What’s up everybody. I was up till 5am working on this concept. After reading the old DJTT “String Theory” I got inspired to pursue an idea I have had for a while. The idea is to be able to chop a track like an MPC into 16 individual hits that can be drummed out and rearranged on the fly. I know you can do this with a Twitch or a properly placed cue points but I wanted to the freedom do it anytime and then save the kit if I liked it. Another concept I wished to implement was the ability to chop a bunch of cells but alter the pitch so you could play different melodies. Unfortunately this functionality is still locked for the Remix Decks.
If you’d like to test this out here is what you need.
Open Dicer midi pipe file and go to midi in on the right menu, make sure dicer is selected as the input
Import the Dicer Remix Deck.tsi and in the controller manager for your input select midi port
Make sure Deck B is Track Deck and Deck D is a Remix Deck
Go to the Move menu in the advanced tab of Deck B and ensure that Move is set to BeatJump (not Loop, Loop in or Loop out)
Now you should be able to load track into Deck B, hold button 2 (2 dots) on the Dicer, press button 1 (1 dot) and it should slice your track to the remix deck.
Let me know if you have any questions. This is still a working concept but i’ll try help as much as possible and i’m going to work on getting compatibility for other controllers as well.
Though I’ll need to adjust it for use with traktor and loop MIDI. That mean no macro button and recording the slices in real time using couple of modes probably (8, 16, 32 beats).
Still a random thought but I’ll definitely give attempt on the MIDIfighter.
I actually already have a mapping for my MF3D which does 8 beat beatslicing (using midi pipe) along with full Deck D remix deck control. Albeit, it slices using cue points instead of slicing to the remix deck. It shouldn’t be too hard to merge this with my mapping and make it work though. I’ll work on it tonight.
Ok, got this up and running with the MF3D. Strong work on coming up with this btw, really great idea. I changed a few things and added the ability to let you choose whether to slice from Deck A or Deck B. I made it so you don’t have to choose “beatjump” or set the move size (mapped it to the slice button so that it happens automatically when you initiate slicing.) I also increased the delay in midi pipe to improve reliability (traktor would sometimes not catch the “move” command in time and you’d end up with duplicate slices.)
Will clean up a couple things and try to get a vid up in the next couple days.
Hey man that’s awesome! I thought about turning up the midi delay but didn’t get a chance to check it out, I thought that might be why Traktor would sometimes have duplicate slices.
One thing I noticed in practice while using this is that it can be a bit problematic when you have cells from different slots playing over each other. MPC and Maschine are nice because you can set choke groups so things don’t clash with each other.
One option is to manually set each remix deck cell trigger mode to “gated”, but this makes playing the slices much less fun and creative if you if you want to just quickly jump between slices without interrupting the flow of the music.
So I thought about sticking in a choke mechanism by adding an option button which will cause triggering of one slot to mute (or stop?) all the other slots. This way you can jump between cells in different slots without them playing on top of each other.
Any other thoughts about this or any other ideas on how to potentially make this more useful? Hoping I can also get around to adding in Stewe’s great tip too
This kinda is badass. It should be a standard feature. I appreciate the flexibility of Traktor, but wish they would focus more on expanding and refining the capabilities of the software, instead of trying to constantly shove new hardware down our throats.
My Audio 6 interface and TSP control records had been collecting dust for over a year until they unlocked the Remix Decks. I had been working with Serato/Ableton/Maschine and really wanted something more integrated. Ultimately I’ve been disappointed with the remix deck functions. They seem so limiting in comparison.
I’m hoping that NI adds follow actions, velocity, auto-chop or at least creates some sort of Maschine bridge. Actually if Ableton just added audio scrub to it’s API and merged browsers while using The Bridge it would be perfect.
That’d be awesome, we should set up a Google Hangout and just brainstorm some ideas. Yes I also realized it can be cumbersome when you try play the different slots due to the sounds overlapping. My work around was the same, set cells to Gate and quantize value to 1.
I played around with it for a bit yesterday and there was a couple of things that I also thought would be beneficial.
Beatjump x16 ← : This would jump the track deck back to it’s original spot
Remix Deck Unload button: This will reset the Remix Deck. Then when you slice a track, the remix deck will match the tempo value to the track you just sliced.
Slicing micro values (1/4, 1/2): Currently Slicing with the loop function set to 1/4 or 1/2 results in a lot of duplicate slices. I’m not totally sure what could be done to remedy this.
Another thing that I found difficult making the remix decks more dynamic and interesting. It’s cool to rearrange the cells but it’s so obvious that you’re just playing loops and it gets repetitive. I thought it’d be cool to create a default fx chain that gives it a bit more depth (a light delay, with some reverb).
