How do you use NerdSeq LIVE ?

[chapelier fou]

My first motivation when buying the Nerdseq was to play full songs. I'm still learning so it's way too early but I was wondering if any of you perform live with it, and if so, what's your approach ? 

The first question (feature request) is how to sequence song parts. While I appreciate the concept of "islands", I would feel much more comfortable with a way to trigger patterns and lines of patterns like in Ableton Live's Session View : START to play a pattern. SHIFT + START to trigger the whole line (meaning it will stop the playing patterns if the slot on the line is empty). 

Am I overlooking something ? What's the advantage of Islands VS Ableton Session ? Would an "Ableton Live Session Mode" (sorry to call it like this) be possible ?

[Fsuchs]

My first motivation when buying the Nerdseq was to play full songs. I'm still learning so it's way too early but I was wondering if any of you perform live with it, and if so, what's your approach ? 

The first question (feature request) is how to sequence song parts. While I appreciate the concept of "islands", I would feel much more comfortable with a way to trigger patterns and lines of patterns like in Ableton Live's Session View : START to play a pattern. SHIFT + START to trigger the whole line (meaning it will stop the playing patterns if the slot on the line is empty). 

Am I overlooking something ? What's the advantage of Islands VS Ableton Session ? Would an "Ableton Live Session Mode" (sorry to call it like this) be possible ?

mmmh .. creating a blank pattern (like pattern 00) that you can use to to fill the the empty slots?

[XORadmin]

I actually don't know what Ableton session does?
But as far as i read your topic i think you can do already what you want to do with the NerdSEQ. And yes, if you want a row to start (using SHIFT+START) and want some tracks not to play, then a 'dummy' pattern makes sense which is either empty (then the track will still run but no sequences in there) or if you really want to stop the track then add a stop track now command on the first step of that 'dummy' pattern.

Some people make rows (and/or chained rows) and start them all together using shift+start. Some others just make a long song and start it.
And others like me make many patterns some chained and some not and start/stop whatever is needed.

[chapelier fou]

Would it be possible then to have a "special" pattern that could be recognizable ? Like ** or so ? Creating an empty pattern is ok, but I'd love an easy and quick way to identify it. ("00" is good for the eyes, but if you used it already, you're screwed).

Also, I think that my main problem with the "island concept" is that when you trigger a row, if no pattern present, it will reach the closest pattern ON TOP of it. I find it counterintuitive since you create patterns from top to bottom. And when you reach an island (supposed to loop), it plays it from what is supposed to be the last pattern of the loop.

[XORadmin]

I actually don't know what Ableton session does?
But as far as i read your topic i think you can do already what you want to do with the NerdSEQ. And yes, if you want a row to start (using SHIFT+START) and want some tracks not to play, then a 'dummy' pattern makes sense which is either empty (then the track will still run but no sequences in there) or if you really want to stop the track then add a stop track now command on the first step of that 'dummy' pattern.

Some people make rows (and/or chained rows) and start them all together using shift+start. Some others just make a long song and start it.
And others like me make many patterns some chained and some not and start/stop whatever is needed.

[chapelier fou]

Thomas, you just pasted your previous message. You're right, the START and SHIFT+START are quite close to the Ableton workflow.

I will try if I can accommodate the workflow. Maybe saving a project full of 00 patterns as a starting point and see where it leads me.

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So I made a Pattern 00 with just SPFX 002. It seems to work, except that, the very first time, it sends out a burst of triggers.

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Well, this was just a bad idea because then everything is seen as an island.... Thus the trigger burst i guess.

Manually adding an empty pattern just to stop the previous feels really tedious to me.

No love for the "Ableton Live Session" ?

it would be :

- START would play a pattern. START again would either stop it or start it from the beginning after the Live Quant Period (behavior could be set in the SETUP).
- SHIFT+START would play a whole row. If no pattern in track, it stops the currently playing one. There would be a special Pattern, let's call it **, this one would do nothing but let the playing pattern playing (same as "remove stop button" in Ableton Live).

