Infinitely held MIDI note without re-trigger?

Tom Auger
Tom Auger Member Posts: 67 Helper
in Maschine

For ambient tracks we often have long evolving instruments that need to be held a very long time (more than the Maschine pattern length limit) and without re-triggering.

How can this be accomplished? I was hoping that by dragging the note length beyond the pattern limit you would skip the note-off, but (at least with Straylight) I'm hearing the sample re-trigger at the start of every loop.

Answers

  • LostInFoundation
    LostInFoundation Member Posts: 5,407 Expert

    How long do you need your compositions to be?

    Maschine can have patterns of up to 256 bars.

    One workaround (although I admit not perfect, since it will bring some other disadvantages) would be to set up the tempo of the song very low.

    Let’s say you work on a composition that is at 120 BPM. If you instead set up the tempo at 1/4 of it (therefore 30 BPM), your composition will last 30m 08s before it starts looping back. Or if you set it up at 10 BPM, you can even have a 1h 42m 24s.

    Do you need more time than this?

    Of course as said this will have other disadvantages (practically unusable metronome, eventual audio can’t be so easily time stretched,…).

    Another workaround (alas also not perfect) could be to sample those instruments (maybe with Maschine Auto Sampler) putting very high values and then setting up a long loop inside of it, so that when it starts looping the “evolving” will still be there.
    Not so convinced about this last “solution” (even because it would require a looooooooong time sampling the instruments and a lot of space), so take this with a grain of salt.


    Best solution imo would be to use Maschine as a plugin inside of a DAW (there are also free ones) that can have unlimited time for the compositions and load those instruments in tracks of the DAW instead of in Maschine. Practically using different tools for different tasks. Use Maschine and the DAW for what they are strong at, instead of working around their limitations

  • 6xes
    6xes Member Posts: 852 Pro

    would putting the sample on its own group work?

    then make the length of the pattern to some ridiculous length

    whether the tail would continue after a new pattern triggers im not entirely sure on?

    using a Clip would normally work if in arrangement mode(which you would be familiar with?)

    patterns mode makes this little different

  • LostInFoundation
    LostInFoundation Member Posts: 5,407 Expert

    I think his problem is that “ridiculous length” is not enough.

    As said, Maschine can have patterns of maximum 256 bars. As an example, a song with a pattern of 256 bars at 120 bpm lasts 8m 32s. It’s not so unusual for ambient tracks to be longer than 8m 32s… maybe with those “evolving instruments” playing from beginning to end (and he wants to avoid the patterns to loop and go back to start, which could cause the retriggering to be noticeable because of difference of sounds and/or pops, clicks and what else)

  • ozon
    ozon Member Posts: 2,028 Expert

    Not at my M+ right now, but… maybe you could

    • change the Time Signature and therefore the duration of a bar (from 4/4 to 4/1 would quadruple the bar duration).
    • change the Metronome to 4/8 or 4/16 to counteract tempo division by 4 (30 BPM instead of 120 BPM)
  • LostInFoundation
    LostInFoundation Member Posts: 5,407 Expert
    edited May 1

    @Tom Auger While we are here, and since it seems you are into Ambient… you could be interested in this plugin (looks interesting for Ambient effecting) which is free now until 22

    https://www.soundtoys.com/product/spaceblender/

    And maybe of interest also for the others (well….anyone could be interested… it’s free ☺️)

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