Rayzoon Technologies LLC

[sonicviz]

Hello,
I just bought the Jamstix package and am getting to grips with using it.
While doing the rtfm dance and playing with it I came up with the usual queries and clarifications. I've compiled what I trawled from the forums into the following notes and thought I'd post it here - apologies for dropping off the original thread links, but I was just cribbing them for my own reference and thought others may find them useful starter points.

Take care,
sv [ty for the cool tool]
Basic rhythm use:
- Open a fresh Jamstix in your project
- Use manual mode in the jam tab
- Open the rhythm tab, click LOAD, select the keyword 'basic' and pick a basic rock rhythm
- slide the snare and tom accent sliders all the way left

Jamstix should now play this rhythm along with your sequencer without any frills or fills.

You can now go to the arranger and right-click on specific bars to add fills as needed.

=============================================
Manual Jam-> You select the rhythms from the library and arrange them yourself in the arranger. All the shown controls in the jam control panel (Version 1.1) affect the manual jam.

Free Jam->Jamstix has control over the arrangement and the rhythms. All controls in the jam control and style panel affect the rhythms generated.

Key Word Jam->Same as Free Jam but the rhythms are selected from the library and not generated.

===========================================
Reset in the arranger resets 'choices' for a bar, meaning any fill, accent, probable note decisions etc. will be cleared.

Reset in the rhythm tab clears the current rhythm.

Reset in the free jam tab invalidates all current rhythms forcing the free jam to come up with new ones.

===========================================
Here's how the input affects Jamstix:

MIDI input:
- Jamstix uses the data to determine averaged play volume and adjusts the Jamstix velocity to match it.
- Jamstix analyzes chords during bar transitions and links rhythms to the chords so that repetitions trigger the same rhythm. This is done up to the maximum of 16 rhythms
- Jamstix detects specific play styles, such as instant hits or melodic events and can trigger specific behavior, such as unison instant kick/crash hits. This is all controlled in the 'Jam Habits' page.
- Jamstix uses the velocity level to determine changes in its playing, such as rhythm reduction (play less) on low levels, snare sidestick switching and power play and its associated hat/ride switching.
- By contrast, in MIDI jam mode Jamstix can analyze chords and therefore assign chord structures to rhythms and recall them as you play to get a rhythm change pattern that matches your play pattern.

Audio input:
- Jamstix uses the data to determine averaged play volume and adjusts the Jamstix velocity to match it.
- Jamstix uses the velocity level to determine changes in its playing, such as rhythm reduction (play less) on low levels, snare sidestick switching and power play and its associated hat/ride switching.
- In audio free jam, Jamstix will use rhythm 1 and a different rhythm on every second bar. This is because Jamstix cannot possible (at least not with todays CPUs) know what you are playing on your audio instrument, it can only see the volume.
- In other words: in audio free jam, Jamstix gives you a lot of rhythms to choose from. Manual mode realigning rhythm changes is almost always required to get what you want. It will play rhythm #0 every second bar and use 1 through 15 in between.

The rhythm itself is NOT based on the MIDI or audio input, it is based on the jam tab settings. Therefore, feeding Jamstix MIDI drum data is not effective as a tool to modify that drum data. Input data (especially in MIDI mode) is supposed to be a main chord instrument, such as piano.

In Jamstix 2 you will be able to feed a MIDI pattern into Jamstix as a 'generator' or 'thought' and then have Jamstix brains (drummer models) operate off that data. This will be pretty much what you seem to want to achieve.
=============================================
Audio Input control trimming

There is also the document 'Free Jam Quick Start' PDF in your Jamstix manuals folder that discusses audio trimming in more detail.

In additionj to what Doc said, I recommend for you to:

1) Adjust the input trim knob next to the 'Jam With Audio' button so that your loudest play just triggers Power Play.

2) Go to the mapping tab, right-click on input velocity map and choose 'Load Map' and load 'Wide Higher' from the mappings folder.
This will give you a nice 'sweet spot' for the whole mid level velocity range.

=============================================
The key is the arranger and it isn't all that hard. Free jam will create various rhythms in the 16 rhythm slots and spread them across the bars.

Use the arranger in manual jam to change what rhythm gets played at what bar if need be.

Click on a rhythm name in the arranger to edit that rhythm (rhythm tab). You can save beats that you want to reuse in other songs with the 'Save' button there.

Right-click on bars in the arranger to add, change or remove fills.

=============================================
Switching to Free Jam/Keyword clears the arrangement.

There probably should be a warning pop-up about this, because if you already have a manual arrangement, it will be blown away...

