Rayzoon Technologies LLC

mikeon_b4c · Jammer Joined: 19 Feb 2021 Posts: 32

Thanks for yet more good advice and tips and with those tips I've now got Jamstix routing kit elements to different Reaper tracks (excellent!). I'm going to (force myself to) evaluate EZ2 but I'm leaning heavily towards Jamstix as being a much more interesting tool to work with - I like my midi drums to sound as human as poss (including making custom edits) but Jamstix might be far more interesting with the suggestions the 'real' drummers make and which I can subsequently edit. I get the impression too that in time and getting to know how to adjust the various parameters in Jamstix, I will be able to get the AI drummer to play something that is better than my imagination alone could conjure up.

So, the question now is which version to get. I'm thinking the Jamstix 4 P (includes Jamcussion) would be an interesting version - unless Jamstix 4 XL with the XL pack is a 'must have'. I'm also wondering about the Neo 60 mini-pak to cover music of that era. Interested if you have any thoughts on that. And I don't know much about free libraries so guess I'd better start learning about those and which ones might be best for me.

Thanks as ever.

Mike

Azimuth · Moderator & Beta Team Joined: 19 Nov 2010 Posts: 2131

mikeon_b4c · Jammer Joined: 19 Feb 2021 Posts: 32

Azimuth · Moderator & Beta Team Joined: 19 Nov 2010 Posts: 2131

Hey Mike,
Honestly, I'm glad that I could help you out. Feel free to ask about anything that raises questions in the future. As I said, if I can answer it, I'll gladly do so.

mikeon_b4c · Jammer Joined: 19 Feb 2021 Posts: 32

mikeon_b4c · Jammer Joined: 19 Feb 2021 Posts: 32

Azimuth · Moderator & Beta Team Joined: 19 Nov 2010 Posts: 2131

mikeon_b4c · Jammer Joined: 19 Feb 2021 Posts: 32

mikeon_b4c · Jammer Joined: 19 Feb 2021 Posts: 32

Hi

Just had a message from a newish J4 user called Gary and sent him a substantial reply saying how I was finding it. I thought it might be useful (cos I had been meaning to post about my progress anyway) to reproduce my (hastilly written) summary here, as follows:

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[...] Well, first, I have been using it for all my projects since I got started with it, including for percussion work. I love it and will stick with it. Now for the nitty gritty:

What I love
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Is the element of surprise when I have set out a song in Reaper, been disciplined about naming my song regions (including noting in the region title how many bars long it is) and am then able quickly to set out the song in J4 and put it to work, experimenting with its various options for style and drummer. Occasionally I am happy with exactly what it has done. Here is an example where I had just started with J4, chose (from memory) Surf style and drummer Charlie. Because the song does not require the drums to do anything more than back (and not upstage) the song, and because the song is just a collection of verses, it was a simple job for J4. Nonetheless, it played the drums just how the song needed them to be played, and I think it sounds great

https://soundcloud.com/clana_boys/my-back-pages-dylanclana-boysmp3

Similarly, this song uses J4 percussion and (from meory) I made no changes whatsoever to what it created

https://soundcloud.com/clana_boys/carey-careys-reply-joni-mitchell-the-clana-boys

Most times though, I will want to intervene and manually edit/change what J4 has created. I'm still learning about best ways to do that (J4 seems to understand / notice when you've started to change patterns, such as kick, in the early bars of a section and seems to some extent to then change other bars in the section). J4 will though over-write and destroy what you have done if you get it wrong: it is very unforgiving. So, my first IMPORTANT TIP is to save a song at an early stage and keep saving it regularly (or at least hit the Save A Restore Point button, though with that option you then have to find your restore point in the list of restore points as J4 is not tidy in the way it lists them). Similarly, when you've got a whole song that works but that you think you want to go over again to try and make it better, then start a new version of the song and name it Vn (where n is the version number) as well as describing when and why you started the new version. Overall, Jamstix is not good on undo/redo stuff and you can really lose a lot of work if you don't save things regularly.

What I hate
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* The user interface is a dogs dinner and it takes a lot of using to settle to using J4 and how to find your way around it
* Unless you are a musician who understands the terminology (and maybe even if you are), trying to get the hang of how changing the many parameters will change what J4 creates for you is very confusing. And J4 will just destroy and recreate things as soon as you alter the various settings (which is why you MUST have something saved and that you can restore if need be).
* There is very little by way of good tutorial material on Youtube for helping you learn how to use J4. There is a 3 x 1hr part (I think) tutorial for J3 that is better than nothing, but only just.
* Some of J4s pattern creations are just cheesy. But hey, you can always edit those out

Overall
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I love J4 and I don't think I would swap to the other well known drum VSTi's as they seem to be based much more on glueing together standard patterns (of which there are a bewildering number, which makes decision making harder). I would rather be surprised by something that I can use for inspiration and go on to customise, than to constantly feel I am in some huge department store where I might missed seeing the perfect item for me: better for there not to be one and to have fun playing with the parameters in J4.

I fear for J4 as a commercial product though as I think it is unfriendly and clunky to use so that perhaps only a minority (who love the ability to create, or to just get lucky and have offer the perfect solution straight off, and are prepared to commit to the long learning process in J4) will stick with the product.

When it comes to percussion, J4 really seems to score. I would not know how to get close to manually painting a realistic percussion part in MIDI and I'm no sure what other VSTi's out there will handle (creative) percussion part creation.

So, overall, I love J4 and will stick with it, mainly because it is a great tool for creativity and composition. The notes it creates can be exported as MIDI for use by other drum VSTis (maybe because you want a different sounding set of drums). I find the learning curve enjoyable overall as it is a learning adventure, with dividends, and I am retired and this is my hobby. But if time was tight, I might find it frustrating.

It would be so good if there was better tutorial support for J4 and hopefully Rayzoon might read this email and ponder on what I have written. Its a great concept, but it is due some attention in making it and the World of J4 more attractive and user friendly (in my humble opinion).

[...]

Mike

P.S. Any drums you hear on any of the songs at https://soundcloud.com/clana_boys are being played (and most have been composed) using J4

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I'd be interested to get the (polite!) reaction of other (more experienced?) users to what I have written. And thanks again for all the support I got when starting out with J4 (and I still have a loooong way to go with learning all its intricacies!)

Mike

Azimuth · Moderator & Beta Team Joined: 19 Nov 2010 Posts: 2131

I've said this before in the forum but I think it is one of the most important things to figure out: just because there is a parameter you can adjust doesn't mean you have to.

After using it for a while I think most users will find there is a group of parameters you'll use 90+% of the time and the vast majority of them will hardly get used other than playing around to see what they do. I found that after focusing upon that group of parameters I found myself using the most, dialing in what I wanted became much easier.