Rayzoon Technologies LLC

[J van E]

I'm having a hard time getting something simple done. I'm sure it will work out fine in the end and I'll laugh about my confusion later on, but right now I'm lost.

I have a song that's done already with a very simple and steady rhythm that's the same all through the song. I want to replace the drumtrack with JS2. Of course. I deleted the original drum track (I want to use the brain!) and now I tried to make my own simple groove in JS2 and ;et JS2 do the fills at certain moments. But I can't get it done...

I used the Silent style and Roger as drummer and set up 1 bar that's repeated 8 times. But in order to use the transition fills only at the end, I had to change the groove to 8 bars long with one repetition. But now the second and third bar are empty and during the third bar the groove suddenly is there again... After reversing the situation again without any luck I also tried loading a JS2 groove and editing it, but that didn't work either because all repetitions followed the original groove and not the changes in the core groove... (which SHOULD be the case, right...?)
It seems to me that making changes afterwards makes a mess of it all and the only way to get things cleaned up again, is to remove the part and start all over again. (BTW I just tried to do it all over AGAIN (1 bar repeated 8 times) but the repeated bars stay silent....)

I know I can import midi files but I want to be able to do anything on the fly from within Sonar and JS2: I do not want to create midi grooves all over the place and import them everytime.

Just now I tried it all over AGAIN and when I create a groove manually in the core bar everything is erased as soon as I press Start...

It IS possible to make grooves from within JS2 and let the brain do it's job still, right...?

I don't expect complete reactions and tutorials to my post, but I just want to make clear it takes some time to get used to it all.......... Boy, I've been working on this since I donwloaded and installed JS2: it's one simple stinking bar that needs to be repeated and where fills should occur at certain moments...

Sorry for this probably very confusing post, but I just had to do something else than trying it AGAIN.

EDIT:
Well, I tried it again and again, I even saved a pattern as a midi file and imported it: it shows up in JS2 but when I press play I hear nothing. I'm completely lost. And by now quite frustrated and since I don't want to spoil the whole evening I give up and maybe try again tomorrow...
Up to now I had more fun waiting for JS2 than working with it! (Which is of course totally my fault...)

EDIT 2:
In case anyone dares to help: all I want is a simple groove (created in JS2) that's 1 bar long being repeated 8 times and at the end of that I want a fill after which everything starts over again. I would like the fills to be different every now and then so I need to copy that 1 or 8 bar long part a few times. Apart from that I want the drummer to use the ride during two 8 bar periods. As I said, the basic rhythm is the same all through the song. It's just a matter of getting that single bar rhythm repeated in blocks of 8 with transition fills. Sounds pretty easy to me, right...?

[Ralph [RZ]]

This stuff can be confusing and we're going to make it easier based on feedback over the next few weeks/months.

Please do this for now:

- use the 'Silent' style and 'Roger' drummer
- make the part 1 bar in length and use the desired # of reps
- check Locking Events->Lock Manually Created Events in the bar editor menu
- hand-edit your desired groove in the first bar of the part.

Your groove should now play as desired in all bars of the part. The only downside is the fills but you can easily place them by hand, just do this:

- click 'FILL' in the brain
- go to bars where you want a fill and click the COMP button on each one


Hope this helps!
_________________
Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com

[J van E]

Thanks for the help, Ralph. But when I edit the core bar the repetitions stay silent. I DO see the bar icons and JS2 is following the song with them but there is nothing in them...
I now noticed however I can copy a bar by rightclicking on the bar icon and choosing copy and than pasting it into the next bar. Then I DO get sound in those bars, but I don't think this is how it should be...

EDIT:
Aha, I found out something interesting... I noticed the BAR icon underneath COMP was lit: when the song was running (with silent repetitions) I turned it off and immediately JS2 started to repeat everything!

The strange thing however is that the bars that had passed empty stayed empty after this. If you know what I mean. So bar 1 was okay, bar 2 and the rest stayed empy. While I was in bar 6 I turned that BAR light off and the second half of bar 6 was filled with sound just as the bars following it. But after restarting the song bars 2 up to 6 1/2 stayed empty...! No matter what I did.

So... I reset the repetitions to 1, played the song, and after that set the repetion to whatever again, making sure the BAR light was off. Only THEN every bas was repeated and filled and so on.

I just made a part of 8 bars long (by manually copying the first bar into the next seven) and made that repeat itself with fill during transitions. And at LAST I got what I want.

I guess that BAR light must have been on or off or whatever at certain moments... BTW I did not even have to turn in that lock to get things done this way.

[Ralph [RZ]]

Hmm, odd, works fine for me here. You did set the part length to 1 bar (not , right? Maybe you can send me a JS2 song file with this situation so I can be on the same page. Just use 'Save Song' and send me the resulting file.
_________________
Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com

[J van E]

I edited while you were typing.

[Ralph [RZ]]

Hmm, the BAR light should be off by default so I didn't even think of that.

Once all you 'hand-editors' have had some time with JS2, let's talk about what needs streamlining (without hurting the 'automated' crowd).
_________________
Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com

[J van E]

Let's do that. I'm glad I've got it working now and hopefully someone will benefit from my first stumbling and insecure JS2-steps... As I said: I was sure things would work out. And I'm glad it already happened before I went to bed!

It must have been an exhausting day for you, Ralph: it's incredible you even find the time to post over here! Your support can't be beaten!

[fulvia]

[tunetown]

Ralph,

Just a thought whilst I'm waiting for my license. Maybe JS2 could have a record function that allows recording of MIDI from external sources. This would allow keyboard and electronic drummers to easily play the patterns they require, quantize, then let the brain do its thing.

This would certainly save me recording the parts in Nuendo then exporting, then importing into JS2.

Cheers
_________________
Peter Houghton
Tune Town Pty Ltd
TYAN S2895
Dual DC Opteron 270s
4 gig Corsair ram
Nuendo 3.2
BFD

[Ralph [RZ]]

We are planning to bring the old 'Learn' mode back for this purpose but it just didn't make it into the first release.
_________________
Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com

[tunetown]

Great.
_________________
Peter Houghton
Tune Town Pty Ltd
TYAN S2895
Dual DC Opteron 270s
4 gig Corsair ram
Nuendo 3.2
BFD