Song Mode - Sections Palette to draw on the grid
Here's my idea. So we could still have track and song view but if we press shift + song view, it would open up to showing all of the available song section colors on the right hand side as a palette. When we highlight the palette it could then be drawn in to the grid. The idea, is when we press play, it starts on the upper left hand grid pad, and as the song progresses, it will play the next pad to the right. This can repeat across the row until it ends and then continues on the next row down. So more or less we could draw in a blue intro section for pad 1, then hold it down on the grid and set the knob to repeat whatever we want. Then we choose the pink section for example a verse, and draw that in next. This way, we can rapidly arrange and orchestrate everything in a linear fashion and in turn we could easily reuse song sections.
Comments
That is exactly how I had 'imagined' that the deluge's song mode would function. However I figured that the deluge could automatically populate the audition pads with the song section colors so that the song could be keyed in very quickly with a self-advancing cursor.
the addition of "command" parts like fades, midi program changes, and the ability to input track mutes/unmutes would help too.
This would be a massive workflow boost - great idea Ron!
Had another idea for this:
By default, the Song should play until there are no more Sections defined.
To make the Song loop, hold the pad where you want the loop to start and then while holding it tap the pad where the loop should end.
So really what you are saying is zooming out another level from Song mode. So track mode, Song Mode, then Song arranger mode, utilizing the same sequence drawing as in track mode to sequence riffs in a song, and using the audition area as an indicator of which track you want to trigger. In essence you are treating the whole song as a drum kit almost. Ingenious! +1
Overall Idea.
"I'm rather thinking about a "top level" accesed as Ron described "shift + song view" or so. The color coding will be keept. The whole tracks will be displayed as a single grid pad. Sellecting new pad (in the color line) will add new track to the sequance."
For a better understanding.
I read your request Ron and, if I understand it right, it can be still problematic. I understand the "section" as a one, or more tracks grouped under the same colour in the song view. If yes, then in your idea, you still need to copy the tracks for a different sections - which causes a current mess with a lot of tracks. After creating sections you propose to places them one another in linear attitude in song mode. Right?
I think my idea is simplier. In the current song view, you will preapare only tracks and in the song mode the sections. The example from my graphic. Tracks pink and blue will be played "linear" till track blue and green will be played together (and we can call it section - of blue and green).
Please upvote or... Thank you!
for mine, it is not essential to allow two song sections to overlap for the 'song arrangement' mode to be a huge workflow boost - if allowing such overlap (and therefore the possibility that a single voice definition is used simultaneously in multiple 'active' song sections) adds a lot to the implementation complexity I'd be happy to forgo it if it meant it was possible to quickly throw together an arrangement as a backing track with repeated sections only needing to be defined once (i.e. "intro verse chorus verse chorus bridge verse chorus outro")
Ron (rpc9943) I see one huge problem with your idea and it is the same as we have right now with creating the sections. You need to copy the same tracks, to use it in different sections. In the end, you have A LOT of redundant tracks and after awhile, you forget everything and you can not work with the song quickly. Your idea is common for drum machines, but they have only one track - drum track to handle with. I will be disappointed, if there will be no progress with the sections / song mode, because deluge have big capabilities. I can't believe they will be limited to the drum machine workflow. Deluge is capable to work as DAW and as far I know, many people bought it, to be able to not creating with software (as I'm, they working all day on computer, so they have enough of it) but on hardware.
In my idea, you can still create a sections by choosing the section color in the "song mode level" for every track you want (using audition / section pad) to grope them and play / mute. Or you can crate sections in song view - as right now. This means, that the current workflow could be kept - for people who need it.
Please tell me what is "very problematic potentially" in my idea.
Thanks.
MY thoughts on song mode:
With a horizontal layout of song sections (instead of the current vertical) the "tails" of effects and notes could continue because the pattern isn't muted-- it's just stopped playing.
Additionally-- the method I laid out would give you the ability to make a "scratch track" --like one beat running the length of the song so you could open another track for recording directly as a sample that would be as long as the song. The deluge becomes a multi-track recorder, essentially.
+1 for your idea Workergray
Really good one with the displaying the length of the tracks!
I disagree with both proposals, keep it simple, each pad would represent a color of the section, and would be able to duplicate by drawing it. If you want to mute out or change anything from a section just make a new section and draw it in. Simpler is best. These two ideas I see are unintuitive to me because if we layer multiple sections over each other it can run the risk of duplication which is not even supported in deluge currently. I say, simply this, draw in a section color , it would play it, draw in another color, it would play that. You cant get more simple than that. Just my view on it.
workergray just curious, in your image does a fully lit button with 2 slightly dimmed (like the top red row) mean that sequence is 3 bars long (in which case all good), or 3 repeats of the section? If the latter, how do you differentiate between a pattern that is 3/16th notes long from one that is 8 bars long?
I do think the idea is better than current, as a LOT of times I am making 8 bar lines where there are 4 bars of blank followed by 4 bars of notes - seems kinda wasteful to have 4 blank bars, and a bit annoying.
