Real-time/live Slice Rearrangers

[manymanyhaha]

Sugar Bytes have been mentioned a couple of times in the thread, but I don't think anyone has suggested Turnado yet. The Slice Arranger module is the most fun version of this I've discovered so far. Sadly, you are limited to the 50 preset patterns inside the module, but there's quite a bit of mileage to be had there. My dream plugin would be something that operates in this exact manner, but allows you to go in and edit the patterns individually.

My favourite thing is to run my guitar through a looper, recording simple parts, and then run the looper output into Turnado to rearrange the loops on the fly (I might have a video around here somewhere that I could dig out to demonstrate...)

Actually, I have been messing around with that a bit and you are spot on for the same usage scenario. I do a lot of looping and I'm looking to rearrange those loops at times, on-the-fly, in real-time. And the thing I don't like about the Turnado Slice Arranger is I don't know what each preset pattern is doing and the limitation to 50. Ability to edit would be amazing.

Turnado is pretty awesome actually, as is Looperator and Effectrix2. I have the bundle and those three and Obscurium get a lot of use here.

[manymanyhaha]

Sensei (Reaktor ensemble)

In case anyone needs it, here's the link:

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/r ... how/12349/

Dang this looks promising, but I don't want to buy full Reaktor for this.

Sensei (Reaktor ensemble)

In case anyone needs it, here's the link:

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/r ... how/12349/

Sensei and Molekular are the two ensembles I use the most. Love them. The Reaktor UI really sucks though. Saving a preset is so damn complicated and unintuitive, wtf.

[BennyG]

And the thing I don't like about the Turnado Slice Arranger is I don't know what each preset pattern is doing and the limitation to 50. Ability to edit would be amazing.

Yeah, I ran into a lot of awkward live situations where I'd end up triggering a pattern that just didn't work over what I was playing/looping

In the end I sort of brute-forced it by making a test project where I placed a single chord stab and drum hit on the start of a bar, duplicated that 50 times, and then automated Turnado to run each hit/bar through every single one of the patterns, bouncing the resulting output onto another tack. Then I imported every single drum loop in my collection and tried to match them up against the Turnado patterns to find which ones synchronised or syncopated nicely. It was a lot of work, but in the end I was able to identify 8 good patterns that I could assign to faders on a MIDI controller, with the relevant drum loops on pads next to each fader. It works quite well, as I know I can trigger a drum loop and also engage Turnado at the same time on another instrument (usually guitar) and everything will line up nicely. It's ultimately a bit limited though as it locks you into those specific rhythmic patterns when you try to improvise or compose guitar parts over the top.

It appears I haven't updated my YouTube in too long, but here's a demo clip from Insta:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DKhtGnGCeSG/

[Dirtgrain]

Sensei and Molekular are the two ensembles I use the most. Love them. The Reaktor UI really sucks though. Saving a preset is so damn complicated and unintuitive, wtf.

Say, how do you get samples into Sensei? I was trying the other day, in Live (lastest version), and I could not get drag and drop to work.

[manymanyhaha]

Sensei and Molekular are the two ensembles I use the most. Love them. The Reaktor UI really sucks though. Saving a preset is so damn complicated and unintuitive, wtf.

Say, how do you get samples into Sensei? I was trying the other day, in Live (lastest version), and I could not get drag and drop to work.

It's an insert effect, don't think there is a drag and drop.

[manymanyhaha]

It appears I haven't updated my YouTube in too long, but here's a demo clip from Insta:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DKhtGnGCeSG/

I enjoyed that. Is that all Slice Arranger?

Played with it for awhile today. Is there a way to expand the loop length? It doesn't appear so.

[BennyG]

I enjoyed that. Is that all Slice Arranger?

