⌚ Playtime 2 ... it's coming

[helgoboss]

I'm currently working full-time on Playtime 2. If you have any questions about it at this early stage, I'm happy to answer them in this thread :)

Benjamin

[akademie]

Hi Benjamin,
it's good news indeed :)

I have two things for the starter:
1) keep 'portable' mode, please
2) Linux version

Thanks

[Pink Wool]

Whoa, that's great news! :)

[Vagelis]

Awesome news! Will this version be more like Ableton's session view where each group in playtime could be a separate track?

Would be nice to have some info about the new features :)

[helgoboss]

Hi Benjamin,
it's good news indeed :)

I have two things for the starter:
1) keep 'portable' mode, please
2) Linux version

Thanks

Okay, these are feature requests rather than questions but so what ;)

1. Portable installation will likely be possible. Can't promise though that it will end up in the first release.

2. Playtime 2 is designed to work on Linux natively.

BTW, please take everything I write about features as a plan/vision and don't pin me down on it in future. Playtime 2 is a work in progress and sometimes things don't work out 100% as planned. That said, so far I'm quite confident about the feasibility of the things that I have in mind.

[helgoboss]

Awesome news! Will this version be more like Ableton's session view where each group in playtime could be a separate track?

Would be nice to have some info about the new features :)

I'm planning to make the association between column and track more tight and useful. Not sure yet if I will still support the old mode where clips in one column can play on totally different tracks. If anyone has an opinion about that, now's a good time to say "Hey, I need that to stay because <good reason>".

Yes, I think I will post some text during the next days that will explain the big picture of Playtime 2. It's going to be radically different from Playtime 1, so it's not just a question of new features, but also one of removed features and new inner qualities.

[Vagelis]

Sounds nice :) Personally i would prefer if it was similar to ableton so we could add new tracks in playtime per column. Of course no idea if this is possible.
Also if we could edit clips separately in playtime without being added on arrange would me amazing. And saving/loading clips would be useful too, also triggering clips per column/track with different time divisions and with random order for experimentation.

Anyway looking forward for news :)

[mschnell]

Just some brain food:

As you know my main usage and also my developing goal is using Reaper as an instrument for live playing with sophisticated patch changing mechanism - see the sticky message in the "live" forum.
In that forum there have been several requests about combining a patch change mechanism with a mechanism to fire back ground audio (or Midi based) tracks.

I suppose a GUI element or a set of Control Surface buttons could be use to switch "Songs" and control as well some patch change functionality plus e.g. Playtime.

I in fact some time ago did a set of JSFXes that can do such a kind of "Song" management. A friend of mine used this with LiveConfigs for his E-Sax patches.
-Michael

[bobobo]

hi benjamin

have you spent thoughts on using lv2 (https://lv2plug.in/) ?

as REAPER can handle it (on all platforms i guess) this may come handy

greetings

[Piszpan]

May I also make some requests? :)

1. Please, make the GUI scalable, if possible.

2. Please, add a visual metronome (e.q. 4 little bright dots lighting one afer another, indicating current beat). This would be very useful when trying to launch a clip when there are only pads or strings playing (intros etc.). Reaper's audio metronome is not an option during performances.

[Regisfofo]

Hi Benjamin !

These are great news, can't wait for this release !

Will it be a free upgrade for playtime 1 owners ?

I'm planning to make the association between column and track more tight and useful. Not sure yet if I will still support the old mode where clips in one column can play on totally different tracks. If anyone has an opinion about that, now's a good time to say "Hey, I need that to stay because <good reason>".
I'd say the simpliest the better.
Pesonally I'd wish for robust, few clicking and easy learning over powerfull... Happy coding !

[KASETA]

Great news!

Keeping my fingers crossed for it to be as fast and fluid to use (or even better :D) and as tightly integrated as in Ableton Live.
That's the only reason why I'm still using Ableton from time to time - clip-based session view is such a great way to sketch the interactive music.

Any estimate on when we can expect this update to be released?

[Ampa]

This is great news! Look forward to seeing it.

[wholehalf]

2. Playtime 2 is designed to work on Linux natively.



This is a wonderful news! Are ARM builds planned as well?

[X-Raym]

We want screenshots :P

[helgoboss]

Sounds nice :) Personally i would prefer if it was similar to ableton so we could add new tracks in playtime per column. Of course no idea if this is possible.
Also if we could edit clips separately in playtime without being added on arrange would me amazing. And saving/loading clips would be useful too, also triggering clips per column/track with different time divisions and with random order for experimentation.

Anyway looking forward for news :)

Playtime 2 will not work anymore by drawing items onto the arrange view. It will play the clips in the background, but *through* the track. That means it works even when the main project is stopped.

Different time divisions? I understand the time division as a property of the project, not a clip. Can you go into detail?

Just some brain food:

As you know my main usage and also my developing goal is using Reaper as an instrument for live playing with sophisticated patch changing mechanism - see the sticky message in the "live" forum.
In that forum there have been several requests about combining a patch change mechanism with a mechanism to fire back ground audio (or Midi based) tracks.
-Michael

Don't know the details of their setup, but this will probably be possible because Playtime 2 will be deeply integrated with ReaLearn 2 (more about that later). That means, you will have first-class controller customization abilities.

hi benjamin

have you spent thoughts on using lv2 (https://lv2plug.in/) ?

as REAPER can handle it (on all platforms i guess) this may come handy

greetings

Not really. Don't know what would be the practical benefit.

May I also make some requests? :)

1. Please, make the GUI scalable, if possible.

2. Please, add a visual metronome (e.q. 4 little bright dots lighting one afer another, indicating current beat). This would be very useful when trying to launch a clip when there are only pads or strings playing (intros etc.). Reaper's audio metronome is not an option during performances.

Both planned.

Hi Benjamin !

These are great news, can't wait for this release !

Will it be a free upgrade for playtime 1 owners ?


It will not be free for Playtime 1 users, sorry. My master plan is to get more time to work on my own products, hopefully letting it afford my living one day without having to regularly resort to freelance contracts. Giving away everything for free would not be a sustainable solution, neither for me nor for the user base.

BUT: I will do my best to send an upgrade offer to all existing Playtime 1 owners once Playtime 2 is out.


I'd say the simpliest the better.
Pesonally I'd wish for robust, few clicking and easy learning over powerfull... Happy coding !

For the fancy user interface of Playtime 2, I definitely want to focus on simplicity, intuitive usage and fun rather than providing 1000 options. However, under the hood I want to make Playtime 2 versatile, namely its clip engine. More about that later.

Great news!

Keeping my fingers crossed for it to be as fast and fluid to use (or even better :D) and as tightly integrated as in Ableton Live.
That's the only reason why I'm still using Ableton from time to time - clip-based session view is such a great way to sketch the interactive music.

Any estimate on when we can expect this update to be released?

I hope to have an initial version ready around mid-year, but don't pin me down on it ;) Playtime 2 will essentially consist of two parts: A clip engine and a fancy user interface (more info about that later). I'm planning to push out the clip engine for beta testing much sooner.

This is a wonderful news! Are ARM builds planned as well?

Yes.

We want screenshots :P

Nothing to show yet, still working on the foundation (the clip engine). Once I have something, I will be happy to post something.

[Regisfofo]

It will not be free for Playtime 1 users, sorry. My master plan is to get more time to work on my own products, hopefully letting it afford my living one day without having to regularly resort to freelance contracts. Giving away everything for free would not be a sustainable solution, neither for me nor for the user base.

BUT: I will do my best to send an upgrade offer to all existing Playtime 1 owners once Playtime 2 is out.

Sounds great !
Sure it's legitimate to charge for something requiring a lot work, no problem for me! And you trying to make a living from that sounds great to my ears too, as it may imply a good support.

Another question is would there still be the "live looping" mode where tempo and loop length are set by the 2 firdt trigering ? To my knowledge There isn't another live clip launching /recording that can do that in other software and it's something I personnaly treasure !
Cheers

[Jorchime]

Hyped!
I've bought Playtime last year to do some live jamming on twitch and besides a handful of minor quirks it worked like a charm! <3
People were impressed that I am live jamming in Reaper, with everyone being used to see Ableton session view.
(There is only a short highlight clip left, if you want to checkout my setup: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1148440287 )

I totally understand that you won't offer the upgrade for free and bought Playtime 1 "as is". I'd still be happy about an update offer if possible.

Can't wait to see first results. Let me know if you are looking for beta testers.

[helgoboss]

Sounds great !
Sure it's legitimate to charge for something requiring a lot work, no problem for me! And you trying to make a living from that sounds great to my ears too, as it may imply a good support.

Another question is would there still be the "live looping" mode where tempo and loop length are set by the 2 firdt trigering ? To my knowledge There isn't another live clip launching /recording that can do that in other software and it's something I personnaly treasure !
Cheers

Ha, I personally think Playtime 1 doesn't do a particularly good job when it comes to live looping ;) One of the features that I want to give Playtime 2 right from the start is the possibility to define the desired recording loop length in bars before recording. So that you don't have to stop the recording manually.

I will probably also keep the possibility to let the length of the first recorded clip dictate the tempo ... although I wouldn't use that so much to be honest. Isn't it a bit too fiddly to get the length of the first loop correct? I always felt it's too easy to get it wrong by being milliseconds too late when starting/stopping the recording. I find it less stressful to tap in the tempo, look at a visual metronome and then simply record one measure of material.

Hyped!
I've bought Playtime last year to do some live jamming on twitch and besides a handful of minor quirks it worked like a charm! <3
People were impressed that I am live jamming in Reaper, with everyone being used to see Ableton session view.
(There is only a short highlight clip left, if you want to checkout my setup: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1148440287 )

I totally understand that you won't offer the upgrade for free and bought Playtime 1 "as is". I'd still be happy about an update offer if possible.

Can't wait to see first results. Let me know if you are looking for beta testers.

I'm glad there's still some love for Playtime 1. I hope not to disappoint existing users with Playtime 2, because it will be really much different ... a breaking change, not backward-compatible. But overall I think it's worth it because Playtime 1 has some inherent limitations, in many aspects (user interface, relying on high-level REAPER features too much, too much dependence on the way REAPER copes with items, etc. etc.).

The actual user interface will still take a good amount of time before being ready for testing. But I'll look for beta testers of the clip engine soon, which will come as part of ReaLearn ... so testers will be able to test basic clip play/record capabilities with their controllers/keyboards. For anyone who wants to prepare for Playtime 2 in depth (not just the session view interface), I can recommend getting familiar with ReaLearn.

[mschnell]

Don't know the details of their setup, but this will probably be possible because Playtime 2 will be deeply integrated with ReaLearn 2 (more about that later). That means, you will have first-class controller customization abilities.
Some thoughts about combining the two aspects include using multiple project tabs. I did not do any investigation about that (as up til now I did not need backgroud tracks myself and was just trying to be helpful). I do know that it's possible to route audio between project tabs via ReaRoute but I did not look at Midi or other control messages on that behalf.

I just wanted to point out that a three fold setup might be a way to go: separate entities for song/part switching, patch switching, and background track control.

Playtime 2 will essentially consist of two parts: A clip engine and a fancy user interface (more info about that later).
Hence in a live situation the user interface is not necessarily loaded, as the clip engine will be remote controlled by the song/part switcher engine. A fancy user friendly option might be to have Playtime be the song/part switching engine, but that would require some additional functionality (I can elaborate on that when time comes, as I did do such a thing :) )

-Michael

[bobobo]

Not really. Don't know what would be the practical benefit.


no hassle with vst anymore i guess, thanks for the answer :)

[Regisfofo]

Ha, I personally think Playtime 1 doesn't do a particularly good job when it comes to live looping One of the features that I want to give Playtime 2 right from the start is the possibility to define the desired recording loop length in bars before recording. So that you don't have to stop the recording manually.

I will probably also keep the possibility to let the length of the first recorded clip dictate the tempo ... although I wouldn't use that so much to be honest. Isn't it a bit too fiddly to get the length of the first loop correct? I always felt it's too easy to get it wrong by being milliseconds too late when starting/stopping the recording. I find it less stressful to tap in the tempo, look at a visual metronome and then simply record one measure of material.

Yes, Playtime 1 live looping's implementation wasn't perfect, especially as we have to 'arm' the damn thing, but if it could be possible to have both ways one with tempo preset and one without it, it would make me happy, because I love sometimes to record music without any metronome. Yes it's hard to be precise enough for the first take, but with practice it can be good enough, and the ability to live loop midi like that seems pretty unique to me.
Of course the other way is very effective too, just a difrent feeling in the process. (Like less freedom ?).
This worflow is one of the big strengh of the super8looper imho but it can't do that with midi... Playtime could let us the liberty to edit the midi clip, quantise, modulate it afterwards...
I wonder what you think about that.

[helgoboss]

Yes, Playtime 1 live looping's implementation wasn't perfect, especially as we have to 'arm' the damn thing, but if it could be possible to have both ways one with tempo preset and one without it, it would make me happy, because I love sometimes to record music without any metronome. Yes it's hard to be precise enough for the first take, but with practice it can be good enough, and the ability to live loop midi like that seems pretty unique to me.
Of course the other way is very effective too, just a difrent feeling in the process. (Like less freedom ?).
This worflow is one of the big strengh of the super8looper imho but it can't do that with midi... Playtime could let us the liberty to edit the midi clip, quantise, modulate it afterwards...
I wonder what you think about that.

I think I will keep this feature then :) Yes, makes sense.

[Vagelis]

Different time divisions? I understand the time division as a property of the project, not a clip. Can you go into detail?


Ok sure i hope i can explain it better. I mean time division for the clip to be launched in beats eg: 1/16, 1/8, 1/4 etc and another option to set the playback order of the clip e.g: to play the next clip, previous.. etc
I found a video with the implementation in Ableton which shows everything :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoSx763s9IY

And another with launching clips in random order https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM_59yERUDA

Another cool thing would be if we could record midi and audio in clips.

[helgoboss]

Ok sure i hope i can explain it better. I mean time division for the clip to be launched in beats eg: 1/16, 1/8, 1/4 etc and another option to set the playback order of the clip e.g: to play the next clip, previous.. etc
I found a video with the implementation in Ableton which shows everything :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoSx763s9IY

And another with launching clips in random order https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM_59yERUDA

Another cool thing would be if we could record midi and audio in clips.

Ah, follow actions, why didn't you say so :D Probably the most requested feature for Playtime 1. I'm not sure if it will make it into the first release because I want to concentrate on the essentials first and make them work really well. But - as with ReaLearn - I want Playtime 2 to use REAPER's principle of "Constant Evolution", so if everything turns out well, an upgrade will probably get it. One reason why I'm doing a complete rewrite is that I want to make things like follow actions possible. They can be so fast and down to sample level that the "item-drawing" way of Playtime 1 would quickly reach its limits. The clip engine of Playtime 2 will operate within a real-time audio/MIDI "sphere" so it won't have this kind of issues.

