What does VCI-400 EGE "slicer mode" actually do?
What does VCI-400 EGE "slicer mode" actually do? Posted on: 05.03.2012 by Marquetta Gniewek The youtube video could hardly be considered a demonstration of what this feature actually is... It's billed as a top feature - I'd like to know why I should consider paying an extra $300 for it.Other than the mapping, the information that is available really doesn't explain why I should want this controller... and the mapping isn't a good enough reason. Clue me in! | |
| Danae Dumler 09.03.2012 |
Originally Posted by Otacon
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| Chasidy Heckenbach 09.03.2012 |
Originally Posted by FreebirdRising
So what exactly is the firmware/midimasher changing in the chain that makes this work? Why is it a hardware issue and not a limitation of traktor issue?
midimasher sites between traktor and your controller. it uses virtual midi ports for communication with traktor and the actual midi ports of your controller(s) to communicate with them. there's no direct communication at all between traktor and my controllers in my setup - tho midimasher can be set to just send certain data on unmodified if needed. you can connect as many apps to midimasher at the same time as u need (traktor, ableton, sooperlooper, other vsynths etc) and as many controllers as needed and mm can handle all the processing/routing between them all. if u want to see the actual additional logic needed to implement the slicer have a look here http://midimasher.djism.com/lua/lib/traktor.lua and search for "function traktor.slicer_create". there's really only two blocks of logic, one to animate the pads leds using midi feedback from the beatphase monitor and another to handle what messages to send out when u press a pad. right at the top of that file is "beatjumps used by the slicer" that defines what beatjumps we need to send out to get to where we want to be, which as u can see if quite a pain, esp if we ever needed to jump 7.5 beats Code:
["jump7.5"] = { "beatjump_+4_", "beatjump_+2_", "beatjump_+1_", "beatjump_+/2_" }
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| Chasidy Heckenbach 08.03.2012 |
Originally Posted by djproben
i presume their firmware basically implements the solution i came up with finally which combines ideas from my original implementation and ideas from the blog post from a while back entitled "string theory for dj's" basically when you enable the slicer using midimasher it: * drops the active cue at the point you enable it * animates 8 pads, one per beat using the beatphase monitor * when you press any pad jumps back to the active cue point and then issues one or more beatjumps to get to the right point (if not the 1st beat) * in "loop" mode my slicer jumps back to the start of the slice when it gets to the end and with loop mode turned off it keeps moving forward re-dropping the active cue point at the new starting point of the sliced beats. * when u keep a pad held down it loops round that beat impossible to implement without middleware software like my midimasher or bomes or with firmware. having that functionality direct in the controllers firmware would be very cool... tho i connect all my controllers to traktor and ableton via midimasher these days anyway. the launchpad config in the current release has two twitch style areas with 4 independant banks each, one of which is the slicer, along with 4 overall pages/layers - all with led recall. i'll be finishing that mapping and creating instructions/screenshots etc when i get my grubby mits on traktor 2.5 so i can map all the new sample decks goodness... one pain with slicer-ing in traktor is that to get to say the 5th beat of the sliced beats you need to send to traktor the "jump to active cue" followed by "beatjump+4" followed by "beatjump+1" and unless you insert delays in then traktor assumes you don't know what u want and ignores one or more of them. versions of my slicer from the last couple or so releases of midimasher are also much better than older ones as now those delays don't hold up other midi messages being processed - since now you can queue up midi messages to be send a specific number of milliseconds in the future. |
| Erich Vallabhaneni 08.03.2012 |
Originally Posted by djproben
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| Danae Dumler 07.03.2012 |
Originally Posted by FreebirdRising
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| Marquetta Gniewek 05.03.2012 | The youtube video could hardly be considered a demonstration of what this feature actually is... It's billed as a top feature - I'd like to know why I should consider paying an extra $300 for it. Other than the mapping, the information that is available really doesn't explain why I should want this controller... and the mapping isn't a good enough reason. Clue me in! |
| Danae Dumler 09.03.2012 |
Originally Posted by Otacon
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| Chasidy Heckenbach 09.03.2012 | if u mean me then i don't have a twitch... my mapping emulates the twitch style areas and slicer on a launchpad. tho that same midimasher code would also work on a real twitch with a devices file defined for what midi the twitch uses. i use my scs.3d's when i was some touch strip goodness, which then gives me a heap of them similar midi from the scs.3d. it sends out note on/off when u touch and release and sends out both relative and absolute messages when you move any strip. i may well have to have a go at mapping the traktor beatmasher to an scs.3d tho - i've not tried using it like that before |
| Flor Jagers 09.03.2012 | Might I suggest putting the Beatmasher effect on the touchstrip? The touchstrip only sends 2 midi signals, one for touch and one for movement. I mapped it like this... Touch - FX select, FX on Move - FX amount But I have it on my shift button (Stock mapping: M3=1 for shift) so you just hold shift with your finger and move around the strip with your thumb. I've been having a lot of fun with it lately |
| Chasidy Heckenbach 09.03.2012 | the beatmasher and beatslicer in traktor are probably just as good for some "slicing" needs - very different at the same time ofc... in my twitch/slicer emulation mapping i have one page of the 8 pads set for hotcues, one for slicer, one for loops and some beatjumps on the 4th one (i love having quick access to beatjumps) but was believeing of how i could somehow add the traktor beatmasher and beatslicer in there too. i guess raw beatjumps arent really "performance controls" in the same way as the others ish... so might reuse the 4th page for those and move beatjumps else where. moving stuff around a controller from a mm config is super easy... just a matter of some cut&paste |
| Flor Jagers 09.03.2012 | I really wanted the Slicer function to work in Traktor on my Twitch and I wanted it more of an auto-glitch/performance type thing that I could use on the fly instead of using as some sort of half-cocked auto beatjump. So I did my Slicer just about the same way the Deckalized mapping for the MF does it and I'm satisfied. I'm sure Serato's Twitch mapping is a lot more robust in terms of live remixing using the Slicer function, but I'm happy where I'm at lol. |
| Chasidy Heckenbach 09.03.2012 |
Originally Posted by FreebirdRising
So what exactly is the firmware/midimasher changing in the chain that makes this work? Why is it a hardware issue and not a limitation of traktor issue?