So, if the "Half Time" switch on the Free Jam page is turned on, then JS will generate half-time rhythms. Then, if you switch to manual mode, you can change them. But, if you switch back to Free JAM (for example, to turn off the Half Time switch), the rhythms and arrangement will be cleared, and JS will generate normal rhythms.

Note that if you first go into Key Word Jam and select a style, then switch into Free Jam, JS will play the selected rhythms at first, at least until it overwrites them with it's own rhythms generated in Free Jam.
============================================
Cymbals
Don't you just love quick support? Well, I do! After mailing the fxb file (on sunday) I got an answer within a day! My problem was solved by turning off the 'Power Ride' option in the HiHat section and the 'Change Crash' option in the Cymbals section, both on the Rhythm tab. I also did reset every pattern in the Arranger after that, just to be sure and, everything is perfect now: no more unwanted cymbals! Very Happy

For future reference, here are some more options to look at when you are having unwanted cymbal sounds (copied and pasted from the mail I got from Rayzoon):

- 'Cymbal Hits' slider in the jam tab (free jam mode only)

- 'Power' and 'Normal' sliders in the rhythm tab

- 'Single accent hit...' and 'Accent hits...' habits in the 'Jam Habit' screen off of the jam tab (only if MIDI jam input is used)

- MIDI notes in Jamstix track that are assigned to cymbals (only if manual jam with 'Play Input' checked)

- Many fills have cymbals programmed into them
============================================
This is a basic song with a verse, chorus and bridge, an intro, some fills and and ending. I'll describe how this gets built:

1) Right-click on the first rhythm name and select a rhythm from the library. At this point just pick anything. In the future, highlight the note icon in the load dialog to preview rhythms as you click on them.

Repeat this for the next two rhythms. Now, they won't be called 'Bridge','Verse' and 'Chorus' but that doesn't matter now. You can change that in the rhythm tab if need be.

2) Click 'Mute' and click on the first two cells of the arranger so they turn black. I ususally do this to give Jamstix two bars to synch with the host.

3) Click 'Select' and click on the cells to match the arrangement as the pictue shows. This instructs Jamstix what rhythm to use for each bar the host plays.

4) Right-click on the bar that says 'I' in the picture, click 'Intro' and pick an intro (use the note icon to preview)

5) Right-click on the bars that say 'F', click 'Fill' and pick some fills.

6) Same thing but for the 'E' bar to pick and ending.

Now save your project and play it. You should hear Jamstix play an intro on bar 3, play 4 bars of verse than go to the chorus with a fill and so forth.
=============================================
Live Loops
I have 2 live loops, one going from bar 1 to 4 and the other one going from bar 5 to 8. When I start Cubase without Live Loops enabled the cursor in the Jamstix arranger follows the Cubase cursor nicely. But when I enable Live Loops, Jamstix keeps playing only the first bar of Live Loop 1, it never goes beyond the first bar, nor will it switch to loop 2 when I press the right midi note.
Please check 'Time Sig Changes' in the output tab and see if it helps.
=============================================
Keyword Jams

Could it be that by default the behaviour of the keyword jam is different for midi input and audio input?

When I select a set of rhythms in the Keyword Jam and start Jamstix, the Arrangement window shows that it stays on the same rhythm when I have it switch to listen to midi input. When I switch to audio it starts alternating between rhythms every other bar. (This behaviour is without any real input, just using the input switch) That's correct. In MIDI mode, Jamstix can recognize chords at bar starts and will only switch rhythm slots when it detects.
In audio mode, Jamstix can only detect velocity and resorts to a preset pattern of rhythm switches.

[Stringer]

This is very useful.

Thanks,

John

[rsadasiv]

This should be sticky

[Doc]

I have just made it sticky.
Anybody with tipps considering Jamstix feel free to contribute.
Posts would be best in a kind of short essay form ...

[rockstar_not]

My tip is regarding using Tracktion with Jamstix.

I've found that the most responsive drumming I get from Jamstix is when I'm feeding him/her properly.

I do this by

1. putting a send on any track that I think should have something to say to Jamstix about the rhythm.

2. Put a return on an empty track. Immediately after the return, I put the AudioM8 plugin, and then after that, I put a volume/pan plugin with the volume turned all the way down.

3. Jamstix goes onto a different track all by itself and I set it up to jam with audio.

In this way, I can use both audio tracks from instruments like guitars/basses, as well as midi tracks (the midi tracks get rendered to audio before the send by whatever VSTi I'm using) to help Jamstix find a groove. I can also control the level to which each of the sources is feeding simply by varying the send amount on each track.

Works quite well for me.

-Scott