[Vagelis]

Sounds great! I think Playtime 2 is heading to the right direction and i'm very happy for that. Yes follow actions would be amazing if they were added at some point :)

Recording in clips would be nice too, also useful for live would be if each group has its own mix fader.

[Regisfofo]

I think I will keep this feature then :) Yes, makes sense.
Thank you !!! :)

[themixtape]

This is rad news, indeed!

[RCMatthias]

This is amazing news, very glad to hear it and looking forward to support it any way I can! :D

[jjuhkam]

Great news indeed!
May I suggest: One thing thats missing in bitwig and first playtime-
Ability to enable and disable "stop" on empty clip slots.
Ableton has right click- "remove stop button" and "add stop button"

[mfan]

Awesome! Do you have a list of control surfaces you're supporting currently or planning to support in the future?

I really wanna buy a new Launchpad (Mini MK3 or X) to use with Playtime but I'd like to know if that's a good investment with the future of the platform.

[hwhalen]

I've owned Playtime 1 for quite some time, and did get some real time usage.

Are you planning a beta testing approach?
Will you allow PT1 owners to participate?

Thanx Benjamin, and best of luck in developing PT2.

Cheers!

[Win Conway]

Bit left field, but export to Akai Force, so we can work out sets in Playtime then pass them over to the Force for playing out live.
Force supports Ableton import.

[helgoboss]

Great news indeed!
May I suggest: One thing thats missing in bitwig and first playtime-
Ability to enable and disable "stop" on empty clip slots.
Ableton has right click- "remove stop button" and "add stop button"

Okay, will keep that in mind.

Awesome! Do you have a list of control surfaces you're supporting currently or planning to support in the future?

I really wanna buy a new Launchpad (Mini MK3 or X) to use with Playtime but I'd like to know if that's a good investment with the future of the platform.

Not a definitive list of control surfaces, no. Playtime 2 will be based on ReaLearn, so it can potentially support lots of controllers. But users might have to build their own presets because I don't have the resources to order all those devices and test them regularly (having 2 different Launchpads already and using only one of them).

It also depends on how deep the support should go. Mapping clip start/stop/record should be possible on any device really. What specific features would you expect to be supported?

I've owned Playtime 1 for quite some time, and did get some real time usage.

Are you planning a beta testing approach?
Will you allow PT1 owners to participate?

Thanx Benjamin, and best of luck in developing PT2.

Cheers!

Thanks. Anyone will be able to participate in beta testing but it will still take a while. Very interested users will be able to test the clip engine, soon.

Bit left field, but export to Akai Force, so we can work out sets in Playtime then pass them over to the Force for playing out live.
Force supports Ableton import.

Sounds interesting but definitely not something that's planned for short- or mid-term future.

[todd_r]

Is this version going to be a Reaper extension rather than a VST?

[helgoboss]

Is this version going to be a Reaper extension rather than a VST?

No, I decided to make it a VSTi again. It's much more flexible and there are no downsides compared to an extension.

[helgoboss]

BTW, there's something what would be good for me to know and could potentially influence development priorities a bit. Can all of you interested in Playtime give some reasons why you don't choose Ableton Live or Bitwig instead? I certainly have my reasons but I would like to know what are yours.

[Jorchime]

BTW, there's something what would be good for me to know and could potentially influence development priorities a bit. Can all of you interested in Playtime give some reasons why you don't choose Ableton Live or Bitwig instead? I certainly have my reasons but I would like to know what are yours.

I'm super interested in Ableton and Bitwig, but personally I already know Reaper and use it for non-live production as well. So, my main motivation is to stick to what I already have and not fiddle too much with DAWs.

Besides that, I think the clip matrix can also be a very interesting songwriting tool, as many problably use the Ableton session view.
So some way to "print" to the arrangement would be nice.

[Regisfofo]

BTW, there's something what would be good for me to know and could potentially influence development priorities a bit. Can all of you interested in Playtime give some reasons why you don't choose Ableton Live or Bitwig instead? I certainly have my reasons but I would like to know what are yours.

I use Bitwig too now, especially when I want to play with all it's modulations... But what keeps me getting back to reaper is customisation for specialised worflows, cpu efficiency, and I must say realearn 2 is one of the big reason too, as it offers great efficiency / flexibility once you get your head around it and set it up correctly.

[Vagelis]

BTW, there's something what would be good for me to know and could potentially influence development priorities a bit. Can all of you interested in Playtime give some reasons why you don't choose Ableton Live or Bitwig instead? I certainly have my reasons but I would like to know what are yours.

I'm just using Ableton to play my live sets, but i prefer Reaper on everything else, especially editing. If Playtime 2 is stable enough for live use and will include a mixer for each track/group, then i will stop using Ableton.
But another useful thing and important to me that ableton or bitwig session view has, is the ability to sketch ideas before adding them to the Arrange.
If playtime 2 has the same functions e.g follow actions, record in clips, save/load clips etc, then it will be a game changer!

[helgoboss]

I'm just using Ableton to play my live sets, but i prefer Reaper on everything else, especially editing. If Playtime 2 is stable enough for live use and will include a mixer for each track/group, then i will stop using Ableton.
But another useful thing and important to me that ableton or bitwig session view has, is the ability to sketch ideas before adding them to the Arrange.
If playtime 2 has the same functions e.g follow actions, record in clips, save/load clips etc, then it will be a game changer!

By "Record in clips", do you mean MIDI overdub?

[carbon]

Not going to Ableton or Bitwig because of time and money.
Don't want to waste my resources to learn new software only to find out that there's possibly something crucial missing.

It's safer and less expensive to stay here :)

[sound warrior]

Hi, this is excellent news. I'm a totally blind reaper user using the latest version of REAPER on Mac OS X with the osara extension link below:
https://github.com/jcsteh/osara please would it be possible for you to make play time 2 accessible to totally blind users on both Mac and Windows? A lot of blind reaper users would definitely use play time 2 and would really appreciate this. I am happy to beta test this for you and work with you on this. I would absolutely love to discuss this with you further. I hope we can work together. I'm currently working full-time on Playtime 2. If you have any questions about it at this early stage, I'm happy to answer them in this thread :)

Benjamin

[sound warrior]

hi @helgoboss I currently don't use Ableton or bitwig Because they are currently not accessible to totally blind users. I use REAPER because out of the currently available d.a.w. options those being Logic pro tools Reaper and samplertude I find reaper the most intuitive and fastest to use. I would be very interested to beta test the clip engine when this becomes available. I would also be very interested to test the next version of realearn if it is on the horizon. Thank you very much for reading my posts and I hope to work with you soon.

[helgoboss]

Hi, this is excellent news. I'm a totally blind reaper user using the latest version of REAPER on Mac OS X with the osara extension link below:
https://github.com/jcsteh/osara please would it be possible for you to make play time 2 accessible to totally blind users on both Mac and Windows? A lot of blind reaper users would definitely use play time 2 and would really appreciate this. I am happy to beta test this for you and work with you on this. I would absolutely love to discuss this with you further. I hope we can work together.

I have chosen a user interface framework for Playtime 2 which claims it supports screen readers (that was one of my criterias). I don't know how well the support is and I have almost no experience in this area. But I hope once Playtime 2 goes into beta testing, we can see together what has to be done to make it accessible.

[helgoboss]

hi @helgoboss I currently don't use Ableton or bitwig Because they are currently not accessible to totally blind users. I use REAPER because out of the currently available d.a.w. options those being Logic pro tools Reaper and samplertude I find reaper the most intuitive and fastest to use. I would be very interested to beta test the clip engine when this becomes available. I would also be very interested to test the next version of realearn if it is on the horizon. Thank you very much for reading my posts and I hope to work with you soon.

ReaLearn will not get a new major version (aka ReaLearn 3) any time soon. It reached a state in which I will evolve it constantly without super big gaps as the one between ReaLearn 1 and 2. It receives updates quite frequently. So if you have accessibility issues with ReaLearn 2 (I'm sure there are many and I slightly remember some of them came up already), simply let me know. Best, open an issue on GitHub.

[dna598]

This is great news!

Unfortunately I had a unproductive time with Playtime. I could not get it to work in the same way i use Live's session view.

Last time i tried it (a while back) the launch quantize options available seem to be "immediately" (unquantized), 1/4 note, and whole measure.

No use for drum clip improvisation where i need to trigger 1/8 or 1/16 notes and other such values.

I would like to see more Launch quantize values in 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, triplet,(all of them) etc. (preferably using the same nomenclature)

I like to capture/copy parts of the arrangement into session view and re-trigger scenes for end of bar and 2nd drop variations etc. For that i rely on hitting the "back to arrangement" button after finishing a pass in ableton.

will there be any way to overdub into the existing arrangement?

many thanks!

[TonE]

If playtime 2 will be a vsti plugin, how are the clip information saved in the new/upcoming clip engine of playtime 2? Are they saved externally as track templates? For midi notes, cc, bank select, program change, pitchbend as .mid files? Which technique will playtime 2 use that will allow saving all data outside of Reaper arrange? I am asking because this is a relevant question also for many other tool, or future possible tools for Reaper (like hackey trackey 2, maybe)? It would be cool if as much as possible Reaper internal techniques could be used, like track templates and .mid files, so any other upcoming tool could use these in parallel as well. So you could use playtime 2 for some techniques, but at the same time being able to use other new tools, operating on those same file formats, as those would be still Reaper internal file formats and nothing hidden away inside some mysterious vsti (separated out from the rest of Reaper data world).

In short, I am more for as modular file formats as possible. As little chunks as possible, which are combined for getting something bigger.

It would be cool reading more about the clip engines concept, even if it does not exist yet as code. Just to know what is the conceptual idea behind it, as far as it is known already. Or said in a different way, in my opinion, track templates and .mid files should not be ignored, and be used as much as possible. This can open up many new creative options in future, because .mid files have a long time history already. Why ignoring that, with all the available tools (I wrote in the past, keykit by Tim Thompson, for example).

Also what is the definition of a clip (for the Reaper world)? Is it an item? Is it item + automation item? Is it item + automation item + track settings + track fx? Is it item + automation item + item fx? Is it item + automation item + item fx + midi mappings?

Anyway, good luck with the new project. I like the simplification concept, rather than adding 1000 features. Better finding the most basic 20 features and optimizing those as much as possible! To give a similar example from Android app world: I like Bamboo Paper app a lot, has only few basic features, but just all what you need really, drawing, a thick pen, delete, undo, redo, overview on the right menus, pdf export of note book. Very minimal setup, but I can take perfect notes on the phone with it, anywhere. playtime 2 could be something like this, anything too fancy, not really needed. One needs to find out which are those "20 most basic features".

[TheWhistler]

BTW, there's something what would be good for me to know and could potentially influence development priorities a bit. Can all of you interested in Playtime give some reasons why you don't choose Ableton Live or Bitwig instead? I certainly have my reasons but I would like to know what are yours.

Great you are developing this further. Sadly I did not get to grips with Playtime 1.
The tracks that were polulated in the background (I tried to make track template with them not visible) really confused me.

I love Reaper. I make all my production work in Reaper.
If I could avoid Ableton live that would be wonderful.
Have you ever noticed how long Live takes to start up? Reaper is ready in seconds.

For a version 2 of playtime everything that makes a live-set organizable is needed. Things like follow actions, scenes, dummy clips, arbitrary amount of tracks.
Digging into ReaLearn is not a problem.
But what would be really cool is better visual (coloured) feedback on input devices.
This helps so much keeping track of what´s going on.

Looking really interested foreward to get more info about this project.
I would certainly pay, even without version 1 discount. Version 1 was reasonably priced as well.

[sound warrior]

Hi Benjamin thank you very much. I will definitely get into ReaLearn at some point soon.ReaLearn will not get a new major version (aka ReaLearn 3) any time soon. It reached a state in which I will evolve it constantly without super big gaps as the one between ReaLearn 1 and 2. It receives updates quite frequently. So if you have accessibility issues with ReaLearn 2 (I'm sure there are many and I slightly remember some of them came up already), simply let me know. Best, open an issue on GitHub.

[sound warrior]

Hi Benjamin thanks for your reply, I'm going to write a bunch of stuff here that may or may not be relevant. I'm guessing the programming language you're talking about is juce6.1 if it is then screen reader support is something they have indeed implemented. I think I'm right in saying that if your controls are completely juce6.1 native then you should be fine, but if your controls have custom elements then a bit of work is required to give them the correct screen reader compliant labelling, I'm not a developer however this is what I experienced when testing another piece of software which was written in juce6.1 one project I would look into which has done a good job with juce6.1 and accessibility is the new Open source software synthesiser serge Xt.
I hope this helps. Secondly and this point will apply whatever programming language you use. A layer of keyboard shortcuts with a plug-in would be incredibly useful to blind users and I would imagine everyone else :-) I would love to voice chat about this with you at some point if you're free. Thanks very much for your help as ever Trey.I have chosen a user interface framework for Playtime 2 which claims it supports screen readers (that was one of my criterias). I don't know how well the support is and I have almost no experience in this area. But I hope once Playtime 2 goes into beta testing, we can see together what has to be done to make it accessible.

[helgoboss]

Last time i tried it (a while back) the launch quantize options available seem to be "immediately" (unquantized), 1/4 note, and whole measure.

No use for drum clip improvisation where i need to trigger 1/8 or 1/16 notes and other such values.

I would like to see more Launch quantize values in 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, triplet,(all of them) etc. (preferably using the same nomenclature)

I like to capture/copy parts of the arrangement into session view and re-trigger scenes for end of bar and 2nd drop variations etc. For that i rely on hitting the "back to arrangement" button after finishing a pass in ableton.

will there be any way to overdub into the existing arrangement?

many thanks!

Offering more launch quantizations shouldn't be a problem.

Overdub into the existing arrangement? Depends on what you mean by that. If you mean that the current arrangement is playing and you jam to it in-sync by starting clips in the session view, then yes. But that was also possible in Playtime 1.

If playtime 2 will be a vsti plugin, how are the clip information saved in the new/upcoming clip engine of playtime 2? Are they saved externally as track templates? For midi notes, cc, bank select, program change, pitchbend as .mid files? Which technique will playtime 2 use that will allow saving all data outside of Reaper arrange? I am asking because this is a relevant question also for many other tool, or future possible tools for Reaper (like hackey trackey 2, maybe)? It would be cool if as much as possible Reaper internal techniques could be used, like track templates and .mid files, so any other upcoming tool could use these in parallel as well. So you could use playtime 2 for some techniques, but at the same time being able to use other new tools, operating on those same file formats, as those would be still Reaper internal file formats and nothing hidden away inside some mysterious vsti (separated out from the rest of Reaper data world).

