I’ve recently been delving deeper into using my Pyramid for live performing. I have tracks set up with different quantize and midi delay settings, and then I record into them making midi loops.
It is a lot of fun, and no other sequencer can compare, particularly because I use the hard record mode which makes live performing that much better.
If I get a bad result, 2nd + Delete will delete that track so I can give it another go. But what I also want to do, is clear an entire sequence so I can start from scratch. Note I plan to do this stuff live, so I know I can select each track and delete them individually, but surely there must be a way to wipe the entire sequence, and not lose the track midi effects/quantize settings?
I do all this in Live Mode, but perhaps some other mode would be bette suited to this?
nope, that selecting each track/delete is the only way I know…
the only other thing you could do is save a ‘blank project’ and reload that…
thats kind of what I do (use projects as ‘templates’) , but not sure if thats going to work live…
I guess it could do, as these days, you can keep the clock running if thats important to you.
of course, this doesn’t work if you want only clear one sequence.
other than that, you’ll have to contact Squarp to see if they could implement a new feature.
It’s unfortunate, as the Pyramid seems to cater to a wide variety of uses. I always feel like when I wonder about a feature - I find out it’s in there!
My first instinct was to switch to a new sequence, but of course, the same tracks from sequence 1 play through. Possibly I need to pre-set mutes on Seq 2, but this now becomes a bit of work to do live when I want a one button to delete all notes on all tracks.
not if you have switched pattern on each track on the next sequence?
generally, I think with these kind of things to play live - you often have to ‘prep the session’.
i.e. set things up, as you want them when you are going to perform.
this is true for improv too, but at that points its more creating a ‘template’ from which you work.
I think they still consider feature requests (and of course resolving issues)
rather, its major changes that are less likely, due to reaching limits of available resources on hardware,
at least thats how Ive understand what they have said.
again, no harm, in reaching out to them and seeing what they say.
I will look into patterns per sequence. I’ve only understood the tracks per sequence layout.
I may have to make some empty patterns I suppose.
As for the feature requests, the form they provide has a drop down, and ‘pyramid’ is greyed out with a message along the lines of ‘closed for requests’. So I selected another product and sent my request anyway. I assume it will get filtered away to nowhere.
I just looked into using Patterns. The manual is terrible at explaining how they work. I figured by setting “auto pattern with new sequence” I would just have P1’s for all tracks in Seq 1 and P2’s for all tracks in Seq 2. But it keeps asking me to set these up, I keep doing that, but it doesn’t change them when I change sequences. So far the is the most complex and poorly documented feature.
I just want to enable an MPC mode where each sequence starts with blank tracks, or tracks with stuff I pre-programmed into them. It looked like there was such a setting, but getting it to work is way too frustrating.
although that was my first instinct with Patterns in Pyramid as well, my experience is that it’s ultimately better that they don’t work that way. it can be disorienting at first trying to keep the Sequence > Track > Pattern flow straight it your mind but to get the most out of Patterns, I start at that level and work my way up to a Sequence. (once you have the universe of Patterns for a given Track – and eventually all Patterns for each active Track – created, building Sequences from these “bricks” is powerful)
that said, for live improvisational use of the kind you’re describing, it’s probably going to be unwieldy to create Sequences on the fly. or at least the permutations of Patterns per Track per Sequence makes for an inelegant way of structuring a coherent song in real time
Hapax seems like Squarp understands the challenges of Pyramid’s workflow in the live setting and tries to address the, FWIW
I think my plan (when I dig back into it tomorrow) is to have everything empty, but each Sequence has its own empty patterns. So live, I record into tracks/patterns and when I want to move on, just go to the next sequence, which should be the next (empty) pattern.
So no creating sequences on the fly, just progressing through from 1 - 32 in a live context. Hell I may even want to back up and queue a previous Seq to get that performance. I like this idea better than my initial ‘delete all tracks’ where every song starts with a clean slate.