Pretty much, yeah. There is another instance of Turnado handling more tonal-type FX (Spectralizer/Phaser/Filter/Tonalizer) and that's in the signal chain after the looper. So it goes Looper -> Turnado (tones) -> Turnado (patterns). And then there's just a really simple instance of Stutter Edit over the master bus doing basic 1/8 and 1/16 note stutters (controlled by MIDI foot pedal). Useful to have that over everything when you want to do transitions or just cue up different drum/bass/synth clips in Ableton while the whole mix is locked into a stutter.

Played with it for awhile today. Is there a way to expand the loop length? It doesn't appear so.

That is another one of the slightly frustrating limitations again. I always make sure the pattern mode under the pattern selector knob is set to "ReRecord" as then it will at least listen for new audio coming in and slice/rearrange that, rather than having you stuck with whatever goes into the buffer when the knob is first engaged.

[Uncle E]

Sugar Bytes have been mentioned a couple of times in the thread, but I don't think anyone has suggested Turnado yet. The Slice Arranger module is the most fun version of this I've discovered so far. Sadly, you are limited to the 50 preset patterns inside the module, but there's quite a bit of mileage to be had there. My dream plugin would be something that operates in this exact manner, but allows you to go in and edit the patterns individually.

That's great to hear. I already want to get Turnado for the performance element, this would be a bonus.

[CrystalWizard]

Reaktor. Sure it can be a pita (so is learning to play the flute) but for loop mangling i doubt that there are many (set of) tool(s) as comprehensive (obviously C sound, SupperCollider, Max/PD, etc, as mentioned). Check out the UL (user library). I always kept a channel recording the output to avoid losing "happy accidents" (what little bit of loop mangling i have done).

edit: i suppose SupperCollider is not quite that extensive but SuperCollider is*

see my sig

[Dirtgrain]

It's an insert effect, don't think there is a drag and drop.

Oh, I loaded it as an instrument. I'm on it. Thank you.

EDIT: It worked. Woot.

[Josephhh]

[Chicken Drummy]

SupaTrigga

Useless suggestion as SupaTrigga is no longer available for download.

[nanostream]

The Reaktor UI really sucks though. Saving a preset is so damn complicated and unintuitive, wtf.

Slightly OT, but most of the time I’ve found it way easier to just ignore Reaktor‘s preset system and to save stuff as VST3 presets in Live. One click and you’re done, a few more if you want to add tags. Works like a charm and is easier to backup as well.

[manymanyhaha]

There is another instance of Turnado handling more tonal-type FX (Spectralizer/Phaser/Filter/Tonalizer) and that's in the signal chain after the looper. So it goes Looper -> Turnado (tones) -> Turnado (patterns). And then there's just a really simple instance of Stutter Edit over the master bus doing basic 1/8 and 1/16 note stutters (controlled by MIDI foot pedal).

I always make sure the pattern mode under the pattern selector knob is set to "ReRecord" as then it will at least listen for new audio coming in and slice/rearrange that, rather than having you stuck with whatever goes into the buffer when the knob is first engaged.

Really great tips, thank you. We are kind of doing similar things: Playing guitar, using the computer to loop and mangle. Are you playing drums as well? Those drums next to you are either yours or another performers.

Looks really cool. Maybe they will eventually port to VST3 so us non-Live folks can partake

SupaTrigga

Useless suggestion as SupaTrigga is no longer available for download.

Looks like unobtanium but someone did port LiveCut so maybe SupaTrigga is somewhere too?

I’ve found it way easier to just ignore Reaktor‘s preset system and to save stuff as VST3 presets in Live.

Didn't think to try Reaper's preset system, will do that, thank you

[kraster]

The ableton buffer shuffler is still the most comprehensive.

It can be up to 4 bars long and you can have divisions like triplets or dotted notes.

You can shuffle left and right independently, there's per step stutter, pitch, amp, gate, frequency shift and pan.

You can offset each slice vertically or horizontally, you can freeze the slice arranger while the rest of the parameters (pitch, gate etc.) continue.

Slices can also be reversed and there's a preset system to recall different configurations.

Somebody should port it to a VST.