In short, I am more for as modular file formats as possible. As little chunks as possible, which are combined for getting something bigger.

It would be cool reading more about the clip engines concept, even if it does not exist yet as code. Just to know what is the conceptual idea behind it, as far as it is known already. Or said in a different way, in my opinion, track templates and .mid files should not be ignored, and be used as much as possible. This can open up many new creative options in future, because .mid files have a long time history already. Why ignoring that, with all the available tools (I wrote in the past, keykit by Tim Thompson, for example).

Also what is the definition of a clip (for the Reaper world)? Is it an item? Is it item + automation item? Is it item + automation item + track settings + track fx? Is it item + automation item + item fx? Is it item + automation item + item fx + midi mappings?

About which "state" of a clip are you talking?

a) A clip on disk, ready to be dragged into Playtime
b) A clip which is loaded into Playtime and playing
c) A clip as part of a sequence recorded by Playtime itself, not yet on REAPER's timeline
d) A clip as it ends up on REAPER's timeline when instructing Playtime to draw it there

For a version 2 of playtime everything that makes a live-set organizable is needed. Things like follow actions, scenes, dummy clips, arbitrary amount of tracks.
Digging into ReaLearn is not a problem.
But what would be really cool is better visual (coloured) feedback on input devices.
This helps so much keeping track of what´s going on.

Looking really interested foreward to get more info about this project.
I would certainly pay, even without version 1 discount. Version 1 was reasonably priced as well.

Follow actions probably won't make it into the first release but they are planned.

By colored feedback, do you mean coloring RGB Launchpad Pads like the colors of tracks/clips/scenes?

Hi Benjamin thanks for your reply, I'm going to write a bunch of stuff here that may or may not be relevant. I'm guessing the programming language you're talking about is juce6.1 if it is then screen reader support is something they have indeed implemented. I think I'm right in saying that if your controls are completely juce6.1 native then you should be fine, but if your controls have custom elements then a bit of work is required to give them the correct screen reader compliant labelling, I'm not a developer however this is what I experienced when testing another piece of software which was written in juce6.1 one project I would look into which has done a good job with juce6.1 and accessibility is the new Open source software synthesiser serge Xt.
I hope this helps. Secondly and this point will apply whatever programming language you use. A layer of keyboard shortcuts with a plug-in would be incredibly useful to blind users and I would imagine everyone else :-) I would love to voice chat about this with you at some point if you're free. Thanks very much for your help as ever Trey.

It's not Juce (I don't even use C++). Keyboard shortcuts, yes, I love them as well.

Everything in time. Let's see what's ready when it's time for the first release.

[Anti]

Brilliant. Thanks for your work.

1) Will it still be useful for roughly sketching out an arrangement? Or are you focusing much more on the live looping usage?

2) What's your estimate for a first release? Easter? Summer? Autumn?

Cheers.

[dna598]

Offering more launch quantizations shouldn't be a problem.

Overdub into the existing arrangement? Depends on what you mean by that. If you mean that the current arrangement is playing and you jam to it in-sync by starting clips in the session view, then yes. But that was also possible in Playtime 1.




maybe overdub is the wrong word actually.
I do not mean playing in new scenes in addition to whats already playing in the arrangement.
I mean recording in new scenes on already existing tracks, so as to replace whats playing in the arrangement.
The "back to arrangement button", when pressed, would then revert the playhead to the arrangement and stop the session view playing. You are now left with the freshly improvised edits in the arrangement, replacing the previously programmed items on the same track/s.

That's how I use Ableton session view the most anyway.

I never found out if this is possible in Playtime, because i couldn't play anything in the way i wanted, due to the lack of launch quantization options.

[TheWhistler]

Follow actions probably won't make it into the first release but they are planned.

That is good to hear. Having some clips that play successively is crucial for having a pre prepared arrangement (e.g. transitions) that can be fired up when needed.
Or a group of clips that follow each other randomly or conditional.

BTW: Did Playtime 1 have scenes. I did not use it for such a long time.
Also super important.


By colored feedback, do you mean coloring RGB Launchpad Pads like the colors of tracks/clips/scenes?


I think this is possible with ReaLearn right?
I´ve seen your long video about it yesterday and I have seen an APC 25 which had colored pads.

[helgoboss]

Brilliant. Thanks for your work.

1) Will it still be useful for roughly sketching out an arrangement? Or are you focusing much more on the live looping usage?

2) What's your estimate for a first release? Easter? Summer? Autumn?

Cheers.

1. I'm also targetting the "sketch out an arrangement" use case. Just in the current stage of development I focus very much on the live part (the one which doesn't mess with the REAPER arrangement).
2. Hope I will have something ready for summer. But an early version of the clip engine (controllable via ReaLearn, programmable only by scripters) will hopefully be ready for early alpha testing around end of February.

maybe overdub is the wrong word actually.
I do not mean playing in new scenes in addition to whats already playing in the arrangement.
I mean recording in new scenes on already existing tracks, so as to replace whats playing in the arrangement.
The "back to arrangement button", when pressed, would then revert the playhead to the arrangement and stop the session view playing. You are now left with the freshly improvised edits in the arrangement, replacing the previously programmed items on the same track/s.

That's how I use Ableton session view the most anyway.

I never found out if this is possible in Playtime, because i couldn't play anything in the way i wanted, due to the lack of launch quantization options.

I think what comes closest to "Back to arrangement" button in Playtime 1 is the global stop button. It makes all clips in the session view stop playing, but all items in the arrangement view keep playing.

What doesn't exist in Playtime 1 is the ability to record to the arrangement by *replacing* existing items on the track. The same is true for just playing clips in the session view: Playing a clip on track x doesn't mute the arrangement items on track x. This is just a totally different concept than in Ableton, which seems to have the limitation to play either only session view clips OR arrangement view items on a track. Maybe that limitation makes sense from a musical point of view, I'll have to think about this.

That is good to hear. Having some clips that play successively is crucial for having a pre prepared arrangement (e.g. transitions) that can be fired up when needed.
Or a group of clips that follow each other randomly or conditional.

BTW: Did Playtime 1 have scenes. I did not use it for such a long time.
Also super important.


Yes, scenes were there and will be there.


I think this is possible with ReaLearn right?
I´ve seen your long video about it yesterday and I have seen an APC 25 which had colored pads.

Yes, colors can be changed by feeding back different MIDI messages. I will probably improve ReaLearn a bit to satisfy some needs of Playtime. From now on, both ReaLearn and Playtime will sort of grow together.

[TheWhistler]

Atm I am converting our upcoming album to a Live project.
And I think it´s absolutely crucial to have something like follow actions.
Without that, I can´t think of getting together in a convenient way.

I can´t stress that enough. I´d really love to do all this in Reaper and not in Ableton.

[helgoboss]

Atm I am converting our upcoming album to a Live project.
And I think it´s absolutely crucial to have something like follow actions.
Without that, I can´t think of getting together in a convenient way.

I can´t stress that enough. I´d really love to do all this in Reaper and not in Ableton.

Follow actions might not make it into the first release because they are much less basic than all the other stuff which one would expect from a session view, they are rather something on top ... but they will follow ;)

However, something that will very likely make it into the first release is this: Clips that play clips. Or even clips that play clips that play clips. This is possible quite naturally because Playtime itself is just a VSTi, so it can also be played like a VSTi, so Playtime can play Playtime - itself. This is of course no substitute for the sound-design use cases of follow actions, but it's a quite decent alternative for the use case that's called "Creating cycles" in the Ableton Live manual. These cycles can be recorded and played like clips. For me this is a musically extremely useful feature. Can also be used as an alternative or in addition to scenes.

In general, I don't just want to replicate some Ableton features but also add new ones that are only possible because of the flexibility that REAPER/ReaLearn/Playtime offers.

[dna598]

I think what comes closest to "Back to arrangement" button in Playtime 1 is the global stop button. It makes all clips in the session view stop playing, but all items in the arrangement view keep playing.

What doesn't exist in Playtime 1 is the ability to record to the arrangement by *replacing* existing items on the track. The same is true for just playing clips in the session view: Playing a clip on track x doesn't mute the arrangement items on track x. This is just a totally different concept than in Ableton, which seems to have the limitation to play either only session view clips OR arrangement view items on a track. Maybe that limitation makes sense from a musical point of view, I'll have to think about this.



Ah great. Yeah, what i described is essential for using the session view as a "remix" tool, and specifically for remixing (re-arranging on the fly) the current project. I hope it can be implemented, so you can take my money. Good luck!

[TheWhistler]

Follow actions might not make it into the first release because they are much less basic than all the other stuff which one would expect from a session view, they are rather something on top ... but they will follow ;)

However, something that will very likely make it into the first release is this: Clips that play clips. Or even clips that play clips that play clips. This is possible quite naturally because Playtime itself is just a VSTi, so it can also be played like a VSTi, so Playtime can play Playtime - itself. This is of course no substitute for the sound-design use cases of follow actions, but it's a quite decent alternative for the use case that's called "Creating cycles" in the Ableton Live manual. These cycles can be recorded and played like clips. For me this is a musically extremely useful feature. Can also be used as an alternative or in addition to scenes.

In general, I don't just want to replicate some Ableton features but also add new ones that are only possible because of the flexibility that REAPER/ReaLearn/Playtime offers.


Thank´s for your reply. As I know you are a musician you know what counts on stage.
I will of couse try this (if it´s available) and see if it fits my needs.
I am just a bit afraid it could get complicated dealing with multiple instances of a plugin that plays a plugin....convoluted (maybe);)

Or maybe I did not get you right. This might be possible within one instance of playtime?
Then it depends heavily on how this is implemented in a GUI sense.
I have some stage fright and I need to know exactly what´s going on - otherwise I go crazy.

It is of course a good think to not only replicate something but to come up with you own aproach.
Chances are I will love it and never look back to Live. I love Reaper for it´s flexibility and it´s nerdy attitude.
Your ideas seem to fit in there quite well (meant as a compliment;)).

Looking foreward to your ideas :)

[sound warrior]

@helgoboss hi Benjamin, thanks for your reply. If you don't mind me asking what programming language will you be using? Also will I be able to load WAV files directly into playtime and record them into the main arrangement view? Thanks very much for your help I look forward to discussing this with you further.

[Friscotch]

BTW, there's something what would be good for me to know and could potentially influence development priorities a bit. Can all of you interested in Playtime give some reasons why you don't choose Ableton Live or Bitwig instead? I certainly have my reasons but I would like to know what are yours.

My main reason is that Playtime handles multichannel audio clips (ex : for x-order ambisonics, octophony, etc...), a feature not present in any other clip launch DAW (to my knowledge). Or I'd have to use QLab or Max / Pure Data which are not timeline oriented. Plus, thanks to Reaper, each clip can contain enveloppes but also plugins...

Including pendulum/palindrome looping of audio clips in Playtime 2 would be an awesome feature for sound designers. Also, it would be the only clip launch software allowing that.

[TonE]

About which "state" of a clip are you talking?

a) A clip on disk, ready to be dragged into Playtime
b) A clip which is loaded into Playtime and playing
c) A clip as part of a sequence recorded by Playtime itself, not yet on REAPER's timeline
d) A clip as it ends up on REAPER's timeline when instructing Playtime to draw it there


I do not know what you mean with clip in "clip engine" thus I asked, now you bring an additional "state" concept. To answer your question, I am "talking" of all states then, those 4, and any additional 1000 states which might come in future. :) Just wanted to know what this is all about.

[helgoboss]

Thank´s for your reply. As I know you are a musician you know what counts on stage.
I will of couse try this (if it´s available) and see if it fits my needs.
I am just a bit afraid it could get complicated dealing with multiple instances of a plugin that plays a plugin....convoluted (maybe);)

Or maybe I did not get you right. This might be possible within one instance of playtime?
Then it depends heavily on how this is implemented in a GUI sense.
I have some stage fright and I need to know exactly what´s going on - otherwise I go crazy.

It is of course a good think to not only replicate something but to come up with you own aproach.
Chances are I will love it and never look back to Live. I love Reaper for it´s flexibility and it´s nerdy attitude.
Your ideas seem to fit in there quite well (meant as a compliment;)).

Looking foreward to your ideas :)

This is possible within just one instance of Playtime. Each column needs to be associated with a track. That means that each clip in that column records and plays back stuff on this associated track. Now, what you can do is associating a column with the Playtime track. An immediate consequence is that (MIDI) clips in this column are able to start/stop Playtime clips. There are some details that I will need to take care of (e.g. preventing clips that start itself) but overall I think this could be a quite easy to understand but powerful concept. Wouldn't even put this into the nerdy category ;)

@helgoboss hi Benjamin, thanks for your reply. If you don't mind me asking what programming language will you be using? Also will I be able to load WAV files directly into playtime and record them into the main arrangement view? Thanks very much for your help I look forward to discussing this with you further.

The user interface is programmed in Flutter (a framework which uses Dart as programming language). The actual REAPER plug-in is programmed in Rust (you can think of it as a modern C++).

Yes, importing WAV files as clips and recording them to the arrangement view will be possible.

My main reason is that Playtime handles multichannel audio clips (ex : for x-order ambisonics, octophony, etc...), a feature not present in any other clip launch DAW (to my knowledge). Or I'd have to use QLab or Max / Pure Data which are not timeline oriented. Plus, thanks to Reaper, each clip can contain enveloppes but also plugins...

Including pendulum/palindrome looping of audio clips in Playtime 2 would be an awesome feature for sound designers. Also, it would be the only clip launch software allowing that.

I want to keep the possibility to handle multichannel audio clips.

Sorry, the possibility of having per-clip FX and FX envelopes will be gone in Playtime 2. If you want different FX, you'll have to add a separate column/track or glue the material before using it as a clip (= destructive editing). You have to know, Playtime 2 doesn't work anymore by placing items/takes on the timeline. It solves things on a deeper level (audio/MIDI sources). Therefore it doesn't inherit the item/take-specific features anymore. The ability to use item/take-specific features was one strength of Playtime 1, but at the same time its greatest limitation because it also meant that REAPER's "arrangement timeline" needs to do all the playing and recording ... and REAPER's arrangement timeline is not tailored to playing/recording live loops. Maybe one day, REAPER's API will allow to treat an audio item as an audio source and then it would work, but for the time being, no.

UPDATE: I'm considering making the basic principle of Playtime 1 (placing items on the timeline) available as some kind of bonus feature in an update, e.g. as an alternative clip launching mode. I know this feature has some interesting use cases, despite of its inherent limitations (another use case: triggering images or videos). And it's not hard to add. But because of these limitations it will probably feel a bit like an outsider in Playtime 2.

What is palindrome looping? Playing forward and reverse and then again?