Eventually i’d like to be able to set up another slice command that will chop just one beat but adjust the pitch across the remix decks. That will have to wait until they unlock that midi function.
Good news, I received an email survey from NI a few months ago regarding Traktor. There was a question that asked you to pick 3 features (pre defined list) that you’d like to see in the Remix Decks and future hardware. One of those things was polyphonic audio and velocity sensitivity. I’m not sure if polyphonic would mean that multiple cells in a column could be triggered but the velocity function sounded promising.
I definitely hear you on the Remix Deck limitations. I think the challenge with the Remix Decks (as well as Ableton and Maschine) is that they require a different mindset and thought process. For a traditional DJ, all they have to do is think about what song to play next (don’t hate, for this example i’m just limiting it to the bare essentials). In this sense it’s easy to get into a state of flow where you seem to keep playing the right songs, inspiration again is limited to “Ooo what if I played this song instead?”
With the Remix Decks it’s often not as easy to take advantage of inspiration. It requires way more thought about how you’re going to set up the cells, how you’re going to mix in and mix out, and how to make sure it doesn’t get repetitive. By the time you’ve figured out what you’re going to do the moment has likely passed and you didn’t have time to capture all the things you needed into the remix decks. It often requires a lot more preparation in advance, detailed preparation. Again preparation for a DJ would consist of making a playlist (structured around a theme, BPM, or genre) and making sure they have enough tracks that will enable them to change the vibe if they need to. Preparing a Remix Deck would require preparing cells for a specific song and preparing cells that will enable you to get out of that Remix Deck and into your next track in a seamless way.
What I hope we can turn this Slice function into is a way to take advantage of inspiration on the fly, without being confined to pre determined remix cells. “What if I sliced this section into 1/2 beats.”
Has anyone tried mapping this to a different controller? I tried testing it with my Maschine Mikro but it seems like midipipe won’t carry the message to a different controller.
Ok so I made automation that can play and loop all 16 cells in a slot synced to the master tempo. Then I’ve mapped a loop set to drop a 1 beat loop on each grid marker so from there I can use capture modifier to grab shots in real time simply by holding it (since the automation is triggering cells).
rdej47,
Can you please share your slices with me? Just want to load them in to my rmx deck and test the length of each individual slice when I play them in sequence and synced to the track deck so we could know if your concept drop slices perfectly in time.
Hey Stewe i’m confused about what you want me to do? Did you create your own mapping or did you just test mine? It sounds like they’re accomplishing the same thing.
It’s my own mapping for automated rmx deck sequencer that I adjusted a bit to accomplish track slices be captured in to remix deck. That all works fine.
I’ve asked for actual audio files (the result of your mapping) so I can test them and see if they play nice in sequence of 16 beats or they might have cut in/outs in lenght.
For sure i’ll upload a Remix set for you when I get home. So far it does a pretty good job at capturing 16 slices, every now and then it catches duplicate slices. However rafiq played with the delay settings in midi pipe and I think that remedies the problem.
No problem. One thing that I wish would be possible is to do this slicing without interrupting the audio. In future updates it’d be awesome if NI took this concept and just added it to the existing loop window. For example you could hold a shift function, select a loop (slice) value of 4 - 16 slices, then when you capture Traktor would slice up to 16 cells without interrupting audio.
Great stuff Stewe, lookin forward to seeing it. Will especially be great for people that can’t or don’t want to run Midi Pipe
rdej - I added in the beatjump back 16 and deck unload suggestions. Slicing at smaller intervals shouldn’t be a problem. The main issue is that slicing is only really consistent and reliable if the track is stopped. Still working on getting consistent results when attempting to slice with the track playing. The whole process is automated by the position of the playhead, so it’s hard to expect too much consistency if the playhead is simultaneously and independently moving on it’s own. It’s less of an issue with bigger slices, but slicing at fractions of a beat is sure to throw the chain off unless the track is stopped.
Yeah rafiq! I also figured out that it’s really easy to map this to any midi controller, it just involves having a spare button and using a channel router in midi pipe to route your button press to channel 11 (the channel used by the dicer).
Rafiq I was thinking about coming up with some FX presets that really complement the Remix Decks. I was playing around with the Reverb and Delay. We could probably set up another button in Midi Pipe that will auto load the Reverb effect with all the right parameters, thus saving another step.
In my mind what’s really holding the Remix Decks back is speed. You can’t fill them fast enough in between tracks with creative and dynamic cells.
You guys have been animals at adopting this, we should definitely voice chat to share ideas.
