Cycling 74 » Topic: Looping with metronome.

Looping with metronome.

needtoloop — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:38:37 +0000

Hey what’s up. I’m brand new to Max, but have slowly figured out the basics. What I’m trying to do is essentially create a sampler, based around a MIDI keyboard.
My idea is to have various samples I can trigger or mute/unmute via a midi keyboard. Basically want to build up to a live performance tool, but starting small to get to grips with it.

I’ve researched looping via a metronome and have one of my loops playing. Currently via open>sfplay. Then metro controlling the toggle. From what I’ve looked at this probably isn’t the best way to do it but I can’t figure out what is. It’s looping it but I can’t control how often it loops back round to make it in time with transport tempo. From what I have gathered I possibly need to use the groove function?!

So my two main aims are:

1.
My drums/bass/rhythm sections I’d like to just have a continuous loop all triggered by one metronome. So every 4 beats, it triggers the loop on all samples again. I’d then like to control sound on/off each sample via a single midi key for each audio sample. So click once on and leaves it looping, click again and it leaves it muted until the next click. This is essentially to give me a section that is always in time regardless of if I hit the key a bit late or early.

2.
Have shorter samples or single notes that I can trigger to just play once as opposed to loop. I already pretty much have this down as it’s a simple Open+toggle > SFplay. All I need to know is how to route a midi keyboard key to control the toggle (if this is the best way to do it?).

Any help in pointing me in the right direction would be much appreciated.

Re: Looping with metronome.

Sym — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:58:15 +0000

For sampling I would try to check out the polybuffer and groove object. The Polybuffer for sample storage and the groove for the playback. You can load a whole folder in the buffer and use one groove object that can refer to the different audiofiles inside the polybuffer with set messages that could be triggered with your different pitch inputs from the midi keyboard.

Check out the helpfile, I’m pretty sure in the groove or polybuffer helpview there’s a tab about sampling, that should include mostly all you need.

Re: Looping with metronome.

needtoloop — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 19:48:39 +0000

Cheers, checking them out now. I have midi controlling my samples now. Struggling with the if commands though. Basically need to tell it if the note = (note of that key) then send if not then don’t if that makes sense?

Re: Looping with metronome.

Gregory Taylor — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 20:27:59 +0000

Have you taken a look at the 5 MIDI tutorials that come with Max? Based on what I’m seeing here, it looks like a gander at the first three would be right about what you’re looking for in terms of getting you started.

Re: Looping with metronome.

needtoloop — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 21:43:13 +0000

The penny has dropped! My metro is creating ticks, going to bang, which is toggling the toggle switch. So toggle on, and off! What I need to do is figure out how to replace the toggle between 0 + 1 to just toggle 1…

Re: Looping with metronome.

Abstractionisms — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 00:50:54 +0000

I wouldn’t use toggle to trigger the loops, I would do something more like this:

– Pasted Max Patch, click to expand. –

As for bringing tracks in and out of play, someone recently asked a similar question:

http://cycling74.com/forums/topic.php?id=44390

There are a lot of tutorials on youtube that will help with you sequencing and looping in MAX/MSP, I recommend you check them out.