I do not know what you mean with clip in "clip engine" thus I asked, now you bring an additional "state" concept. To answer your question, I am "talking" of all states then, those 4, and any additional 1000 states which might come in future. :) Just wanted to know what this is all about.

A "clip" is comparable to what's called "item" in REAPER. Just an audio/MIDI snippet. I used that term in Playtime 1 because it's a quite common term in the prominent live DAWs - and for Playtime 2 it's even more important because a "clip" is not an "item" anymore, it's something separate. In the most basic form it's e.g. a WAV file on disk or MIDI data saved together with the project. But Playtime adds various metadata such as original tempo, time base, start and length, etc. As much as possible will be saved as part of the files but some information will be contained in the VST chunk. When it comes to clip import/export, of course all important information will be contained in the clip file but I don't know yet how exactly.

REAPER automation items will probably not play a big role in Playtime 2 because it's not item-based anymore.

In general, have a look at the session view of Ableton Live, Bitwig and Playtime 1 and you should get a pretty good idea of what clips are all about.

[Friscotch]

I want to keep the possibility to handle multichannel audio clips.


Awesome


Sorry, the possibility of having per-clip FX and FX envelopes will be gone in Playtime 2. If you want different FX, you'll have to add a separate column/track or glue the material before using it as a clip (= destructive editing). You have to know, Playtime 2 doesn't work anymore by placing items/takes on the timeline. It solves things on a deeper level (audio/MIDI sources). Therefore it doesn't inherit the item/take-specific features anymore. The ability to use item/take-specific features was one strength of Playtime 1, but at the same time its greatest limitation because it also meant that REAPER's "arrangement timeline" needs to do all the playing and recording ... and REAPER's arrangement timeline is not tailored to playing/recording live loops. Maybe one day, REAPER's API will allow to treat an audio item as an audio source and then it would work, but for the time being, no.


Oops ! ;-)


UPDATE: I'm considering making the basic principle of Playtime 1 (placing items on the timeline) available as some kind of bonus feature in an update, e.g. as an alternative clip launching mode. I know this feature has some interesting use cases, despite of its inherent limitations (another use case: triggering images or videos). And it's not hard to add. But because of these limitations it will probably feel a bit like an outsider in Playtime 2.


One of the most specific and useful feature of Reaper is this object/item oriented workflow and Playtime 1 shines with it. Launching multichannel audio items including their own vst + complete automation is a unique and powerful feature.

So yes, that would be awesome if Playtime 2 proposes the option to switch to item mode even if most of the new the features wouldn't obviously be present then. Of course, users like me (mostly in the contemporary music field I guess) could continue to use Playtime 1 but will it be updated ? (quid about native Apple Silicon, compatibility with upcoming versions of Reaper, etc...).
Or maybe proposing two separate Playtime VST's ? "Playtime Item" and "Playtime Clip" ?


What is palindrome looping? Playing forward and reverse and then again?


Yes. This feature is included in lots of sampler plugins but not in clip launching systems. It is a quite common tool for sound designers, would be a wonderful feature if not hard to implement.

[helgoboss]

Awesome



Oops ! ;-)



One of the most specific and useful feature of Reaper is this object/item oriented workflow and Playtime 1 shines with it. Launching multichannel audio items including their own vst + complete automation is a unique and powerful feature.

So yes, that would be awesome if Playtime 2 proposes the option to switch to item mode even if most of the new the features wouldn't obviously be present then. Of course, users like me (mostly in the contemporary music field I guess) could continue to use Playtime 1 but will it be updated ? (quid about native Apple Silicon, compatibility with upcoming versions of Reaper, etc...).
Or maybe proposing two separate Playtime VST's ? "Playtime Item" and "Playtime Clip"

Maintaining Playtime 1 or introducing a separate "Playtime Item" would be annoying for me. I guess I will integrate it into Playtime 2.

But one question: What concrete use cases do you have in mind and how do they benefit from this item based workflow? Maybe the stuff you want can be achieved by just providing a convenient workflow (e.g. glueing behind the scenes).

[sound warrior]

I’ll look in to screen reeder support for both flutter and rust. Am I correct in thinking that flutter is claiming to have screen reeder support and this one of the mane reasons why you chose it for the ui?This is possible within just one instance of Playtime. Each column needs to be associated with a track. That means that each clip in that column records and plays back stuff on this associated track. Now, what you can do is associating a column with the Playtime track. An immediate consequence is that (MIDI) clips in this column are able to start/stop Playtime clips. There are some details that I will need to take care of (e.g. preventing clips that start itself) but overall I think this could be a quite easy to understand but powerful concept. Wouldn't even put this into the nerdy category ;)



The user interface is programmed in Flutter (a framework which uses Dart as programming language). The actual REAPER plug-in is programmed in Rust (you can think of it as a modern C++).

Yes, importing WAV files as clips and recording them to the arrangement view will be possible.



I want to keep the possibility to handle multichannel audio clips.

Sorry, the possibility of having per-clip FX and FX envelopes will be gone in Playtime 2. If you want different FX, you'll have to add a separate column/track or glue the material before using it as a clip (= destructive editing). You have to know, Playtime 2 doesn't work anymore by placing items/takes on the timeline. It solves things on a deeper level (audio/MIDI sources). Therefore it doesn't inherit the item/take-specific features anymore. The ability to use item/take-specific features was one strength of Playtime 1, but at the same time its greatest limitation because it also meant that REAPER's "arrangement timeline" needs to do all the playing and recording ... and REAPER's arrangement timeline is not tailored to playing/recording live loops. Maybe one day, REAPER's API will allow to treat an audio item as an audio source and then it would work, but for the time being, no.

UPDATE: I'm considering making the basic principle of Playtime 1 (placing items on the timeline) available as some kind of bonus feature in an update, e.g. as an alternative clip launching mode. I know this feature has some interesting use cases, despite of its inherent limitations (another use case: triggering images or videos). And it's not hard to add. But because of these limitations it will probably feel a bit like an outsider in Playtime 2.

What is palindrome looping? Playing forward and reverse and then again?



A "clip" is comparable to what's called "item" in REAPER. Just an audio/MIDI snippet. I used that term in Playtime 1 because it's a quite common term in the prominent live DAWs - and for Playtime 2 it's even more important because a "clip" is not an "item" anymore, it's something separate. In the most basic form it's e.g. a WAV file on disk or MIDI data saved together with the project. But Playtime adds various metadata such as original tempo, time base, start and length, etc. As much as possible will be saved as part of the files but some information will be contained in the VST chunk. When it comes to clip import/export, of course all important information will be contained in the clip file but I don't know yet how exactly.

REAPER automation items will probably not play a big role in Playtime 2 because it's not item-based anymore.

In general, have a look at the session view of Ableton Live, Bitwig and Playtime 1 and you should get a pretty good idea of what clips are all about.

[Friscotch]

Maintaining Playtime 1 or introducing a separate "Playtime Item" would be annoying for me. I guess I will integrate it into Playtime 2.

Yes, in Playtime 2 would be great.

But one question: What concrete use cases do you have in mind and how do they benefit from this item based workflow? Maybe the stuff you want can be achieved by just providing a convenient workflow (e.g. glueing behind the scenes).

Many composers / sound designers / live performers in contemporary music need systems which offers the possibility to work with multichannel audio files, simultaneously in real time + timeline. This type of setup works likely in Min:Sec (rarely Bars:Beats). When performing a multichannel composition for a theater or dance show with Reaper + Playtime, one can have tracks playing traditionally in a timeline fashion while items are triggered in real time corresponding to stage cues e.g. The plus here is that everything happens in the same software. From one performance to the next you can easily change for example the envelope of a vst EQ or anything else contained in an object that can be triggered at the right timing. And you can do that with plenty of objects. Of course, one could do that with say, Pro Tools + QLab or with Logic + Max/Msp but the workflow is not integrated, with much less possibilities/flexibility and you have to jump back and forth in very different environments.
Live doesn't read multichannel files and its clips can't contain any FX. (btw, I asked Ableton if they could add palindrome clip playing feature some time ago but still nothing as of today, though their samplers have this feature).

[helgoboss]

I’ll look in to screen reeder support for both flutter and rust. Am I correct in thinking that flutter is claiming to have screen reeder support and this one of the mane reasons why you chose it for the ui?

Yes, one of the reasons I chose Flutter is they care about screen reader support. But it's just one of many reasons.

From one performance to the next you can easily change for example the envelope of a vst EQ or anything else contained in an object that can be triggered at the right timing. And you can do that with plenty of objects.

Okay. For this, the Playtime 1 method of placing items should be enough. But things like palindrome looping I would probably only implement for the new Playtime 2 source-based method.

[Thor]

For me to Playtime is attractive for its multichannel/surround sound capabilities.

I work mainly in sound design and composition for stage/theatre and hope very much for some features that can cater to the need to trigger changes to playing clips at arbitrary points depending on stage action.

Feature 1: the ability to trigger operations on playing clips such as a filter sweep at any time (if Playtime 1 had support for automation items that would be one way of doing it.) In Qlab one could take a look at the fade cue to see how this is achieved in that software.
Use case: ambient soundscape is playing, an actor comes on stage, clip is faded down and top end is filtered down to make room for dialogue. Actor leaves the fades are reversed.

Also: retain the ability to play video files.


I think it would be a great strength to consider the world of stage arts and place Playtime/Reaper ahead of what is practical in Ableton!

[dna598]

I certainly would not want to use Reaper for any "live" situation. It's not built for it.
For example i can't even mute/unmute/solo tracks in my productions without severe crackling. Lot's of stuck midi notes all the time too, requiring the midi panic button in my toolbar. This is not something i EVER have to deal with in Live.
Just too many janky little quirks to go wrong in Reaper.
This just my opinion, but as both a Live and Reaper user, Playtime would be much better served as a studio compositional and remix tool.

[helgoboss]

For me to Playtime is attractive for its multichannel/surround sound capabilities.

I work mainly in sound design and composition for stage/theatre and hope very much for some features that can cater to the need to trigger changes to playing clips at arbitrary points depending on stage action.

Feature 1: the ability to trigger operations on playing clips such as a filter sweep at any time (if Playtime 1 had support for automation items that would be one way of doing it.) In Qlab one could take a look at the fade cue to see how this is achieved in that software.
Use case: ambient soundscape is playing, an actor comes on stage, clip is faded down and top end is filtered down to make room for dialogue. Actor leaves the fades are reversed.

Also: retain the ability to play video files.


I think it would be a great strength to consider the world of stage arts and place Playtime/Reaper ahead of what is practical in Ableton!

Planning to support clips that can trigger "automation", but probably by letting MIDI clips control the FX parameters, not automation envelopes or automation items (latter don't have any real advantage for clip launching). The challenge here is to offer an intuitive UI for that.

Video will work once I add this Playtime 1 clip launching style.

[helgoboss]

I certainly would not want to use Reaper for any "live" situation. It's not built for it.
For example i can't even mute/unmute/solo tracks in my productions without severe crackling. Lot's of stuck midi notes all the time too, requiring the midi panic button in my toolbar. This is not something i EVER have to deal with in Live.
Just too many janky little quirks to go wrong in Reaper.
This just my opinion, but as both a Live and Reaper user, Playtime would be much better served as a studio compositional and remix tool.

Nah, you are underestimating it. I've used REAPER live for years, no such issues. "Live" as in playing it like a versatile instrument/synth with many VSTi's and effects. Of course, not everything you can do in REAPER is safe for this kind of live use, but many things are.

If you mean clip launching and loops when saying "live", then you are right. REAPER is not made for that. But Playtime 2 is. It will be a live tool, of course.

[tweed]

Respectfully: AGREED ENTIRELY.

Important to stress test, yet for LIVE performances, if one learns deep there's nothing more TOTAL than REAPER. I'm regularly grateful REAPER exists.

best wishes to all

*** ILOGIC 3.90 bundle 'ULTIMATE 1.0" theme user ***

[mschnell]

I certainly would not want to use Reaper for any "live" situation. It's not built for it.
I mainly use Reaper for live playing. It's perfectly designed for this.

OK, not the user interface, but the extremely powerful and reliable audio engine makes it a good choice for a live audio tool.
-Michael

[sound warrior]

hi Benjamin thanks for your reply. What were you other reasons for choosing flutter? As you are using flutter for the UI I decided to do some research into it for screen reader support I found the following links and thought you might find them useful:
Flutter accessibility documentatioon:
https://docs.flutter.dev/development/accessibility-and-localization/accessibility


Getting started with flutter accessability medium:
https://medium.com/@enzoftware/flutter-accessibility-getting-started-52286746314e

Flutter accessibility deep dive medium:
https://medium.com/flutter-community/a-deep-dive-into-flutters-accessibility-widgets-eb0ef9455bc
Flutter accessibility example
https://www.appsdeveloperblog.com/accessibility-example-in-flutter/
General useful article for those wanting to make apps accessible to blind people:
https://www.applevis.com/information-developers-how-build-accessible-ios-ipados-mac-apple-watch-apple-tv-apps
I hope they help and I can't wait to work with you to make playtime2 the best it can be in terms of accessibility :-)
Yes, one of the reasons I chose Flutter is they care about screen reader support. But it's just one of many reasons.



Okay. For this, the Playtime 1 method of placing items should be enough. But things like palindrome looping I would probably only implement for the new Playtime 2 source-based method.

[MBruzzi]

Thanks so much Helgoboss for your work, it's great, great news!

[ArtemiHo]

Really excited to hear the news!
I was always fascinated by the idea of Ableton's clip arrangements in Reaper.

But sadly I've never had any success with it in Playtime 1
I wanted to use it like a live midi looper/sequencer but when I've tried it just didn't work for me although I've tried many times.
I thought it was more like audio clips drag'n drop plugin than a realtime sequencer.
I also agree that it wasn't nice to see lots of items in background of Reapers arrangement window. Doesn't look nice for some reason.

I would love this plugin to be as close to Ableton clips as possible.

I also like how NI maschine software autoextends the clip based on your playing.
You can also undo while recording.

Here is what I mean

https://youtu.be/iXI_VyQ0gkU


p.s. Reaper is much easier on cpu and faster to use than any other DAWs because of the custom actions and SWS extensions.
But I would love to see a clip based looping integration which doesn't not create any click or pops. That would be a killer combo.
This can create a much better, creative workflow, and I would love to see those functions in Playtime.
The ability to edit those in realtime would be cool too.

Anyways, thanks for you work. That's just my thoughts on this!