midimasher sites between traktor and your controller. it uses virtual midi ports for communication with traktor and the actual midi ports of your controller(s) to communicate with them. there's no direct communication at all between traktor and my controllers in my setup - tho midimasher can be set to just send certain data on unmodified if needed. you can connect as many apps to midimasher at the same time as u need (traktor, ableton, sooperlooper, other vsynths etc) and as many controllers as needed and mm can handle all the processing/routing between them all. if u want to see the actual additional logic needed to implement the slicer have a look here http://midimasher.djism.com/lua/lib/traktor.lua and search for "function traktor.slicer_create". there's really only two blocks of logic, one to animate the pads leds using midi feedback from the beatphase monitor and another to handle what messages to send out when u press a pad. right at the top of that file is "beatjumps used by the slicer" that defines what beatjumps we need to send out to get to where we want to be, which as u can see if quite a pain, esp if we ever needed to jump 7.5 beats Code:
["jump7.5"] = { "beatjump_+4_", "beatjump_+2_", "beatjump_+1_", "beatjump_+/2_" }
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| Marquetta Gniewek 09.03.2012 | Thanks for the reply Zestoi - I'll have to check out your solution. So what exactly is the firmware/midimasher changing in the chain that makes this work? Why is it a hardware issue and not a limitation of traktor issue? |
| Chasidy Heckenbach 08.03.2012 |
Originally Posted by djproben
i presume their firmware basically implements the solution i came up with finally which combines ideas from my original implementation and ideas from the blog post from a while back entitled "string theory for dj's" basically when you enable the slicer using midimasher it: * drops the active cue at the point you enable it * animates 8 pads, one per beat using the beatphase monitor * when you press any pad jumps back to the active cue point and then issues one or more beatjumps to get to the right point (if not the 1st beat) * in "loop" mode my slicer jumps back to the start of the slice when it gets to the end and with loop mode turned off it keeps moving forward re-dropping the active cue point at the new starting point of the sliced beats. * when u keep a pad held down it loops round that beat impossible to implement without middleware software like my midimasher or bomes or with firmware. having that functionality direct in the controllers firmware would be very cool... tho i connect all my controllers to traktor and ableton via midimasher these days anyway. the launchpad config in the current release has two twitch style areas with 4 independant banks each, one of which is the slicer, along with 4 overall pages/layers - all with led recall. i'll be finishing that mapping and creating instructions/screenshots etc when i get my grubby mits on traktor 2.5 so i can map all the new sample decks goodness... one pain with slicer-ing in traktor is that to get to say the 5th beat of the sliced beats you need to send to traktor the "jump to active cue" followed by "beatjump+4" followed by "beatjump+1" and unless you insert delays in then traktor assumes you don't know what u want and ignores one or more of them. versions of my slicer from the last couple or so releases of midimasher are also much better than older ones as now those delays don't hold up other midi messages being processed - since now you can queue up midi messages to be send a specific number of milliseconds in the future. |
| Erich Vallabhaneni 08.03.2012 |
Originally Posted by djproben
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| 08.03.2012 | I see slicer akin to a Traktor version of MLR on the monome. |
| Monroe Vandeslunt 07.03.2012 | As a twitch owner, the slicer mode is incredibly useful for certain genres. I usually mix trance, and it sounded like bad beatjumping when I used it on trance tunes. But for other genre's it was incredibly expressive, it can create some very glitchy sounds. On the twitch there are two settings quant and domain. Quant is how big the slice is, modifying the slice length can create stutter effects or allow you to isolate certain sounds within the beat. Domain defines how large the section which is to be sliced up is. This allows you to pick out slices from an 8 bar, 16 bar etc area. The default mode is to play the slice and then continue from where it is supposed to be playing. However if you play an earlier slice while it is about to proceed to the next area, the area loops instead of continueing... Pressing the slicer mode button twice put it into looping slicer mode, where the area is continously looped and sliced. This is where setting your domain is important as it controls the size of the loop. Holding a slice button down causes it to loop the slice. I don't know how much of the EGE firmware replicates this functionality but after having used slicer mode it is actually very complicated and not as simple as just beatjumping around. |
| Danae Dumler 07.03.2012 |
Originally Posted by FreebirdRising
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| Marquetta Gniewek 06.03.2012 | So it's like idiot-mode beatjump? I don't understand why you would need special firmware for that? Couldn't you just map it to do something like drop a cue point(or maybe just a loop?) and set a modifier, then, while the modifier is set, all the buttons would go to the cue point and then immediately jump by the amount assigned to the button? While the modifier is active the slice button would then reset the mod to zero so that any of the buttons could be used to re-engage... I still don't see what's so $300 bucks about that. |
| Danae Dumler 06.03.2012 | my guess is it's a lot like the serato itch slicer thats available on the novation twitch. It cuts up the next 8 (or 16 or 32) bars and gives you cue points and patterns that you can flail away on with 8 buttons, and then when you're done drop back seamlessly into the mix, effortlessly remixing the track like a ninja with a head full of acid. |
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