But tomorrow will tell me if this is easy to do or not !
by definition, I’m not sure Sequences can contain “empty” patterns – AFAIK, there would have to be MIDI info in a given pattern for it to exist (and then be active in a given Sequence). but i’ve only ever sequenced written Patterns so . . .
Yes, my plan was dummy note data. I’m mostly (at this point) recording midi loops of a Nord Drum, so it’s only 6 notes. I can easily find a C0 to throw in there without affecting my improvs. But I played around with patterns this morning, and it still eludes me. I have some set up, I have some assigned to sequences, but nothing works in an intuitive manner. I will check youtube for any tutorials on this specific topic as the manual leaves me lacking.
I think the main thing to keep in mind is there’s a kind of heirarchy between Patterns, Tracks, Sequences
Patterns = a building block (32 per Track, so these are all the Intro, Verse, Chorus, Fills for a given instrument, if you think of a Sequence as a complete “song”)
Tracks = in Sequence mode, Tracks become more like mixing channels for the sub-Patterns within a given Track. So if you want Sequence 01 to be an Intro, say, maybe you only need Pattern 1 on Track 1, if that corresponds to a synth playing a pad chord progression.
Sequence 02 might then build on that, bringing in a basic drum beat on Track 10, which could be Pattern 1 on that Track.
Sequence 03 can add a bassline from a different synth on Track 3, also Pattern 1 for that Track, or trigger a loop from sampler on Track 4 (still Pattern 1 on that Track).
So by Sequence 04, you’ve got 3 or 4 Tracks going now, but all theoretically still only with Pattern 1 actively playing for each Track
But depending how many Patterns you create on a given Track, Sequencing can obviously get more complicated pretty quickly. One thing it took me a minute to realize though is Sequence mode is not necessarily as linear as you might first think. So even though you’re limited to 32 Sequences total, once you have a given Sequence locked as to the Track/Pattern(s) it contains, you can copy and move it up and down the master chain as needed.
So, your explanation makes me think I have this wrong, but let me try to explain how I ‘think’ it works.
Each Sequences is a set of 64 tracks in 8 banks.
Each Track has the midi settings for an external instrument, midi effects etc.
Each Track can have 8 patterns, which are variations of midi data on that track, which all share the same output settings, midi effects, etc.
So if I set the global setting “Auto pattern with new Sequence”, then I change from Sequence 1 to 2, my track 1 is now using pattern 2 instead of pattern 1.
a tracks store things like length, t/s, midi ch output , fx etc AND has a set of patterns
patterns are ‘event data’ , so notes+automation (not any track settings!)
a sequence is mute state and pattern to use for each track. (again no other settings)
its been a while since I used auto-pattern.
iirc, indeed it means any new pattern created will use the sequence number… so kind of a shortcut/default - but it doesn’t prevent you from later choosing a different pattern for a sequence.
(its not like ableton scenes, where selecting Seq 3, will alway play pattern 3)
but best way to work it out is to play with it, and find a way the suits what you are trying to do.
(*) note: you need to turn patterns on per track… they are off by default.
once done of course, you can save this in a template , and save track settings so you don’t have to do again.
oh, I didn’t know that … thanks for letting me know.
I have to say the physical button layout of the Hapax shows you the patterns, which does appear much like the Ableton style layout. I find that very appealing for live use, because I improvise over top of prepared sequences, and lots of ‘stuff’ gets added on the fly. However I’m not sure I need all the features of the Hapax, for instance, in my case 1 Seq is easily one song, so I don’t need two projects loaded at once, but damn I wish my other gear had that option!
i didn’t have my Pyramid long enough to take it out live before Hapax was announced but i had it long enough to figure out that dual-project architecture was essential for me in a gig situation (but i don’t really improvise much live). between the 64 total MIDI tracks, 32 Patterns for each of those Tracks and 32 total Sequences in some combination of all of the above, Pyramid gets a live performer a long way toward not needing to switch between Projects from the SD card. but Hapax overall seems more geared to streamlining a lot of the workflow that was layered in over the lifespan of Pyramid’s development