[dinoc]

Wonderful news! I was beginning to think playtime all in all was in a halt since there were no news :(
Would be nice to be able to select independent routing per playtime columns(groups).
In my case, one single reaper track is the source of guitar audio with a multieffect vst in a live loop based setup.
I record a rythm clean guitar to a slot in the first playtime group.
I then record another clean guitar with a little different vst preset to a slot in the 2nd playtime group.
I then record another guitar with some leads (distortion/ echo / etc) to a slot in the 3rd playtime group.
The issue with current playtime is that all sound goes back to the original track is was recorded from. So in my case the 3 recordings are played together within the same track with whatever effect preset is loaded and that becomes a mess.
I dont want to have 3 source guitar tracks each with its own vst effect since it makes my live setup more complex.
Any chance of independent routing per group in playtime2?
Cheers

[helgoboss]

Wonderful news! I was beginning to think playtime all in all was in a halt since there were no news :(
Would be nice to be able to select independent routing per playtime columns(groups).
In my case, one single reaper track is the source of guitar audio with a multieffect vst in a live loop based setup.
I record a rythm clean guitar to a slot in the first playtime group.
I then record another clean guitar with a little different vst preset to a slot in the 2nd playtime group.
I then record another guitar with some leads (distortion/ echo / etc) to a slot in the 3rd playtime group.
The issue with current playtime is that all sound goes back to the original track is was recorded from. So in my case the 3 recordings are played together within the same track with whatever effect preset is loaded and that becomes a mess.
I dont want to have 3 source guitar tracks each with its own vst effect since it makes my live setup more complex.
Any chance of independent routing per group in playtime2?
Cheers

So you record the track output (with all FX already applied)?

Playtime 2 requires to set for each column a "playback track" on which the clips in that column are played. By default, it would record material from the hardware input (audio/MIDI) set for that track. But I also want to make it possible to record the output of a track, and this will often be a different track (otherwise there can be a feedback loop on subsequent recordings). So in addition to the "playback track", I will probably provide an option "record output from track" for each column. Does that solve your issue?

[helgoboss]

hi Benjamin thanks for your reply. What were you other reasons for choosing flutter? As you are using flutter for the UI I decided to do some research into it for screen reader support I found the following links and thought you might find them useful:

Thanks, I will look into them as soon as I start with the UI.


I also like how NI maschine software autoextends the clip based on your playing.
You can also undo while recording.

Here is what I mean

https://youtu.be/iXI_VyQ0gkU

So this is basically MIDI overdub but that it extends the clip length? Technically no problem, but how exactly does it know when you just want to overdub (not extending the length) and when you want to extend?

[ArtemiHo]

So this is basically MIDI overdub but that it extends the clip length? Technically no problem, but how exactly does it know when you just want to overdub (not extending the length) and when you want to extend?

Particularly in Maschine it requires you to press "back to start" button.
or by extending the clip to desired length before you start to record.

But by default Maschine keeps extending the clip until you unnarm Rec.
then it creates the clip and brings you to beggining, without overdub

so it's not about overdubbing but more about keeping the midi looping smooth as possible.

Maschine seem to handle the notes that you play before the beat (compensating the delay) quite well. That's what I like about it.
So if you play notes just at the end of the clip it will record them as they were played at the beggining of the clip, if you know what I mean =)

[helgoboss]

Particularly in Maschine it requires you to press "back to start" button.
or by extending the clip to desired length before you start to record.

But by default Maschine keeps extending the clip until you unnarm Rec.
then it creates the clip and brings you to beggining, without overdub

so it's not about overdubbing but more about keeping the midi looping smooth as possible.

Maschine seem to handle the notes that you play before the beat (compensating the delay) quite well. That's what I like about it.
So if you play notes just at the end of the clip it will record them as they were played at the beggining of the clip, if you know what I mean =)

I don't know to be honest ;) Some form of quantization?

The MIDI recording modes I'm currently planning for Playtime 2 are:

1. From scratch, open end: Records a new clip (continuously extending it) until user presses stop and stop bar is reached.
2. From scratch, predefined number of bars: Records a new clip (continuously extending it) until the predefined number of bars is reached.
3. Overdub: Records more material onto an existing clip, leaving existing material there (with optional record quantization). This leaves the length of the clip as it is and loops.
4. Replace: Records more material onto an existing clip, replacing overwriting existing material (with optional record quantization). This leaves the length of the clip as it is and loops.

[dinoc]

So you record the track output (with all FX already applied)?

Playtime 2 requires to set for each column a "playback track" on which the clips in that column are played. By default, it would record material from the hardware input (audio/MIDI) set for that track. But I also want to make it possible to record the output of a track, and this will often be a different track (otherwise there can be a feedback loop on subsequent recordings). So in addition to the "playback track", I will probably provide an option "record output from track" for each column. Does that solve your issue?

Hi helgoboss, thats right, I record with all vst fx applied.
Regarding the option for "record output from track", just wanted to mention: in the current version of Playtime I can somewhat do that by telling the playtime group to record from the source track but also, in the source track's record button in reaper I select "Record Output: Stereo" instead of "Record input audio or midi".
The issue with this is that the recordings show up as takes in the track that has the playtime effect loaded. I show it in the capture
https://ibb.co/0hFGVpf
And this doesnt allow me to control the volume and panning/ balance of each recording. That is why i'd like to have the option to route the outputs somehow. Would that be possible with the option you mentioned?

[ArtemiHo]

I don't know to be honest ;) Some form of quantization?


yeah probably, who knows.


Will there a possibility to change those modes with shortcuts?

[helgoboss]

Hi helgoboss, thats right, I record with all vst fx applied.
Regarding the option for "record output from track", just wanted to mention: in the current version of Playtime I can somewhat do that by telling the playtime group to record from the source track but also, in the source track's record button in reaper I select "Record Output: Stereo" instead of "Record input audio or midi".
The issue with this is that the recordings show up as takes in the track that has the playtime effect loaded. I show it in the capture
https://ibb.co/0hFGVpf
And this doesnt allow me to control the volume and panning/ balance of each recording. That is why i'd like to have the option to route the outputs somehow. Would that be possible with the option you mentioned?

Yes, Playtime 1 already supported recording the output of track X and prevented the feedback loop by playing the result in the Playtime track itself. Playtime 2 would go one step further and allow you to play the result of recording the output of track X on a custom track Y. You tell me, is this what you mean by "route the outputs somehow"?

[helgoboss]

yeah probably, who knows.


I can't really implement it if I don't know what it does. For now I will concentrate on the modes that I find useful and when it's finished you can check if something is missing that would make the recording experience more pleasant.


Will there a possibility to change those modes with shortcuts?

Keyboard shortcuts?

Playtime 2 is integrated with ReaLearn, so you have all the ReaLearn goodies available. And ReaLearn will probably be extended to also support keyboard shortcuts as source.

[ArtemiHo]

I can't really implement it if I don't know what it does. For now I will concentrate on the modes that I find useful and when it's finished you can check if something is missing that would make the recording experience more pleasant.



I'm more than happy with your planned modes

Sorry never used Realearn.
It would be cool to be able to limit the amount of mouse clicks to minnimum.
Just to be able to use the muscle memory.

[mehmethan]

Great news.. Thanks for your hard work Helgoboss.I'm sure you know what is needed and what can be done for Playtime2 but if you need suggestions, here is what I would like to have in Playtime2 as a long time Playtime1 user:

1- Follow actions like Ableton Live.
2- Macro Control Support.(Control FX parameters of tracks individually or in global level)
3- Full Push2 and Launchpad integration.
4- Realtime midi quantize (quantize midi clip automatically after it is recorded)

Regards.

[helgoboss]

Great news.. Thanks for your hard work Helgoboss.I'm sure you know what is needed and what can be done for Playtime2 but if you need suggestions, here is what I would like to have in Playtime2 as a long time Playtime1 user:

1- Follow actions like Ableton Live.
2- Macro Control Support.(Control FX parameters of tracks individually or in global level)
3- Full Push2 and Launchpad integration.
4- Realtime midi quantize (quantize midi clip automatically after it is recorded)

Regards.

1. Planned (after initial release)
2. Why not use ReaLearn?
3. Can you give a list of features that you want to see supported? I think most Launchpad features could be achievable. Push 2 though ... a different story. This one has many features that are not clip-launching related, so these are probably out of scope.
4. Planned

[Thor]

Planning to support clips that can trigger "automation", but probably by letting MIDI clips control the FX parameters, not automation envelopes or automation items (latter don't have any real advantage for clip launching). The challenge here is to offer an intuitive UI for that.


I did actually do it in this way also with Playtime 1 using clips that had instances of reacontrol midi on them. It did work but the issue was as you point out, not very intuitive or accomodating for a fast workflow. And of course no nice features such as relative fades and such.

It never ceases to amaze me that this type of functionality is not built into the market-leading clip launcher Ableton live. Having to use dummy tracks and dummy clips feels like such a clumsy way to achieve it.

[dinoc]

Yes, Playtime 1 already supported recording the output of track X and prevented the feedback loop by playing the result in the Playtime track itself. Playtime 2 would go one step further and allow you to play the result of recording the output of track X on a custom track Y. You tell me, is this what you mean by "route the outputs somehow"?

That really sounds good Helgoboss, a lot more like I was looking for ;)
Nice, looking forward for that new installment of playtime :)

[TVbene]

BTW, there's something what would be good for me to know and could potentially influence development priorities a bit. Can all of you interested in Playtime give some reasons why you don't choose Ableton Live or Bitwig instead? I certainly have my reasons but I would like to know what are yours.

For me the big reason was the non-exclusive mode that is so helpful for a simple track layout when live looping. I always start from scratch, and then I'll just layer a few instruments. Being able to add and deactivate "overdubs" per instrument is great.
So I'm very much looking forward to Playtime 2. I have a few ideas that I got with my approach:

- Could it be possible to implement a way to "render" a track while looping?
So something like: "switch to recording output of track and play it back on a new track"

- If navigating up/down/left/right in the matrix could be mapped this would help a lot for recording with a footswitch (trigger currently selected cell). The same goes for modes for selecting (or deleting) cells on a grid controller. For example just have a Launchpad to select the next cell and see which ones are playing. Maybe even change the currently selected loop length with the buttons besides the 8x8 pads and then press a footswitch to start recording. You'd never need to look at the GUI.

I tried to build something like this with a script for Bitwig and my Launchpad Mini, works like this:
https://youtu.be/hnhbUy6755U?t=62

[sound warrior]

Hi Benjamin thanks for your reply, just a few follow-up questions.
Firstly would you like me to look into the accessibility of rust swell? I can try to do a deep dive if you need me to just let me know.
Secondly am I right in thinking that you could record clips to their own individual tracks? By sending them to an empty track and then setting that track to record the output? Would this be the best way of doing this?
Thirdly will the screen reader support includes spoken feedback for actions for example playtime stopped or playtime playing?
Just as an aside I have some questions about realearn, where can I ask them please? Thank you very much for your help it's a great thing you're doing :-)Thanks, I will look into them as soon as I start with the UI.



So this is basically MIDI overdub but that it extends the clip length? Technically no problem, but how exactly does it know when you just want to overdub (not extending the length) and when you want to extend?

[helgoboss]

For me the big reason was the non-exclusive mode that is so helpful for a simple track layout when live looping. I always start from scratch, and then I'll just layer a few instruments. Being able to add and deactivate "overdubs" per instrument is great.
So I'm very much looking forward to Playtime 2. I have a few ideas that I got with my approach:

- Could it be possible to implement a way to "render" a track while looping?
So something like: "switch to recording output of track and play it back on a new track"

- If navigating up/down/left/right in the matrix could be mapped this would help a lot for recording with a footswitch (trigger currently selected cell). The same goes for modes for selecting (or deleting) cells on a grid controller. For example just have a Launchpad to select the next cell and see which ones are playing. Maybe even change the currently selected loop length with the buttons besides the 8x8 pads and then press a footswitch to start recording. You'd never need to look at the GUI.

I tried to build something like this with a script for Bitwig and my Launchpad Mini, works like this:
https://youtu.be/hnhbUy6755U?t=62

Yes, non-exclusive mode is also something I want to keep. Just too useful and wonder why Ableton doesn't have it.

Don't quite understand the "render a track while looping" thing. Can you explain a bit more?

About the navigation stuff ideas: I'm planning to equip Playtime with lots of usable ReaLearn targets options over time. If you haven't checked out ReaLearn, now's a good time.

Hi Benjamin thanks for your reply, just a few follow-up questions.
Firstly would you like me to look into the accessibility of rust swell? I can try to do a deep dive if you need me to just let me know.
Secondly am I right in thinking that you could record clips to their own individual tracks? By sending them to an empty track and then setting that track to record the output? Would this be the best way of doing this?
Thirdly will the screen reader support includes spoken feedback for actions for example playtime stopped or playtime playing?
Just as an aside I have some questions about realearn, where can I ask them please? Thank you very much for your help it's a great thing you're doing :-)

No need to look into accessibility of Rust. Rust is a programming language, not a user interface framework, so it's irrelevant. Also, the main user interface will be solely written in Flutter.

A clip will always play on the track that's set for the column. It will record from the record track that's set for the column.

About the screen reader support including spoken feedback: The best would be if you tell me :) It's hard for me to put myself into the shoes of someone completely blind, so maybe you can come up with a concept of how you would wish a session view to work for blind persons. In my everyday job I'm used to build software upon requirements defined by someone else. With Playtime, I define the requirements mostly myself. But when it comes to accessibility, I have absolutely no idea, so I need to rely on your input. The conceptual input is much more important for me than the technical input (I will try to sort the technical things out myself). Right now I'm not there yet since I'm still working on the engine but it can't hurt to think a bit about it. So if you have some time, think about the question: How would the session view of your dreams feel/sound (totally ignoring possible technical limitations for a moment)? That would be the best input for me.

The ReaLearn forum thread is here: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=178015

[dna598]

What doesn't exist in Playtime 1 is the ability to record to the arrangement by *replacing* existing items on the track. The same is true for just playing clips in the session view: Playing a clip on track x doesn't mute the arrangement items on track x. This is just a totally different concept than in Ableton, which seems to have the limitation to play either only session view clips OR arrangement view items on a track. Maybe that limitation makes sense from a musical point of view, I'll have to think about this.



Hi Helgoboss. Any news on your thoughts about implementing this? Will it be possible?

[helgoboss]

Hi Helgoboss. Any news on your thoughts about implementing this? Will it be possible?

It's possible to implement, yes. It's a non-live/arrangement feature so it would be fine using the Playtime 1 item drawing technique for that. Not in that stage of development yet. My agenda is roughly like this:

1. Build clip engine and integrate it into ReaLearn (<= I'm here) ... the outcome will be a kind of "headless" Playtime that will already be usable by itself for script nerds and unconditional preset lovers.
2. Build user interface for controlling the clip engine.
3. Build the arrangement features (recording to arrangement and so on).
4. Build user interface for the arrangement features.

