5=8 minus 2 for regular steps) which u have to subtract from "global" steps. the global steps should in this case 10 or 26. (substarct from 8 or even 4 globals wouldnt make sense in this case).
at 1/16 rate u get a repeat evry bar by 10 global steps or evry 2nd bar by 26 global steps.
at1/4 rate it repeats evry 4bars (10steps) or 8 bars (26 steps), and so on.

ah yeah, another tipp: first DONT set rst on pattern for one tab (e.g. for div). watch&hear and later activate this button.

[como baila]

@Chardin ... thanks for all your effort. I don't know if this arp is deep or it's just that the documentation is shallow! Anyway, I appreciate your efforts.

I'm not sure that I like that changes one sequencer interacts with others. I can understand it for length ... but not for other sequencers. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you?

@harmoney ... I'm struggling a little understanding you. First, I think you recommend to set loop length in the master control section for when you start tying notes. Correct?

I don't exactly grasp the 'Reset on Pattern Reset.' To me this would mean changing from pattern 1 to pattern 2, for example. I think this means 'Reset on Pattern Retrigger,' i.e., the next time the pattern starts over. Also, I guess the 'Reset on New Note' would change how the pattern retriggers. Again, to be very clear, I think this precisely means, 'Reset on Note On Message,' as you could send the same note, C3 for an example, twice in a row, and each would retrigger the pattern.

So, If I understand you, I have set all the Pattern Data to 'Reset on Pattern Reset' while I am trying to learn Cream ... all but 'Div,' that is. I am thinking that using your formula for setting the looping and clicking the 'Reset on Pattern Reset' will also prevent all the Pattern Data looping predictably.

Como

[SongMonkey]

Very cool, Chardin.

Thanks for that. Very helpful.


Cheers.

[Kirnu]

Thanks chardin for these tutorials.
Really appreciated.


-Arto