A program like iMaschine or the Beatbuddy pedal for linux?

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rabbawassa
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A program like iMaschine or the Beatbuddy pedal for linux?

Post by rabbawassa »

Hey there, Ive been searching for many days, months even, and trying to many programs including Ardour, Hydrogen, seq24 and more. Ive been searching for a simple program in which I could write some MIDI beats and switch them to accompany me on the guitar. The problem is that the music is improvised so I cannot use the "song mode". I need a program where I can start beat 1 and it will loop indefinitely until I tell it to start playing beat 2 and so on. Hydrogen can do this but the problem is that I cannot find a way to tell Hydrogen: "play part 2 after you finish part 1" so if I change patterns in Hydrogen it changes immediately, same for seq24. Is there a way to tell these programs ok move on to part 2 but only when you finish playing part 1 not as soon as I press the button. I have installed a program on my iPad called iMaschine which does something similar but its way too restrictive for my tastes. There is also the Beatbuddy guitar pedal that does exactly what I want but its expensive and also too restrictive for what I want to do. (ie I would like more flexibility, different beats need to be able to have their own tempo, their own beat 4/4, 3/4 etc, ideally I should be able to include more than just drums in my beats such as other midi synths or even audio recording).

So does anyone know of a program that can do something like this or is there a way to do that with seq24 or Hydrogen that I have not figured out?

Another way to do something similar I have figured out is with Cubase or Ardour I can write my patterns 1 after the other but then I need to stop playing to move the loop region to "change the beat" I have not figured a way that I could create a hotkey or a macro that would allow me to move the loop region somewhere else with the touch of 1 or even a few key presses, so now its got to be done with the mouse, its not ideal that every time you want to switch from lets say part 1 to part 2 of the song you need to grab the mouse with 1 hand while continuing to play guitar with the other hand and place the loop somewhere else, it works but ideally id like to be able to have this operation on a key so I can eventually buy some foot midi controller and change the "beats" with my feet.

Im thinking in the whole realm of linux OS awesome music programs there is got to be some program that does that, but was not able to find one so far, if that type of program exists I’m not sure how its called so it does not help me. Any advice would be appreciated!
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Re: A program like iMaschine or the Beatbuddy pedal for linux?

Post by noedig »

You could try Giada https://www.giadamusic.com/ or Luppp http://openavproductions.com/luppp/, although I don't think the latter has support for recording/looping MIDI. But you could always just record audio drum loops.

Bitwig Studio will also be able to do exactly what you want, but it's not free.
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Re: A program like iMaschine or the Beatbuddy pedal for linux?

Post by tavasti »

non-sequencer has pattern-mode, where you can launch patterns with midi. If I recall correctly, they where on-off type, so to switch from a to b you need togle a off and b on.

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Re: A program like iMaschine or the Beatbuddy pedal for linux?

Post by ssj71 »

rabbawassa wrote: I cannot find a way to tell Hydrogen: "play part 2 after you finish part 1" so if I change patterns in Hydrogen it changes immediately, same for seq24. Is there a way to tell these programs ok move on to part 2 but only when you finish playing part 1 not as soon as I press the button.
from the seq24 readme
* Queue

Holding 'Right Ctrl' will queue a on/off toggle for a
sequence when the loop ends.
I think thats what you want, though maybe right ctl isn't the most convenient way...
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Re: A program like iMaschine or the Beatbuddy pedal for linux?

Post by lilith »

Try Renoise ... you can program different patterns and use the pattern player. It will switch the pattern when the currrent one is finished.
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Re: A program like iMaschine or the Beatbuddy pedal for linux?

Post by sysrqer »

lilith wrote:Try Renoise ... you can program different patterns and use the pattern player. It will switch the pattern when the currrent one is finished.
I was thinking this as well, phrases could be useful too.
rabbawassa
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Re: A program like iMaschine or the Beatbuddy pedal for linux?

Post by rabbawassa »

ssj71 wrote:
rabbawassa wrote: I cannot find a way to tell Hydrogen: "play part 2 after you finish part 1" so if I change patterns in Hydrogen it changes immediately, same for seq24. Is there a way to tell these programs ok move on to part 2 but only when you finish playing part 1 not as soon as I press the button.
from the seq24 readme
* Queue

Holding 'Right Ctrl' will queue a on/off toggle for a
sequence when the loop ends.
I think thats what you want, though maybe right ctl isn't the most convenient way...
Oh thanks that totally works I can work with that. Yea maybe I can built some macro around that. Thanks for all the good program suggestions as well Ill have to try those as well!
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Re: A program like iMaschine or the Beatbuddy pedal for linux?

Post by milkii »

check https://github.com/ahlstromcj/sequencer64 for the successor to seq24

the manual is also rather good;

"Holding the ”queue” key and then hitting a pattern hot-key will queue an on/off toggle for a pattern when the end of the loop is reached. This is the ”queue” functionality. This means that the change in state of the pattern will not take hold immediately, but will kick in when the pattern restarts. This pending state is indicated by coloring the central box of the pattern grey, as shown in the figure below.

"Warning: We do not recommend using Ctrl or Alt keys for pattern control. They conflict with application or desktop settings. However, if one insists on such hot-key combinations, one can use the new Menu button in the main window to disable the menu, which makes those keystrokes more safely available"

n.b. there is also the midi control "mod queue" feature.

they/them ta / libreav.org / wiki.thingsandstuff.org/Audio and related pages / gh

brett
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Re: A program like iMaschine or the Beatbuddy pedal for linux?

Post by brett »

You can also launch patterns with midi with non-sequencer pattern mode
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Re: A program like iMaschine or the Beatbuddy pedal for linux?

Post by chaocrator »

+1 for sequencer64.
rabbawassa wrote:(ie I would like more flexibility, different beats need to be able to have their own tempo, their own beat 4/4, 3/4 etc, ideally I should be able to include more than just drums in my beats such as other midi synths or even audio recording).
i wonder if own tempo for different beat is possible at all (acoording to MIDI specifications — no).
but sequencer64 can handle polyrhythms, while non-sequencer can't.
and polyrhythms can be a workaround (with some limitations) for different phrases to be percepted in different tempo.
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Re: A program like iMaschine or the Beatbuddy pedal for linux?

Post by ssj71 »

chaocrator wrote:(acoording to MIDI specifications — no).
I'm not sure which part of the midi spec you mean, but there's nothing preventing a sequencer from sending midi notes in different tempos. I agree though that using polyrhythm in sequencer64 is probably the closest thing since this is not a common thing. Or maybe pre-rendering the loops and just triggering them using something like giada.
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