[dna598]

It's possible to implement, yes. It's a non-live/arrangement feature so it would be fine using the Playtime 1 item drawing technique for that. Not in that stage of development yet. My agenda is roughly like this:

1. Build clip engine and integrate it into ReaLearn (<= I'm here) ... the outcome will be a kind of "headless" Playtime that will already be usable by itself for script nerds and unconditional preset lovers.
2. Build user interface for controlling the clip engine.
3. Build the arrangement features (recording to arrangement and so on).
4. Build user interface for the arrangement features.

Thank you for the reply. Looking forward to checking it out.

[TVbene]

Yes, non-exclusive mode is also something I want to keep. Just too useful and wonder why Ableton doesn't have it.

Don't quite understand the "render a track while looping" thing. Can you explain a bit more?


Well I meant the idea of freezing/bouncing/rendering tracks to „save CPU“. So while I‘m looping MIDI into a VSTi or maybe an audio signal into an amp sim VST, I might be playing around with some FX parameters until I‘m content. So these plugins must be running and I can’t use „record post FXs“. Afterwards it would be great to have a function to record the track output during the next loop cycle and then loop only this signal without any plugins being used. Like I wrote, maybe just play back the new audio loop on a new track and at the same time deactivate the old one so no processing is done there. Maybe mute it and deactivate all FXs?
Hope that makes it clearer?

[helgoboss]

Well I meant the idea of freezing/bouncing/rendering tracks to „save CPU“. So while I‘m looping MIDI into a VSTi or maybe an audio signal into an amp sim VST, I might be playing around with some FX parameters until I‘m content. So these plugins must be running and I can’t use „record post FXs“. Afterwards it would be great to have a function to record the track output during the next loop cycle and then loop only this signal without any plugins being used. Like I wrote, maybe just play back the new audio loop on a new track and at the same time deactivate the old one so no processing is done there. Maybe mute it and deactivate all FXs?
Hope that makes it clearer?

Clear now, thanks. This sounds like a useful feature. "Freeze clip" I would call it. Probably one of the post-1.0 features. This kind of nice add-ons is easy to add when the basics are there already. For now I will just keep it in the back of my mind.

[sound warrior]

Hi Benjamin, sorry for my late reply. Below I will attend to outline A concept for playtime to from my perspective as a blind user.
Different columns are able to play individual sounds or groups of sounds for example a scene, this is similar to live session view or logic pro X live loops. I would imagine Playtime two would have some distinct areas in the plug-in. A control area for controlling the functions of the plug-in and individual columns and scenes. A separate area for individual columns were individual sounds are played and a separate area for individual scenes. By splitting these into three distinct areas it makes the plug-in easy to navigate. The columns and scenes are in a gridlike view similar to logic pro X live loops. The columns and scenes are represented by keyboard shortcuts or tied to buttons on a grid like midi controller for example novation launchpad pro Mini. Each of the columns and scenes can be sent to their own unique track or group of tracks for post processing. The process of sending them to the tracks would be controlled from within The controls area of the plug-in. As with Ableton live session view and logic pro X live loops transitions between individual sounds or scenes would be completely seamless with no gaps of silence in between. The screen reader will give feedback when certain plug-in actions are triggered for example play time to stop to play time2 playing column 1 playing column 2 playing. The transitions between columns or scenes would be quantised to the grid, so everything kept in time. This would of course be configurable. There may be different modes that each of the scenes or columns could playing but this is so far what I have come up with. Please let me know if you have any further questions and I look forward to continuing working with you on this, A quick addendum while I’m writing this on the fly if you are planning to make columns that play individual sounds and scenes that play i groups of sounds separate then A further area of the plug-in may be required to assign particular columns to particular scene. Once again thank you for reading and I hope this helps :-)Yes, non-exclusive mode is also something I want to keep. Just too useful and wonder why Ableton doesn't have it.

Don't quite understand the "render a track while looping" thing. Can you explain a bit more?

About the navigation stuff ideas: I'm planning to equip Playtime with lots of usable ReaLearn targets options over time. If you haven't checked out ReaLearn, now's a good time.



No need to look into accessibility of Rust. Rust is a programming language, not a user interface framework, so it's irrelevant. Also, the main user interface will be solely written in Flutter.

A clip will always play on the track that's set for the column. It will record from the record track that's set for the column.

About the screen reader support including spoken feedback: The best would be if you tell me :) It's hard for me to put myself into the shoes of someone completely blind, so maybe you can come up with a concept of how you would wish a session view to work for blind persons. In my everyday job I'm used to build software upon requirements defined by someone else. With Playtime, I define the requirements mostly myself. But when it comes to accessibility, I have absolutely no idea, so I need to rely on your input. The conceptual input is much more important for me than the technical input (I will try to sort the technical things out myself). Right now I'm not there yet since I'm still working on the engine but it can't hurt to think a bit about it. So if you have some time, think about the question: How would the session view of your dreams feel/sound (totally ignoring possible technical limitations for a moment)? That would be the best input for me.

The ReaLearn forum thread is here: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=178015

[mschnell]

"headless" Playtime that will already be usable by itself for script nerds and unconditional preset lovers.
Hmm.

To me this seems to be of a lot of practical use, being remote controlled by many kinds of "Control Surface" devices (via Midi).
-Michael

[deseipel]

Ableton only supports videos in the $500 version, that's why I switched to Reaper. It was a plus that I came across Playtime and that it supports video.

[terminar]

Hi Benjamin,

if you have some information about some sort of Playtime2 API please let me know.
Reason why I am asking: I'm still hacking on Rebellion (that hijacking Native Instruments devices project using their own "native" protocol thing). If you are interested in support to get the devices work with Playtime2 (Maschine Jam, Maschine MK3, ...) please let me know.
I think it would be nice if we can find a point where I can attach Rebellion to.

Bye
Björn

[helgoboss]

Hi Benjamin,

if you have some information about some sort of Playtime2 API please let me know.
Reason why I am asking: I'm still hacking on Rebellion (that hijacking Native Instruments devices project using their own "native" protocol thing). If you are interested in support to get the devices work with Playtime2 (Maschine Jam, Maschine MK3, ...) please let me know.
I think it would be nice if we can find a point where I can attach Rebellion to.

Bye
Björn

Oh cool, definitely. Let me know about the functions you need (including some pseudo function signatures) and I will see what I can do to expose them as ReaScript functions.

[helgoboss]

Small update: I have the clip engine of Playtime 2 in a state now that's already usable in some ways. Before releasing it, I still need to fix some issues in the current ReaLearn pre-release, build a few hardware-integration presets and a REAPER test project. Hopefully I will have something ready at the end of next week.

[ArtemiHo]

Great to hear that, looking forward for the updates.

[helgoboss]

Hi Benjamin, sorry for my late reply. Below I will attend to outline A concept for playtime to from my perspective as a blind user.
Different columns are able to play individual sounds or groups of sounds for example a scene, this is similar to live session view or logic pro X live loops. I would imagine Playtime two would have some distinct areas in the plug-in. A control area for controlling the functions of the plug-in and individual columns and scenes. A separate area for individual columns were individual sounds are played and a separate area for individual scenes. By splitting these into three distinct areas it makes the plug-in easy to navigate. The columns and scenes are in a gridlike view similar to logic pro X live loops. The columns and scenes are represented by keyboard shortcuts or tied to buttons on a grid like midi controller for example novation launchpad pro Mini. Each of the columns and scenes can be sent to their own unique track or group of tracks for post processing. The process of sending them to the tracks would be controlled from within The controls area of the plug-in. As with Ableton live session view and logic pro X live loops transitions between individual sounds or scenes would be completely seamless with no gaps of silence in between. The screen reader will give feedback when certain plug-in actions are triggered for example play time to stop to play time2 playing column 1 playing column 2 playing. The transitions between columns or scenes would be quantised to the grid, so everything kept in time. This would of course be configurable. There may be different modes that each of the scenes or columns could playing but this is so far what I have come up with. Please let me know if you have any further questions and I look forward to continuing working with you on this, A quick addendum while I’m writing this on the fly if you are planning to make columns that play individual sounds and scenes that play i groups of sounds separate then A further area of the plug-in may be required to assign particular columns to particular scene. Once again thank you for reading and I hope this helps :-)

Thanks for the input, sound warrior. I will keep that in mind when developing the UI and probably come back now and then to seek your input.

[terminar]

Oh cool, definitely. Let me know about the functions you need (including some pseudo function signatures) and I will see what I can do to expose them as ReaScript functions.

Not knowing yet how Playtime2 will "look like" or what it does provide as possibilities later on (compared to Playtime1) that's a complicated question ^^
But I have an idea how I can get some progress here:

Just some technical info for you, currently Rebellion translates the "NIHA/NIHIA" hardware/software events (from the devices) into more generalized Rebellion events (some sort of JsonRPC packets). That's done completely in a shared library which can be directly used with two C functions (sort of).
It started as idea out of the work on reaKontrol (https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=222331) somewhere on the thread at ~page 4. The first idea was to integrate this directly into the reaKontrol module. Second idea was to create a single independent Reaper module which then provides usable functions (then detectable and used in reaKontrol but also from other scripts/modules).

Currently to get further down the POC/prototype way I'm createing an OSC gateway which maps the generalized Rebellion events to the DrivenByMoss4Reaper/DrivenByMoss4Bitwig OSC commands (https://github.com/git-moss/DrivenByMoss-Documentation/blob/master/Generic-Tools-Protocols/Open-Sound-Control-(OSC).md) and AbletonOSC (https://github.com/ideoforms/AbletonOSC).

I'll try to get some first impression (especially from the Ableton OSC/Ableton Live API) what "functions/messages" are useful to attach the hardware to the DAWs.

I'll then contact you again with some information/feedback and maybe some "wishes" regarding possible API commands if that's ok.
Not sure if I'll then stay with the OSC way. Maybe Moss' OSC API will just work with Playtime2 some sort of or if I just merge this into the Rebellion Reaper module mentioned. I try not to reinvent the wheel and if DrivenByMoss4Reaper is "just working" for Reaper and even for Bitwig then two DAWs are supported.

Greetings!
Björn

[helgoboss]

Not knowing yet how Playtime2 will "look like" or what it does provide as possibilities later on (compared to Playtime1) that's a complicated question ^^
But I have an idea how I can get some progress here:

Just some technical info for you, currently Rebellion translates the "NIHA/NIHIA" hardware/software events (from the devices) into more generalized Rebellion events (some sort of JsonRPC packets). That's done completely in a shared library which can be directly used with two C functions (sort of).
It started as idea out of the work on reaKontrol (https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=222331) somewhere on the thread at ~page 4. The first idea was to integrate this directly into the reaKontrol module. Second idea was to create a single independent Reaper module which then provides usable functions (then detectable and used in reaKontrol but also from other scripts/modules).

Currently to get further down the POC/prototype way I'm createing an OSC gateway which maps the generalized Rebellion events to the DrivenByMoss4Reaper/DrivenByMoss4Bitwig OSC commands (https://github.com/git-moss/DrivenByMoss-Documentation/blob/master/Generic-Tools-Protocols/Open-Sound-Control-(OSC).md) and AbletonOSC (https://github.com/ideoforms/AbletonOSC).

I'll try to get some first impression (especially from the Ableton OSC/Ableton Live API) what "functions/messages" are useful to attach the hardware to the DAWs.

I'll then contact you again with some information/feedback and maybe some "wishes" regarding possible API commands if that's ok.
Not sure if I'll then stay with the OSC way. Maybe Moss' OSC API will just work with Playtime2 some sort of or if I just merge this into the Rebellion Reaper module mentioned. I try not to reinvent the wheel and if DrivenByMoss4Reaper is "just working" for Reaper and even for Bitwig then two DAWs are supported.

Greetings!
Björn

Yes, I think it's a good idea to use Live as an orientation.

It will probably not just work with DrivenByMoss4Reaper, there's no collaboration so far. I guess someone could make it work though because the hardware integration of Playtime 2 is done with ReaLearn and ReaLearn supports OSC. If I understand correctly, the DrivenByMoss4Reaper OSC page just describes a "standardized" set of OSC messages used to communicate with a session view and you now adjust to that standard by adhering to that protocol. That would be cool because it means it wouldn't even need a DrivenByMoss installation to make Playtime 2 work with Rebellion - as long as someone creates a proper ReaLearn preset.

Anyway, these OSC pages you linked to are also a good orientation for me. Thanks. Maybe, by creating a ReaLearn preset that follows this protocol, I could make Playtime instantly compatible with DrivenByMoss4Reaper (as an alternative for my own integrations of Launchpad etc.) and your Rebellion.

[Pashkuli]

Great news! This functionality makes Reaper a decent alternative to Ableton\BitWig. Well not quite, but it is unbelievable that such features are available!

[Reflected]

No, I decided to make it a VSTi again. It's much more flexible and there are no downsides compared to an extension.

I'm not sure about that.
I'm using Mulab/Mux in reaper and the downside of using it as vst is that I can't drag and drop vsts from reaper's plugin browser into mux, or drag and drop things from reaper scripts into mux etc...

I just hope that you are right for the long run.

[helgoboss]

Great news! This functionality makes Reaper a decent alternative to Ableton\BitWig. Well not quite, but it is unbelievable that such features are available!

It has the potential to be better in some ways. And in other ways it can be worse. In short: It's just different. Certainly it will be more REAPER-esque :)


I'm not sure about that.
I'm using Mulab/Mux in reaper and the downside of using it as vst is that I can't drag and drop vsts from reaper's plugin browser into mux, or drag and drop things from reaper scripts into mux etc...

I just hope that you are right for the long run.

This is totally unrelated to it being a VST or not. It just doesn't implement drag and drop of REAPER stuff.

[mschnell]

I'm not sure about that.
I, too, am planning to do a kind of Reaper extesion (in fact a replacement/enhancement of SWS LiveConfigs).

I found that a VST can do everything, a Reaper extension can do via the Reaper APOI, and even more as it also can use the VST API and easily can use the OS API and GUI. (But in fact I decided that way, as I can use the very advanced JUCE framework for GUI and "standard" stuff.)
-Michael

[voidengineer]

It will probably not just work with DrivenByMoss4Reaper, there's no collaboration so far.


I would love to see some kind of collaboration on this. DrivenByMoss4Reaper works great for Launchpad-style controllers, but the included "session mode" is a bit rudimentary. If DrivenByMoss4Reaper could (optionally) support Playtime 2 this would be incredible.

I guess @moss would have to implement this, provided that you publish an API.

[SeanTypedThis]

Oh my god, how did I miss this news for almost 2 months??

This is amazing, I can't wait to see what you come out with.

I haven't had time to get through every post so far, but as someone who has used Playtime for both live performance and composing to great success, I don't have many complaints or much to add. Though I've worked it into my flow, having it run independent of transport sounds like a great feature/option in certain use cases.

