Curious how many of you fade in and fade out tracks in sequence mode.
Seems like a useful future pyramid effect would be a fade in or fade out tool.
Fade in
Length of fade in beats
Something simple like this. Curious how people do this now outside of drawing a fade in or fade out? Thank you!
S
Iāve given it consideration but I think I am still in conceptualization modeā¦ I think it would be possible to fade instruments in or out via velocity through a pyramid plugin (maybe). Most of me however believes this is in the domain of ādifferent set of tools to solve an entirely different problem.ā Itās entirely possible that I could send a CC out to control a volume fader but it makes me feel like I would be overlooking something.
to me the issue is a bit of a non starterā¦ Most likely the volume will eventually be controlled by whatever analogue solution I have access to at the timeā¦ Otherwiseā¦ What I use for the tracks that I have available to me now is a Traktor F1ā¦ Itās got 4 upfaders soā¦ thatās what I use for my volumeā¦
Essentiallyā¦ the pyramid isnāt really a device which thinks in terms of instrument volumesā¦ itās entirely possible to make it ādo the thingā of courseā¦ but there are plenty of other things which in the most simple way do what you are trying to doā¦
To simply answer your question thoughā¦ I map it to whatever I have that looks physically similar to the virtual control I am trying to map and then just record whatever automation I made with those controls.
im with @Ezmyrelda on thisā¦
fades are really in the audio realm rather than midi, since its highly dependent on the source source/synth if/how this would work.
i guess, you could use CC8 (volume) if your synths support it, and put this on a track with a one shot, to fade in, or on a long loop if you need fade out.
but the issue is still that CCs are 127 steps (7bit) and you can clearly hear that stepping, unless your synth happens to support a slew on that cc - another reason this belongs in the audio realm, where the fade can be nice a smooth.
is cc8 better than velocity?, that depends if you want held notes/fx to fadeā¦and again functionality of the sound source/patch etc.
another small issueā¦
fade in is āeasy enoughā, but fade-out could only happy IF the sequencer knows it has time to apply the fade - given the sequencer allows you to immediately switch sequences, this implies it can only work if it extends and quantizes the change to give itself the time to fade out.
the other side of this that may be problematic, is perhaps this would be better as a crossfade, and i can see this being an issue if you are using the same synth - and also the pyramid conceptually stops one sequence then starts the other, so this cc would be kind of outside that concept (and therefore probably tricky to implement)
that said, i like the idea of having a cc that could envelope the sequence.
if you think you cannot do with the current automation, you can send a feature request to squarp.
or at least rather in linear sequencing domain than in pattern-based.
p.s. for fading via MIDI i prefer CC #11 (expression) to CC #7 (volume) where supported ā itās hardly possible to mess overall instrument balance this way. of course, gear with CC #11 available in mod matrix makes the choice harderā¦
Thanks for the comments. Thereās lots of wonderful things you could do with a bar driven fade especially with velocity curves. I guess some of this could be done with the LFO which I havenāt spent much time checking out yet. I guess more what I was thinking is a single ramp with a defined time and curve that could be applied to all sorts of sequence ideas. Thus, for my own music fades are not at all just stuck to the audio realm. Maybe a better term for it would be single cycle ramp. Thanks,
How do you envision this to differ from Trig Run Mode?
I think original Pyramid master @o_0 did a post (or maybe even an astro-turfed video) about how he manages track fades waaaaaay back when. It was super cool and I seem to remember it involved pre-faded patterns. Like pattern 1 = 1 bar fade in , pattern 2 bar fade in etcā¦And the equivalents for fade outsā¦But I cant find the post or the video.
That way you still have a fair amount of flexibility when it comes to feeling your way through an arrangement or jamā¦if thatās what youāre after.
Maybe he can enlighten us if he is still lurking?
I think Iāve been handling fades at the audio level, mainly because I usually take a fairly performance-centric approach, and I usually donāt know exactly when Iām transitioning from one place to another.
However, from a programming perspective, because the Pyramid allows you to āarmā a sequence, at this point it knows that youāre about to transition from Seq-X to Seq-Y and that could trigger a different behavior than when you execute an immediate transition.
Personally my Sequence mode is always set to my chord progression length ( more often than not 8 bars ) so I can queue the next sequence, and immediately flip back to immediately mute or un-mute tracks on the way to built up or teardown to that progression.
So you could have a āfade-outā or āfade-inā Midi-CC pattern ( which could be a totally different track ) that you could set up as a ramp midi lfo on the volume or expression cc, and set to 1 bar periodicity and a trigger once run mode. then you can just hit that track button.
Most people end up with way more tracks than they use on a given song, so you could even imagine dedicated an entire track page ( Iād use the last one ) and have the top buttons for 8 fade-up, and the bottom rows for 8 fade-downs.