Rayzoon Technologies LLC

[Stew_10]

I've just spent all day with Jamstix, printed the manual and read it several times (and highlighted chunks too...!), and have finally managed to get to grips with this very neat piece of software. I finally found a quick, effective workflow with JS, and I'm really happy with the results.

[Happy rambling follows - scroll to the bottom for actual question]

It's only taken me about 3 years to get to this point (I've hit a wall every single time before, and just settled for 'that's probably ok for now... I'll have a proper play with this at some point...')

I'm trying to do something with a disco/LCD Soundsystem feel, drums-wise - live sounding, but sitting with sequenced gear/beats and fairly simple & metronomic. I'd mainly used the Charlie drummer before - it seems one of the simpler, low-frills models - but found today that the Loopey one in precision mode creates a nice tight groove and can create some cool fills.

To be honest, the interface has always intimidated me as well, but I found my way round this today. I used the 'silent' pattern, and created a basic groove with the JS Classic elements, initially linking song parts and then unlinking and tweaking them in turn: creating and re-comping fills. then locking the bar, and moving on to the next one. (I read once that Prince worked in a similar way with his drum machines: get the groove locked, then go through and overwrite fills & accents).

Oh, and the probability sliders are fabulous to throw in the odd 16th-note kick drum or snare accent amid a 16-bar section too!

Anyhow, I wound up with a tight but expressive drum track that drummers I've worked with in the past would be happy with, so I'm happy with that.

Which reminds me why I'm posting (apart from celebrating SUCCESS!) - I couldn't find the 2-bar groove creator element today. This may be due to me having a head cold and having listened to the same damn song all day long, but there's a message to say that JS1 elements are only there to allow archived projects now.

Is the 2-bar groove tool gone now, or have I just misplaced it?

Cheers

Stew

[Ralph [RZ]]

Glad you've found a way to make Jamstix work for you!

I'm not sure what 2-bar groove tool you are referring to but there are several 2-bar styles, such as Rock -> Rock 2 Bar and Breakbeat -> Breakbeat 2Bar and you can also create your own by adding brain elements, right-clicking on the header and setting the bar frequency.
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Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com

[Stew_10]

[Azimuth]

Hi Stewart,

The function will be the same, creating hihat hits on the 16ths, but the feel, timing and composition will be different with different styles. Hope that makes sense.