One question, will custom controller configurations be backwards compatible? I've got Playtime pretty tightly integrated with a few QuNeo patches, and it would be nice not to keep some of that functionality without too much tweaking.

Alright, time to dust off my Mobius looper wish-list and delve a little deeper into what has already been commented/posted.... Thanks again always for all of the great work!

[helgoboss]

One question, will custom controller configurations be backwards compatible? I've got Playtime pretty tightly integrated with a few QuNeo patches, and it would be nice not to keep some of that functionality without too much tweaking.

Probably not, it will be a rather hard break. These babies are too different. The backward compatibility story for Playtime 2 and onwards will probably be better because it's much more thought out and the controller integration is based on ReaLearn.

[SeanTypedThis]

Probably not, it will be a rather hard break. These babies are too different. The backward compatibility story for Playtime 2 and onwards will probably be better because it's much more thought out and the controller integration is based on ReaLearn.

No worries, not adverse to the occasional meticulous re-imagining.

I actually make use of Realearn as an insert fx at present to handle the bulk of of my midi output and input mappings already, so that part should feel right at home. Can't wait!

[hangnef]

I would love to see some kind of collaboration on this. DrivenByMoss4Reaper works great for Launchpad-style controllers, but the included "session mode" is a bit rudimentary. If DrivenByMoss4Reaper could (optionally) support Playtime 2 this would be incredible.

I guess @moss would have to implement this, provided that you publish an API.

This would be amazing…

[pcp]

This would be amazing…

+1 to this, I'd love to see, if not integration, then benign coexistence with DBM. Tried using Realearn before and impressive as it seemed, I had some issues running alongside DBM (which is ample mapping-wise for my needs, esp with new device param mode) so I ended up uninstalling Realearn. DBM is far from a real session-view though and as a MK1 Push-jockey, Playtime 2 looks really exciting.

[helgoboss]

+1 to this, I'd love to see, if not integration, then benign coexistence with DBM. Tried using Realearn before and impressive as it seemed, I had some issues running alongside DBM (which is ample mapping-wise for my needs, esp with new device param mode) so I ended up uninstalling Realearn. DBM is far from a real session-view though and as a MK1 Push-jockey, Playtime 2 looks really exciting.

ReaLearn shares the MIDI device with REAPER and even only takes control of the LEDs/faders that actually are mapped. Unfortunately it seems to stand pretty much alone with this capability. REAPER's built-in control surfaces, CSI and I think also DBM unfortunately don't play nice as they are built in a way that requires exclusive access to the device. However, if you want to control one device with DBM and another one with ReaLearn, this shouldn't be a problem!?

[daniellumertz]

I just now have seen this thread ! Thanks a lot for your work, :D good luck to you I know you can do it!
Edit: are you planning some way to interact with the API? Via scripts or maybe via triggering clips like Ableton+clyphxpro

[helgoboss]

I just now have seen this thread ! Thanks a lot for your work, :D good luck to you I know you can do it!
Edit: are you planning some way to interact with the API? Via scripts or maybe via triggering clips like Ableton+clyphxpro

Definitely want to make it scriptable. Let me know what you need.

[pcp]

ReaLearn shares the MIDI device with REAPER and even only takes control of the LEDs/faders that actually are mapped. Unfortunately it seems to stand pretty much alone with this capability. REAPER's built-in control surfaces, CSI and I think also DBM unfortunately don't play nice as they are built in a way that requires exclusive access to the device. However, if you want to control one device with DBM and another one with ReaLearn, this shouldn't be a problem!?

Ah, that's really cool, thanks. Once Playtime 2 is out I'll try setting it up this way with DBM controlling my keyboard and RL/PT on the Push.

[helgoboss]

Ah, that's really cool, thanks. Once Playtime 2 is out I'll try setting it up this way with DBM controlling my keyboard and RL/PT on the Push.

The Push is very broad in scope, covering more than just clip launching. Playtime 2 probably won't go as far as implementing all of those extra features, at least not in its initial release. If DBM implements those extra features and you want them, you might still be better off using DBM for it.

I will try to (at least partially) implement the OSC protocol that was mentioned in one of the previous posts. If I understand the purpose of this protocol correctly, it should make Playtime 2 and DBM somewhat compatible. This part will probably be a work-in-progress and need user feedback to slowly improve.

[dna598]

I am hoping to be able to "razor edit + drag" from arrangement to the session (clip) view, in order to create scenes that can be triggered and over dubbed back onto the arrangement.
I have a push2 here, but I am just as happy using the qwerty keyboard.In fact I may even prefer the qwerty.

[vonglan]

Playtime 2 sounds great! I just discovered this thread.

Why I prefer Reaper over Ableton? Because it is very programmable. And I do not like to pay much for a lot of features that I do not use.

I would like to repeat one feature request that I wrote in the Playtime 1 thread:
I would like to trigger actions, that perform quantize or duplicate (length) on the selected clip.

[daniellumertz]

Definitely want to make it scriptable. Let me know what you need.

Well I just have two though about the scripting part

obs: my considerations are biased by using clyph x pro so maybe you have a better perspective to your system.

1) how the user triggers the scripts
we can trigger using action list and shortcuts/MIDI/OSC which is good but if possible the user could also set a clip to trigger a script. maybe like SWS marker actions (?)

this way the user could set a bunch of scripts to work in his sessions, the good part is that it can be triggered with the clip quantization. Could make a script to playhead go to the next marker, and the clip would trigger it with the quantization. Or a clip could trigger a script to trigger a random clip from track X. (I know you already can make a clip trigger a clip in playtime1).

2) API
I dont have much to request in the API. I think a bunch of low level actions like triggerclip, count clips in row x, count clips in column y, set clip informations, get clip information(things like toggle mode, untriggermode, if is midi, idk how are the settings for your new system just giving some exemples based on playtime1 hehe).

This is the ClyphXpro documentation there is a bunch of actions there that might inspire you https://isotonikstudios.com/wp-content/uploads/ClyphX-Pro-User-Manual-1.pdf.


Thanks for your work :D

[Regisfofo]

Oups wrong thread sorry...

[Wilson]

Would it be possible in Version 2 to store the VSTi/VST settings per clip?
That means if I have a Synth for example and a couple of Midi Files on different clips, can we change the Synth setting on each clip (like snapshots)?

Clip 1: Cutoff full up
Clip 2: Cutoff full down

[voidengineer]

I will try to (at least partially) implement the OSC protocol that was mentioned in one of the previous posts. If I understand the purpose of this protocol correctly, it should make Playtime 2 and DBM somewhat compatible. This part will probably be a work-in-progress and need user feedback to slowly improve.

I think the purpose of DBMs OSC protocol is to allow OSC-based control surfaces (TouchOSC, etc.) to trigger the functions DBM provides. I see no way of using it to let DBM call into Playtime 2.

All the commands that look promising (https://github.com/git-moss/DrivenByMoss-Documentation/blob/master/Generic-Tools-Protocols/Open-Sound-Control-(OSC).md#receive---scenes-slots-and-clips) are on the receiving side, so DBM reacts to them. It cannot send a message "/scene/1/launch" to Playtime 2.

[helgoboss]

I think the purpose of DBMs OSC protocol is to allow OSC-based control surfaces (TouchOSC, etc.) to trigger the functions DBM provides. I see no way of using it to let DBM call into Playtime 2.

All the commands that look promising (https://github.com/git-moss/DrivenByMoss-Documentation/blob/master/Generic-Tools-Protocols/Open-Sound-Control-(OSC).md#receive---scenes-slots-and-clips) are on the receiving side, so DBM reacts to them. It cannot send a message "/scene/1/launch" to Playtime 2.

Thanks for the info, then I've misunderstood! In that case, Playtime-DBM-interoperability would need some work on DBM side.

In general, interfacing with DBM is a thing I potentially see happening in the future, not now. Working on other things at the moment. Integration with ReaLearn has first priority for me because it's the most customizable solution out there and I know it inside out. DBM interoperability would be a nice bonus for users who want to use its non-grid-related features.

@voidengineer At least the other link that was mentioned, https://github.com/ideoforms/AbletonOSC, seems to refer to a protocol that could be worth to implement - in order to make Playtime compatible with some existing OSC layouts. Any comments on this one?

[pcp]

In that case, Playtime-DBM-interoperability would need some work on DBM side.

Thanks for looking into this! My needs are rather simple in terms of integration, as I wouldnt need to use the push for isomorphic/mpc playing at the same time as using it as a playtime launcher. So as long as I can set up an action to toggle whether Realearn/PT or DBM is controlling the push at any given moment (and from what you mentioned it sounds like that would just be a toggle to disable DBM control of the push, assuming no active Realearn profile on the device), then I'll be happy. I'll pick up playtime 2 when it is released anyway and figure it out then, sounds incredible so far.

[voidengineer]

@voidengineer At least the other link that was mentioned, https://github.com/ideoforms/AbletonOSC, seems to refer to a protocol that could be worth to implement - in order to make Playtime compatible with some existing OSC layouts. Any comments on this one?

I cannot say much about this! Maybe it could be useful to implement their Clip Slot API and Clip API.

From an API design perspective, I don't like that every command is prefixed with `/live` since they use their specific ports anyway. This way the Live-API would leak into Playtime 2.

And I don't have the slightest idea, if there are any existing layouts out there (for TouchOSC, etc.) that use this commands.

[helgoboss]

Finally an update. Here's a video about the first milestone on the road to Playtime 2:

6iEMKUcwzMs

Feel free to comment or ask questions here in this thread.

[Jed]

Go hard Ben!

Cheers
Jed

[themixtape]

Niiiiiice!

[wibem]

How can you edit the content of a clip? Is there any visual representation of the clips in Reaper?

[Jorchime]

Finally an update. Here's a video about the first milestone on the road to Playtime 2:

6iEMKUcwzMs

Feel free to comment or ask questions here in this thread.

Great video! Thank you so much for your work!

At first I was a bit confused that the clip engine is part of ReaLearn.
But in the end it makes a lot of sense to me.
Integrating it with ReaLearn could mean that configuring the playtime controller becomes much more accessible and versatile. (even though it its fine for me as it works in the original playtime)

[Jorchime]

How can you edit the content of a clip? Is there any visual representation of the clips in Reaper?

The clip engine is just the core of it so far. In the video Helgoboss mentions that there will be a playtime app later, that will act as a front.

[helgoboss]

How can you edit the content of a clip? Is there any visual representation of the clips in Reaper?

As Jorchime says, the visuals are not part of the engine. That said, there are ways to edit the content already now, but they are not straightforward:

For MIDI clips, sustain+double-tapping the clip on the APC controller opens its contents in REAPER's MIDI editor, at least in the current configuration of my demo project. Modifications are applied immediately to the clip.

As an alternative, one can export/reimport the complete matrix as Lua code, which contains the MIDI data in the same form as REAPER saves in-project MIDI in RPP files. Audio clips contents are just references to audio files.

Great video! Thank you so much for your work!

At first I was a bit confused that the clip engine is part of ReaLearn.
But in the end it makes a lot of sense to me.
Integrating it with ReaLearn could mean that configuring the playtime controller becomes much more accessible and versatile. (even though it its fine for me as it works in the original playtime)

In the end, ReaLearn and Playtime are very similar. Both make it possible to play the DAW like an instrument. ReaLearn plays DAW parameters. Playtime plays DAW clips.

It's possible that I will rename ReaLearn to Playtime Core or something like that in the future because the name ReaLearn doesn't really live up anymore to all the capabilities that it has.

[Pashkuli]

Finally an update. Here's a video about the first milestone on the road to Playtime 2:

6iEMKUcwzMs

Feel free to comment or ask questions here in this thread.

Great plugin! Who would need Ableton really?

At around 14:00 I really wanted to see the offbeat implementation.
And seems you have done it just right.
Been trying to find such functionality in Ableton years ago (maybe they have it now).

Could not quite understand the Meta Clips as an alternative to "follow actions" (Ableton), but seems it works great from the video demonstration.

RaeLearn2 and Playtime is definitely catapulting Reaper up in the stratosphere.

[vonglan]

Great stuff! Great video!
Will you put an example project somewhere on ReaLearn github?

[helgoboss]

Great plugin! Who would need Ableton really?

At around 14:00 I really wanted to see the offbeat implementation.
And seems you have done it just right.
Been trying to find such functionality in Ableton years ago (maybe they have it now).

Could not quite understand the Meta Clips as an alternative to "follow actions" (Ableton), but seems it works great from the video demonstration.

RaeLearn2 and Playtime is definitely catapulting Reaper up in the stratosphere.

I don't think Live has that kind of pickup beat support even now. Tried to find it myself in the current version but without luck.

I think there are still valid reasons why one would choose Live over REAPER, mainly the streamlined GUI which supports a particular workflow and is consistent across all parts of the DAW + hardware made especially for Live (something that a REAPER plug-in can't offer, at least not with this amount of concistency). But the downside of such a prescribed workflow is much less freedom and weird limitations as soon as you want to leave the normal path. This is where REAPER shines and where Playtime/ReaLearn fits in nicely.

About meta clips being an alternative for follow actions: I think most use cases of follow actions translate to sequences of clip start/stop actions. And meta clips can do that, too. When you play the meta clip, a sequence of clips is played and you can simply edit this sequence in a MIDI editor. If you want randomization, you can use well-established MIDI tools such as arpeggiators or your own JSFX.

That said, follow actions are on the roadmap. I'm aware that meta clips are not a complete replacement.

Great stuff! Great video!
Will you put an example project somewhere on ReaLearn github?

Yes, I will post here in a few days when I have it ready.

[Vagelis]

Finally an update. Here's a video about the first milestone on the road to Playtime 2:

6iEMKUcwzMs

Feel free to comment or ask questions here in this thread.

Amazing! After this video I'm pretty sure that it's going to be the perfect tool for performance and sketching ideas! :)

I have a question, when midi is being recorded in a clip, would it be possible to double click on it and open the midi editor if we want to make any changes?
And i hope to see faders so we can mix each track from the app.

Also i think that it would be nice the tracks linked to playtime, to have an icon to display that they are part of the playtime matrix.

Thanks a lot for your great work, keep it up!

[helgoboss]

Amazing! After this video I'm pretty sure that it's going to be the perfect tool for performance and sketching ideas! :)

I have a question, when midi is being recorded in a clip, would it be possible to double click on it and open the midi editor if we want to make any changes?
And i hope to see faders so we can mix each track from the app.


Yes, this will probably work similar to Playtime 1 in that it opens the clip in REAPER's built-in MIDI editor, at least on the desktop version of the app. Don't know yet how to approach this on the Android/iPad versions (which I will probably also make available). Was thinking about implementing a simplified grid-based MIDI editor to be able to do at least some quick simple edits without having to reach for REAPER on the desktop.

Yes, you can expect basic column track controls in the app.


