View Single Post
Old 01-29-2013, 03:42 PM   #15
dea-man
Human being with feelings
 
dea-man's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 6,290
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by kindafishy View Post
Sure thing dea-man. I was forced by my simple midiot mind to find something that works for me.

Before even loading up Jamstix, I get a basic scratch guitar done against a click. Once that's done (being done that part is a very, very strict rule for my workflow so I don't get distracted - I can cut and paste and move to play with the arrangement and structure further without restriction later, but this is my starting point), I throw Jamstix up on a new track, and pick the kit I want to use for the song. If I don't know the kit I want, I'll just use the built in sounds to build out the basic structure.

Here's where I'll start using the editor on the Jamstix song tab.

First things first, I know the timing of my section and the length, so I add a part to Jamstix representing the section.

I select the first measure of that section in REAPER and let REAPER loop over it a couple times while I get some ideas for some basic kick and snare patterns in my head. Stop REAPER, click the preview control in the Jamstix editor to make it play internally (it will be on the same measure as REAPER, it's always synced) and double click the editor where I want the kick in the right foot and the snare in the left hand. The Jamstix preview is editable in real time, so this is always a good time. Stop Jamstix preview, start REAPER, rinse and repeat until I've built a groove that I like (together with hats/shakers/tom hits/whatever). This generally comes together in a few minutes. Right click menu with double click defaults and 'lanes' representing the LH, RH, LF, RF, LP and RP just make so much sense to me with the grid. It's a godsend and I love it.

I will admit that the 'loop REAPER', 'stop REAPER', 'loop Jamstix', 'stop Jamstix' aspect is less than ideal, but I am used to the workflow and I find it fun. I put out a feature request to Ralph some time ago to allow us to edit in the bar editor while the host is looping so we can hear everything real time as that would be much better. He said it was hard. I said please. He said we'll see, so we'll see. Maybe I'll jump over to his forums later and ping him on the feature request. Perhaps with all the changes to bring Jamstix up to version 3.5 will leave the software in a better position to do this. Anyway...

Now that one measure is how I want it, I will copy it in the part navigator section of Jamstix (bottom left of the UI and paste it to the rest of the section). Now I go measure by measure and tweak away if I'm in that mood, or I will move onto the next section if I'm in that mood. From there it is just a matter of going over what is there, listening and refining, adding human elements as needed.

One the whole basic structure is there, it is fun to apply different drummers to what's there to see what 'they' do with the groove. There are ways to tell Jamstix to leave elements like the kick and snare alone, but I can't recall how to do that just now. It's in the manual somewhere...

That's it. Simple and fun.
Thank you Kindafishy, I appreciate you taking the time. I will sit and take some time to digest your methods.

Be back at you guys.
__________________
"F" off.
dea-man is offline   Reply With Quote