Finally, a topic I know really well!!
steevio wrote:dont know if its possible, but try emulating the A155 doepfer sequencer and A154 controller which is paired with it.
I have a Z8000 and the above, and the above is in another realm altogether. better still control the A155/154 with the Z8000. i run two A155/154s from my Z8000, pure bliss.
the Z8000 isnt really a trigger sequencer, its a CV sequencer, the combination of these things gives you infinite possibilities.
yeah piano rolls are hard work compaired to analogue style sequencing.
This is basically exactly what I have made.
My Step Controller is driven by midi notes in clips. This feeds into a Counter object that outputs 8 note values between C to G. The counters direction and max/min values can be controlled by knobs that are midi mappable.
The output note values are fed into a midi rack that splits those notes C to G to separate chains with ableton Transpose plugins to control the output note. Midi mapping the chain monitor on/off acts as the gates.
Keeping these in separate racks with macros mapped to Start, End, Direction, and reset of the step controller and the CV's mapped to the macro's of the CV rack. This way you can use the same bank of knobs to control different parameters, and also cuts down on perma-mapping certain cc's and keeps things much more tidy. The only ballache is having to perma-map the gates to something.
I use my BCR2000 with the top row of led buttons showing the metronome. On a separate midi track set the input from your stepseq track POST Step Controller then output this to BCR - channel whatever. Then on the BCR set the top row of LED buttons to be C-G. Now when your sequencer controller plays C (step 1) the first button will light, but if you change the Start point to 2, then that led won't light. So it follows the behaviour of the Step controller.
Then I assign the row below the metronome to the monitor on/offs on the CV rack. So this switches the gates on and off and corresponds to the metronome. At the moment I assign the bottom row of the BCR's knobs to the CV pitches as it keeps it easy to follow. But with this setup, I never need look at the screen.
I would prefer to be able to map the Gates, Metronome and CV's to macro's via remote scripts. This way I could have page 1 of the BCR mapped to ALL step seq's and switch through them using either the bottom right 4 buttons or keys on the keyboard and the BCR LED's and values would change state as I switch between different racks. But unfortunately the custom remote scripts I am capable of only allow for 8 macro's to be output to said controller.
I know there is a way(s) to do this, within Max aswell. But there comes a point after doing this for a year you just wanna make some bloody music!
These racks and devices have pretty much 0 CPU load, so you can have as many channels as you like. The ballache is midi assigning them all.. (anyway, have to stop being bitter about that!)
Now after the CV rack and before a synth/whatever you can insert Ableton's Scaler plugin or better still a rack of them with different scales. Then assign macro 1 to step through the scales, I call this (imaginatively) the Scaler rack. I copy this same rack to every steqseq track and assign macro 1 to change scales to the same midi knob, so they all change together.
Now I can have multiple channels of step sequencing and the scaler keeps everything in key. It doesn't matter what position you have the CV knobs, its always in key.
This is what I have been using for my improvised liveset for the past year. I can't take credit for the method, its almost completely inspired by what Steevio showed me on his modular a year ago. Although all the engineering is my own. I never really understood the power of step sequencing until I met him.
It transformed production for me. I owe a lot to him.