Nothing such as "seek the closest upper pattern".

I think it would be killer.

And then, why not allow us to use a Launchpad or any Midi (or Monome ?) controller ?

[XORadmin]

Thomas, you just pasted your previous message. You're right, the START and SHIFT+START are quite close to the Ableton workflow.

I will try if I can accommodate the workflow. Maybe saving a project full of 00 patterns as a starting point and see where it leads me.

---

So I made a Pattern 00 with just SPFX 002. It seems to work, except that, the very first time, it sends out a burst of triggers.

---

---

Well, this was just a bad idea because then everything is seen as an island.... Thus the trigger burst i guess.

Manually adding an empty pattern just to stop the previous feels really tedious to me.

No love for the "Ableton Live Session" ?

it would be :

- START would play a pattern. START again would either stop it or start it from the beginning after the Live Quant Period (behavior could be set in the SETUP).
- SHIFT+START would play a whole row. If no pattern in track, it stops the currently playing one. There would be a special Pattern, let's call it **, this one would do nothing but let the playing pattern playing (same as "remove stop button" in Ableton Live).

Nothing such as "seek the closest upper pattern".

I think it would be killer.

And then, why not allow us to use a Launchpad or any Midi (or Monome ?) controller ?

Oh sorry, didn't mean to repeat my post.

Currently i am not planning to change the pattern selection behaviour. The implementation like this is allright and most people are also used to it.( i mean snapping to the next pattern in paticular)  Though i plan some general pattern selection enhancements for that but not at the moment. A ** pattern to stop it could maybe be a plan, i will think about it. But in general, the main thing is that you are very flexible to choose whatever pattern to play. SHIFT+START was always only an option for easy triggering a row. I for example prefer free pattern choose when i am playing live. Different combinations make it interresting. However, there will be solutions for it.

The only reason to not allowing a launchpad or midi controller is just that i don't have time for this currently and it is not on top of my list. It is already on my list though!

[chapelier fou]

Thanks for the answer.

My may concern is to not focus too much on the sequencer during a live performance. It needs the attention of your eyes + both hands to select and trigger patterns. It's way too much for me because I prefer to focus on playing keyboard, violin and tweak sounds rather than just trigger stuff.
I think I would be happy with either something like Live (Stop buttons + do not trigger the upper pattern) or a "Song" mode...
Oh, and then, grid control would be awesome !!

[XORadmin]

Yes i understand.
What would be a song mode in your eyes? You can simply make songs by extensively chaining patterns. And start/stop the song wherever you want to...

Also i don't know what stop buttons are.
Sorry, the last time i used Ableton was when it was released in version 1.0 or so. And i am sure it doesn't have anything to do with the current version anymore except for the name ;-)

[chapelier fou]

Well,

Just chaining patterns to organize them as a song is nice, but I really like to group them as an Island, so I can have small sections looping. (To go on with the comparison with live : a bit like the Follow Actions, section 13.6 in Live's Manual).

The concept of the Live Session is very simple :

It's basically a matrix of patterns, called "clips".
Tracks are columns.
Lines are called "Scenes".
Only one clip can play in a track. Clips are located on clip slots at their X-Y coordinates. For instance, the top left clip is at Track 0, Scene 0. The one below is at Track 0, Scene 1, etc...
A clip slot can be empty. In this case it is replaced by a "stop button" (that can also be removed). If this empty clip slot is being triggered, it will stop any clip playing in the track, unless the stop button has been removed, in which case the playing clip will continue playing.
You can trigger clips individually, but also a whole scene (the whole line).
Tracks also have a dedicated stop button that stops this track's playing clip.

So to make the comparison :

Lines of patterns in NerdSeq are close to "Scenes" in Live.
Islands in Nerdseq are close to the concept of "Follow Actions".
There is no "stopping pattern" in Nerdseq where in Live you have "stop buttons" by default.

I've been using Ableton Live for 13 years and I must say that their "Session View" concept is super smart.
Hope you'll have the time to take a look !