stupid idea for T2? coda, del signo and (looping / jumping)

[hexman]

Sorry if this has been done 1000x but has anyone thought of implementing "jumping" and "looping" for how the plays back a song?

What I mean is to just allow automatically jumping to different points in a song and then "looping" between markers for "x" times. Kinda like you can write in sheet music (coda, del signo, repeats, etc)

Say you have a song with markers (flags) set to different locations (bars, time whatever). There would be a sort of list that would say:

1) start, play to marker 2,
2) then jump to marker 3 and loop between marker 3 and 4 for 2 times
3) then jump to marker 2 and play through to marker 5
4) then jump to marker 6 and loop etc, etc.

And additional feature would be to allow turning on or off tracks at each step of the loop process.

Right now tracktion has the slick markers that you can jump to manually by hitting the number for the flag, what would it take to automate this so you could build up your song by a list of jumps and loops between markers?

[rockstar_not]

Hexman,

I think it's a great idea. Sounds like song construction from my very first sequencer- the one built into my Ensoniq ESQ-1. Construct sequences, then chain-em together however you like to make a song.

-Scott

[lowkey]

Have a look at EnergyXT. It can do most of that now. and it works nicely with Trackton

[rockstar_not]

lowkey,

I looked at energyXT, and man, it sure seems complicated compared to tracktion.

I went to the eXT Geek page and looked at the tutorials on sequencing.

It was about 25 or 30 steps, and not too intuitive if you ask me.

Again, I'm looking for something as simple as Tracktion, but that can loop sections of songs. I don't want to learn yet another sequencer for use inside of a sequencer.

Maybe I'm missing something here, since there seems to be a huge pro-eXT fan-base on this forum.

I just wanna plug in my keyboard - connect it to a track, and hit record and hope for some cool vibe coming from my fingers. Add some drums and other stuff and call it a verse. To repeat the verse later on in a song, just replay that section, without re-copying all of the data in a linear fashion. Maybe tweak some velocities or change an instrument, but that's it.

Is eXT the tool for this? When I look at this link on XT geek, it seems like alot of clicking around and not much music recording.


http://www.xt-geek.com/standalonseq.htm

-Scott

[Lunch Money]

Scott,

You're not the only one who feels that way. A lot of us really like eXT for the depth, but I'm completely with you on its inherent problem-- namely, I can't just load it and know how to record a song.

Even with the tutorials, I feel lost and out of my element, so I usually click the Tracktion icon and get up and running. Consequently, I've still been using it just for modularity and its nice comps.

As for your idea-- I think it's a great one.

Greg

[hexman]

Im old enough to (kinda remember - like I said Im old) a sequencer called Dr Ts. I think it had the type of looping that Im talking about.

Seems like it would fit in with the overall "easy UI" scheme of tracktion. Just click the markers, set up your jumps and loops and go. Heck - its kinda just like using a keyboard macro to do a bunch of jumps to the markers. Jules???

As for Energy - I guess I dont get it either. Seems pretty cryptic compared to Tracktion. Nothing against it - hey whatever works for yourself is whats important. I just think Tracktion smokes everything for the way it makes my brain feel like I dont have to switch right/left/right/left while playing music and using the software.

[christianmusicmaker]

lowkey,

I looked at energyXT, and man, it sure seems complicated compared to tracktion.

I went to the eXT Geek page and looked at the tutorials on sequencing.

It was about 25 or 30 steps, and not too intuitive if you ask me.

Again, I'm looking for something as simple as Tracktion, but that can loop sections of songs. I don't want to learn yet another sequencer for use inside of a sequencer.

Maybe I'm missing something here, since there seems to be a huge pro-eXT fan-base on this forum.


-Scott

The EXT fan base is definitely there and I am one of them but I too had a look at the tutorials and went through a demo of EXT did not find it simple or straight forward.

It does require a bit of time to set things up and like many other hosts I would imagine you could save templates to use in any EXT project to speed things up.

After experiencing the ease of use in Tracktion, EXT seems more powerful but less immediate.Great value for money though.

Maybe with EXT the price you pay for the flexibility is the slightly slower initial learning process compared to Tracktion.

[hexman]

I guess I'll have to give eXT another try.

Just thought of something - the markers in my suggestion could actually have the coda, del signo, repeat icons on them. Pretty intuitive??

[Karbon L. Forms]

I guess I'll have to give eXT another try.

Just thought of something - the markers in my suggestion could actually have the coda, del signo, repeat icons on them. Pretty intuitive??

What is?

[clueless]

Rockum (or is it just "Rock" now? And where is he?!) and I discussed a way of doing this a while back - I'll see if I can find it.

[lowkey]

When ever I figure something out in EXT I save it. I use it to make tools for how I work. If you find something else to do what you want then good luck but I was only trying to help

[amoebe]

I think part of Tracktion's ease of use is because it doesn't have features like jumping and looping. Jumping and looping is 'invented' to save music sheets. Since it's very easy in every host to copy&paste I doubt there would be much use for it.

Come to think of it, pasting instead of looping creates long tracks. Collapsing tracks are there already. How about collapsable regions.

[koolkeys]

Band-In-A-Box can already do this, and it's an easy program to use. I think it would be a neat improvement. I wouldn't use it, because focusing mostly on acoustic stuff, I don't want two parts of my song sounding exactly the same. But for dance and other music it may be helpful.

Another idea along the lines of applying filters to tracks. Maybe you could set and effect to kick in on the repeat, or only on the secend verse, etc. Just apply filters to individual sections on individual repeats. Just and idea!

Koolkeys

[hexman]

I think part of Tracktion's ease of use is because it doesn't have features like jumping and looping. Jumping and looping is 'invented' to save music sheets. Since it's very easy in every host to copy&paste I doubt there would be much use for it.

But cutting and pasting IS time consuming esp if you just want to try different arrangements. I dont think it would be very confusing to just have a list that jumps to different marker flags. The flags are already there its just a matter of adding a "marcro" like list.

[hexman]

I guess I'll have to give eXT another try.

Just thought of something - the markers in my suggestion could actually have the coda, del signo, repeat icons on them. Pretty intuitive??

What is?

sorry obviously not obvious eh?!

What I was suggesting was for my looping / jumping idea to show the flas (markers) with repeats or codas etc. Thought it would be intuitive to show song arrangement / structure like a music piece.

Now that I think about it I dont like the idea (still like the loop and jump idea just not the markers with music symbols on it). Just a list of when and were to jump to markers and when and where to loop (see first post).