Rayzoon Technologies LLC

[Stringer]

I have been playing round with the demo in Reaper. I have done free jams and keyword jams. I have Jamstix set to audio jam, and I am playing guitar through an amp modeler. Jamstix detects the input, and the velocity slider moves. Generally it works the first time through, but then if I try to clear the arrangement and reset the rhythm, after that it plays fills but no basic rhythm, no high hats, kicks or snares.

I usually click in drum parts in the piano roll, either in FL Studio or Reaper. I am looking for something a little more realistic than that. Jamstix looks good, but I wish it was steadier at just doing the basics and not doing so many fancy fills. I know that there are sliders to control that, and I have been tweaking those, but it is frustrating when it starts doing no rhythm, all fills. I am sure I am doing something wrong.

Shouldn't clearing the arrangement and resetting the rhythm let you start over again?

Is it better to record the rhythm gutiar track with a click track, and then bring jamstix in afterwards?

Thanks,

John

[RichLum]

I don't really use Free Or Keyword Jam.
I do very rarely to muck around or test things out, but 99% of the time I'm using Manual Jam.

For what you sound like you are doing (putting drums to an already written song) then Manual Jam might be the way to go.

I just tried doing a Free Jam in Reaper using AudioM8 to drive the velocity of Jamstix and it worked fine.
I cleared all the arrangement and started form the beginning and it worked fine still.

Make sure in the "Jam" tab of Jamstix you don't have the Funkiness and Complexity up too hi as the default setting does tend to make the brain overplay to my tastes.

Rich
_________________
https://www.facebook.com/richard.lum.music

[Stringer]

Rich,

I didn't use the AudioM8 plug. It didn't seem to be necessary because I could set the Jamstix channel to monitor the audio output on the card. And it worked fine until I tried to reset Jamstix and then change the keywords I was working with. Then I got nothing but fills, no steady rhythm. I wonder if it is a limitation of the demo?

I was just jamming, sort of playing rhythm and lead at the same time with jamstix keeping it going. I had to change velocity sensitivity because given that I was swtiching from chords to lead all the time, there were lots of spaces, and Jamstix kept going up and down from little sidesticks to power play. I thought I had it figured out, but then it got frustrating.

Jamstix looks like an amazing tool, and the sale going on right now makes it very tempting.

Thanks,

John

[Ralph [RZ]]

John, let me look into this and get back to you...

By the way, you are right in that you do not need to use audioM8 if your host can feed the audio signal into Jamstix.
_________________
Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com

[Ralph [RZ]]

I checked the Jamstix demo with REAPER 1.2 and it worked fine for me. Here are my steps:

- open REAPER
- add track, click FX and select Jamstix demo
- set track for input recording
- set Jamstix to 'Free Jam' with 'Jam With Audio'
- arm track for recording and start REAPER
- after a few beats Jamstix plays a groove and I let it go for ten bars or so
- stop REAPER
- go to Jamstix arranger and click "Clear All"
- rewind REAPER and record again
- Jamstix plays a groove just fine

Try these steps and let me know.
_________________
Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com

[Stringer]

Ralph,

Yep, that's what I was doing, except that I think I also clicked on "reset beat."

I am using the latest Reaper, which is 1.44. I probably just clicked on too many things at once and screwed something up. I'll try again tonight.

When you are demoing new software that has any kind of learning curve, it is easy to get both confused and frustrated. However, Reaper and Jamstix look like they will compliment each other well once I get the hang of it.

Thanks,

John

[Stringer]

Seems to be working fine now. I must have just clicked on too many things at once the first time.

The drum sounds are very good.

Tonight I'll try the manual jam. When you do the manual jam, does the Jamstix brain still do some creative additions, or does it just play exactly what you tell it to?

Thanks,

John

[Ralph [RZ]]

[Stringer]

That sounds ideal then. I am a guitar player for the most part. When I started using FL Studio, I worked hard to figure out how to click in drum parts in the step sequencer, and later in the piano roll. I even bought books that had drum machine patterns to click in. I learned a lot about drums, but it seems like whatever you do, clicking in parts leads to a machine-like sound, even when you throw in little off beat hits and glitches.

The other thing is that most of the soundfonts available don't have a whole lot of velocity layers. The kick either goes WHAM! or poof, and nothing in between. That goes for most but not all of the FL Studio FPC kits too.

Thanks,

John

[Ralph [RZ]]

[Stringer]

I am nearly convinced. I just need to play around with the manual jam some more.

Thanks,

John

[scottieboy]

Stringer,

I am a guitar player also, and reading your posts, I want to do pretty much exactly what your doing. I also just started using jamstix and I have a lot to learn.....unfortunately I think my sequencer is making it harder to use on top of the learning curve.(multitrackstudio)

SO, how are you coming along with using Jamstix in Reaper? If you can tame the beast, then I'd like to follow the same path...keep me updated.

[RichLum]

Jamstix seems to work fine in REAPER for me.

I've used Jamstix in n-Track and Tracktion also and in REAPER it is just as easy if not easier to set up and route outputs to separate channels etc.
I did also try the demo of MTS and found it a bit of a pain the way you can't keep the plugin GUI open whilst moving around the timeline. This was an annoyance when trying to construct songs in the Jamstix arranger.
Also the automation envelopes in MTS gave me some problems - can't remember what they were though sorry...

No stability problems for me with Jamstix and REAPER.

Up till now I've just been doing a lot general testing of various things in REAPER and waiting for some functions to be added. It is now at a stage that mostly meets my needs.

I was in the middle of deciding whether to switch from n-Track to Tracktion when REAPER came to my attention.

I'm in the middle of doing my first full song from start to finish in REAPER and it is all going well.

Compatibility with Jamstix is really important to me as Jamstix is the one plugin I have that I couldn't replace with another if it didn't work - I can always use another compressor, reverb, pad etc.

I'm pretty close to buying REAPER and using that as my main DAW

Rich
_________________
https://www.facebook.com/richard.lum.music

[Stringer]

So far Reaper and Jamstix get along fine. I just haven't had time to do any manual jams or arranging in Jamstix, so I haven't bought Jamstix yet. I am pretty sure I will though.

Reaper is so easy to use, and so powerful under the hood. Version 1.47 just added drum maps, which I haven't tried either, but it looks like it will work well with Jamstix too.

John

[scottieboy]

what are drum maps?