This proposal also makes a lot more use of the 128 pads during song mode, as currently only 8 of those 128 pads are actually used!
I also realised that having the ableton view would allow you to have WAAAY less tracks - track sharing can occur in riffs, and you could also have long tracks that can be utilized in shorter versions, so say an 8 bar track could be used in a 4 bar manner - either cutting off 4 bar or use a menu command to double time the riff, so you could utilize the same pattern in many different ways. Very powerful!
I redrew your graphic... I think it might make more sense to people... lol!:
https://www.myloops.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Vocal-Trance-Essentials-Vol.-1-Ableton-Live-Template.png
Okay having looked this over and talked with a few people on it, I see what you guys are proposing, it would be "better". I was only thinking hey I want a lane where I can just put in each section. It appears that you guys want "full daw clip" functionality. That would mean discarding sections altogether, if I'm not mistaken? Quite an interesting conversation here.
Ron-- I don't think it would necessarily do away with sections as they exist altogether. For instance, if you have two patterns based on the same instrument, if entered one into the timeline it could necessarily mute the other as long as the other was entered at a previous point in the timeline--- they would be more like mute-groups which could contain up to 12 (as per current specs)
Myrk-- I see what you mean. I will redraw the pic and add some more specifications.
OK-- here's my revised proposal (*and an apology to Ron for hijacking his thread-- but it inspired me!)
AT the 16-level zoom, all 4 bar patterns (16 step) will appear as a solid color pad. Any pattern that is longer will appear as that many pads long-- i.e. 2X16 note pattern (8 bars) would appear as 2 solid colored pads. Repeated patterns would appear as a lighter shade at that zoom level (or any zoom level).
SHORTER patterns (i.e. less than 16 steps) would appear as lighter colors (like the repeats) at 16 zoom level.
Zoom level 00.08 would show 2 bar patterns (8 steps) as one solid color pad. regular 4 bar (16 step) patterns would appear as 2 solid color pads, and so-on. Any shorter patterns would appear light colored at this zoom level.
Additionally, you could select a pattern/repeats and introduce a fade-in, fad-out (volume) to last that long-- or other such effects at any zoom level-- which would contol that parameter for those "pads" for that time frame at that zoom level.
Editing patterns would work the same way it always did. Tap anywhere in that row to open that pattern for editing.
The timeline would scroll by 1 pad at any given zoom level-- holding shift while <> scrolling would scroll by 1 screen at a time at any given zoom level.
NOTE--- current timeline runs top to bottom. Proposed timeline runs left to right with no cap on length except your willingness to turn the dial. this increases song sections.
The previous "song sections" color coding could be revised to make "mute sections" of multiple copies of the same instrument. For example-- supposing you have a regular beat that lasts 4 bars and a dozen "fills" made from the same kit that are 2 bars long. You just enter the regular beat for as many repeats as required and drop-in the fills on their respective lines where you want them to appear. They will "mute" the regular beat where they appear and the regular beat will continue playing after they resolve.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'd love to see some kind of traditional song mode implemented, be it by some of the great ideas here, or by a simple pattern-chaining function. Without this, I only use the Deluge as a composing tool that gets sampled into another sampler for arranging. And to be honest, if I have to sample my sampler into another sampler to finish songs, I might have to sell my Deluge for, say, a Microsampler, since I prefer to perform/compose on keys.
Don't get wrong, I love the Deluge. It's an amazingly designed piece of gear. I realize that everyone's needs are different but I'm just not sure why, with groovebox workstations in general, traditional song modes aren't included. We're all musicians. We all make songs
+1
I was going to post the same thing, it's really the DAW-style arranging i would imagine the Deluge to have.
Regarding Sections, we don't need to abandon them! Ableton also has 2 different views: the arranger and the section view. If you are in Section view, the deluge plays the sections in order. If you are in Arranger view, it plays the tracks in order. So sections do NOT collide with the Arranger in any way.
Also this goes along with another thread: "Singular colors for tracks". Each track should have a single color rather than the color mix so that its easier to keep an overview.
Korg M1 for deluge
my biggest "hangup" with the current song-sections method (if you could call it that) is twofold
A: the need to duplicate a pattern if you want it to repeat later in the song which necessitates more scrolling and searching
(if the data already exists, there should be a way to recall it arbitrarily on the timeline without a physical copy)
B: the hard-limit on song sections (12)
any solution that would remove those brick-walls would greatly improve the workflow. It'd be great if it was DAW style, but that's not the only possible solution
Agreed but I think they can't remove sections because of backwards compability. And they don't need to remove sections:
Korg M1 for deluge
Why not take the chain mode from the Polyend Seq? It's a very simple method. https://youtube.com/watch?v=aCOzggXHCmc
Cool, links are an interesting concept, but to me the menu diving is not really that intuitive.
Heres an idea to use links so we can play sections in different ways without having to reshuffle all the tracks.
Cheers
Without any links, the sections would just play one after the other. So section links would be backwards compatible and also not interfere with the arranger view.
Korg M1 for deluge
not sure. can this request be succesfully closed? arranger view pretty much works like the initial post proposed imho.