Also i think that it would be nice the tracks linked to playtime, to have an icon to display that they are part of the playtime matrix.

Thanks a lot for your great work, keep it up!

Sounds like a good idea.

[Vagelis]

Was thinking about implementing a simplified grid-based MIDI editor to be able to do at least some quick simple edits without having to reach for REAPER on the desktop.

I think maybe It would be nice to have 2 views to switch from Reaper's midi editor to your simplified version, because i would like also to be able and edit, use actions and automation :)

[helgoboss]

I think maybe It would be nice to have 2 views to switch from Reaper's midi editor to your simplified version, because i would like also to be able and edit, use actions and automation :)

In the desktop version, this would be possible but not so necessary because there you can always use REAPER's MIDI editor. On the mobile version, it's not possible to use the REAPER MIDI editor.

[Vagelis]

Ah ok I see, thanks for the clarification :)

[Triode]

This is looking amazing even though it's all under the hood.
Thank you for developing this! I'll be a supporter for sure.

[dinoc]

Finally an update. Here's a video about the first milestone on the road to Playtime 2:

6iEMKUcwzMs

Feel free to comment or ask questions here in this thread.
Very nice update! I love and use both realearn and playtime1
Could you share that sample project to have a looksy?
Cheers

[BenjyO]

Awesome work Benjamin! Looking forward to more of what is to come.

[helgoboss]

Adventurous people can experiment with the new Clip Engine by following the usage instructions on this page: https://github.com/helgoboss/realearn/blob/master/doc/playtime-clip-engine.adoc. There you will also find a link to a template project.

[Doflow]

Adventurous people can experiment with the new Clip Engine by following the usage instructions on this page: https://github.com/helgoboss/realearn/blob/master/doc/playtime-clip-engine.adoc. There you will also find a link to a template project.

Wow, your document writing skills are close to your programming skills. Great Job.
Let's experiment!

[vonglan]

Just looking at the APC Key 25 / Playtime 2 presets, because I would like to adapt them to my old APC 20. Wow, these are also really elegantly written! Adapting them shouldn't be too difficult (for a software developer), but let's see how much time I find ...

[helgoboss]

Wow, your document writing skills are close to your programming skills. Great Job.
Let's experiment!

Thanks ;) Enjoy the experimentation and let me know how it works out.

Just looking at the APC Key 25 / Playtime 2 presets, because I would like to adapt them to my old APC 20. Wow, these are also really elegantly written! Adapting them shouldn't be too difficult (for a software developer), but let's see how much time I find ...

Thank you, I'm surprised you see through this mess haha. I experimented with different styles in an attempt to find the most intuitive one. So far I've grown quite fond of this "additive" style:


name("Play/stop") + no_mod + button("play") + toggle() + transport_action("PlayStop"),

name("Scroll up") + shift_or_sustain + button("col1/stop") + feedback_disabled() + turbo() + scroll_vertically(-1),

name("Click") + shift + button("stop-all-clips") + reaper_action(40364),

name("Switch send") + group(groups.knob_sends) + feedback_disabled() + shift + button("col7/stop") + incremental() + wrap() + set_param(params.send.index),

name("Column stop mode") + group(groups.column_modes) + shift + short_press + button("row1/play") + set_column_mode(column_modes.stop),

...



I found it to be quite readable and it allows you to intuitively throw different aspects of a mapping together. Best of all, it's still Lua, not some exotic DSL which you need to learn first.

[dinoc]

Adventurous people can experiment with the new Clip Engine by following the usage instructions on this page: https://github.com/helgoboss/realearn/blob/master/doc/playtime-clip-engine.adoc. There you will also find a link to a template project.

Nice, do you know if the project template should work with the older version of the touchosc app (mk1)?

[vonglan]

I got it working with the APC 20 in a few hours. I expected more obstacles!
So, if anyone is interested in the Lua scripts to control the Clip Engine with APC20 , contact me.

[KASETA]

This is amazing!

[vonglan]

Tested successfully:
- starting and stopping clips
- scrolling
- volume/pan change
- stop column
- start scene
- delete clip
- overdub clip
- edit clip

Problems with:
- undo/redo (not quite sure what should happen, compared to Reaper undo/redo)
- copy/paste
- double section

Should I wait for the next pre-release, or do you want to know details?

Update:
- copy/paste works. But copy/paste of slots turns of their light (both). They light up after I reimport the main preset from Lua.
- send volume also works

[akademie]

Quickly tried yesterday in Windows 7 (32bit) and it was fun to play with :)

But today I wanted to try the compatibility of the Win7 RPP project in Linux and found out that later versions of ReaLearn2 (higher than v2.7.1) do not scan and therefore do not load in Reaper (Linux).

More info in this thread:
ReaLearn2 (Linux version, after v2.7.1) does not scan and load - Cockos Incorporated Forums (https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=266954)

[helgoboss]

Problems with:
- undo/redo (not quite sure what should happen, compared to Reaper undo/redo)
- copy/paste
- double section

Should I wait for the next pre-release, or do you want to know details?

Details welcome. Those are supposed to work and do work here.

Undo/redo ONLY includes changes within the Clip Matrix, nothing else. That's one difference. In addition to that it should be more reliable than REAPER's undo (which I think has some kind of debouncing built-in in order to not record each little change). At the moment, it includes the following matrix operations:

- Paste clip
- Paste scene
- Build scene (from currently playing clips)
- Toggle looped
- Record clip
- Clear slot (= delete clip)
- Clear scene

[galdoa]

Hello Benjamin,
first of all, thank you for all this work that impresses me. I already use Playtim 1 and I can't wait to see its evolution in version 2.

I try to open the project in Reaper "clip-engine-basic.rpp", but I have the message: There was an error parsin the specified project"
I installed Realern 2.13.0-pre.4 with ReaPack.
My Reaper is a portable version under windows 10.
Do you have any idea what might be wrong?

Bruno (French and very visually impaired)

[helgoboss]

Hello Benjamin,
first of all, thank you for all this work that impresses me. I already use Playtim 1 and I can't wait to see its evolution in version 2.

I try to open the project in Reaper "clip-engine-basic.rpp", but I have the message: There was an error parsin the specified project"
I installed Realern 2.13.0-pre.4 with ReaPack.
My Reaper is a portable version under windows 10.
Do you have any idea what might be wrong?

Bruno (French and very visually impaired)

Maybe you downloaded the GitHub HTML page showing the RPP file instead of the RPP file itself? Here's a direct link to the RPP file: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helgoboss/realearn/master/resources/template-projects/clip-engine-basic/clip-engine-basic.RPP

[galdoa]

THANK YOU, the file opens fine now (the .RPP file I got was 440 KB! ???)
So it works fine now, I can trigger the clips with my midi keyboard. In the end, I imagine being able to use Playtime 2 with my novation LaunchPad X which I do well with Playtime 1.

[FOLKDISCO]

Benjamin,
Fantastic news to hear you're back working on this again. Yes, it will be much better to have things playing from Playtime, rather than drawing onto the arrangment.
Reaper and Playtime is so much better than Ableton IMHO, for all kinds of reasons.

1. It would be lovely if BPM or time signatures could be set within a scene, so they change when the scene starts playing. Is this possible?
In Ableton, you can do this by renaming scenes, which feels like a bit of a hack, but it works. (eg "Verse2 102 BPM 7/4").

2. Could Playtime 2 slots and scenes be triggered with OSC, as well as midi? This would make creating TouchOSC layouts much easier.

3. With Playtime 1, the play/record button is only 1/6 the size of the slot or scene. Could it be the other way around with the main body of a slot/scene being the play button, and other functions smaller? This would make a big difference on little touch screens, though I'll mostly be using TouchOSC to trigger Playtime, and also control VSTs, JSFX, etc.

4. Personally, I'm not too worried about track exclusive mode. Having the option makes things more flexible, but it isn't a biggie.

[mschnell]

Benjamin,
I still am considering (but hopelessly behind my own schedule) to do an improved replacement for SWS LiveConfigs.

I think I'll adopt our idea doing a two-tier design with a background plugin and a GUI plugin.

Do you consider any "standard" communication between those, or do you just implement it as necessary for the project ?
Thanks a lot !

(For certain live performance tasks, Playtime 2 and the planned new LiveConfig supposedly will be an excellent pair.)

-Michael

[helgoboss]

Benjamin,
Fantastic news to hear you're back working on this again. Yes, it will be much better to have things playing from Playtime, rather than drawing onto the arrangment.
Reaper and Playtime is so much better than Ableton IMHO, for all kinds of reasons.

1. It would be lovely if BPM or time signatures could be set within a scene, so they change when the scene starts playing. Is this possible?

In Ableton, you can do this by renaming scenes, which feels like a bit of a hack, but it works. (eg "Verse2 102 BPM 7/4").

2. Could Playtime 2 slots and scenes be triggered with OSC, as well as midi? This would make creating TouchOSC layouts much easier.

3. With Playtime 1, the play/record button is only 1/6 the size of the slot or scene. Could it be the other way around with the main body of a slot/scene being the play button, and other functions smaller? This would make a big difference on little touch screens, though I'll mostly be using TouchOSC to trigger Playtime, and also control VSTs, JSFX, etc.

4. Personally, I'm not too worried about track exclusive mode. Having the option makes things more flexible, but it isn't a biggie.

1. Planned.

2. Yes, that works already now with the Clip Engine demo projects (slots at least, but scenes are easy to add).

3. I could add a kind of global switch that makes the complete slot cell act as a button?

4. What's "track exclusive mode"?

Benjamin,
I still am considering (but hopelessly behind my own schedule) to do an improved replacement for SWS LiveConfigs.

I think I'll adopt our idea doing a two-tier design with a background plugin and a GUI plugin.

Do you consider any "standard" communication between those, or do you just implement it as necessary for the project ?
Thanks a lot !

(For certain live performance tasks, Playtime 2 and the planned new LiveConfig supposedly will be an excellent pair.)

-Michael

I would implement it as necessary. In my case, the GUI will be able to run as separate process and even on other devices. That's why I picked (web)sockets as communication channel on which I send some data that is easily serializable/deserializable in the languages of my choice.

[TonE]

Thanks ;) Enjoy the experimentation and let me know how it works out.



Thank you, I'm surprised you see through this mess haha. I experimented with different styles in an attempt to find the most intuitive one. So far I've grown quite fond of this "additive" style:


name("Play/stop") + no_mod + button("play") + toggle() + transport_action("PlayStop"),

name("Scroll up") + shift_or_sustain + button("col1/stop") + feedback_disabled() + turbo() + scroll_vertically(-1),

name("Click") + shift + button("stop-all-clips") + reaper_action(40364),

name("Switch send") + group(groups.knob_sends) + feedback_disabled() + shift + button("col7/stop") + incremental() + wrap() + set_param(params.send.index),

name("Column stop mode") + group(groups.column_modes) + shift + short_press + button("row1/play") + set_column_mode(column_modes.stop),

...



I found it to be quite readable and it allows you to intuitively throw different aspects of a mapping together. Best of all, it's still Lua, not some exotic DSL which you need to learn first.
Yes, very elegant style.

[mschnell]

I would implement it as necessary. In my case, the GUI will be able to run as separate process and even on other devices. That's why I picked (web)sockets as communication channel on which I send some data that is easily serializable/deserializable in the languages of my choice.
So you use a byte stream that can be routed via appropriate devices as desired.

I will do C++ and I know that there are "standard" RPC libraries for serializing/deserializing. I recently talked with a college of mine about such issue.

Another option might be Midi, as same can be routed by Reaper. Not sure if that would offer any advantages.

-Michael

[FOLKDISCO]

Benjamin,
Thanks so much for your reply.
3. I could add a kind of global switch that makes the complete slot cell act as a button?Yes, that would be fantastic! Especially if the switch is on the toolbar, or at least easy to get to in settings in a live situation.

4. What's "track exclusive mode"?You asked earlier in the thread if it was useful to be able to play slots in the same column through different tracks like in Playtime 1. I could imagine it being useful, but I've never done it, and it certainly isn't a biggie.

[sound warrior]

hi bengimen is playtime2 ready for verry early testing on mac os10? sorry i've been out of the loop for a wile.

[Tommy Zai]

I can't wait!!

[mehmethan]

Hi Benjamin,
When should we expect to get our hands on Playtime2 app? Do you have an approximate date for releasing the app?

[helgoboss]

Maybe 3 months for a first release (which won't contain all bells and whistles yet but is supposed to grow evolutionary). I'm taking my time with this, don't want to rush.

[psych]

Looks sooper cool, but take your time. Going slow is the fastest you can go!


Psych

[dna598]

Maybe 3 months for a first release (which won't contain all bells and whistles yet but is supposed to grow evolutionary). I'm taking my time with this, don't want to rush.
I know it's not highest on your list, but I am still rooting hard for the overdubbing into the arrangement (replacing existing items on the same track). And all the necessary Launch quantize options.
I am all excited for a true one to one Live workflow emulation within Reaper, nothing more or less. However if you dared to go further, I always wished the "back to arrangement" button had all the launch quantization options, for cleaner edits.
My anticipation is high to say the least.

[deseipel]

if it hasn't been mentioned, I'd like to see play start time & stop time be perhaps a slider (or something) relative to the start/end of the sample. Does that make sense?

[Jarone 1]

Hi i got Playtime and I got it to work with launchpad pro mk 2 I have to have a copy of Abelton open to backend it thats Ok. Im looking forward to Playtime 2 I have a couple of feature requests mainly about resizing its a bit squidgy for the old eyes so being able to resize would be good and also having a color adjuster I use a blue theme (so for me blue boxes would be good being a main go- to having it blend into Reaper more would be good) it would be nice if it all matched, also maybe a mode that stops the entire transport so you dont have to press stop all the time I dont know if thats possible or play stop button in PlayTime to keep continuity and reference Im just grateful to be able to work this way in Reaper so these upgrades would make me very happy and I sure others would like these features to thanks... Jar

[Mikobuntu]

'Playtime 2 is designed to work on Linux natively.'

This is great news, thanks for listening. Take my money already !!

[helgoboss]

I know it's not highest on your list, but I am still rooting hard for the overdubbing into the arrangement (replacing existing items on the same track). And all the necessary Launch quantize options.
I am all excited for a true one to one Live workflow emulation within Reaper, nothing more or less. However if you dared to go further, I always wished the "back to arrangement" button had all the launch quantization options, for cleaner edits.
My anticipation is high to say the least.

The first release of Playtime will not have that yet. But I'm striving for a similar evolutionary development as with ReaLearn (which started off with just 20% of the features that it has now). Arrangement overdubbing definitely sounds like something that I would integrate. So keep that FR ready for the time after the launch. If you got your hands on Playtime 2, it will also be easier for you to describe in detail the functionality that you still miss.

if it hasn't been mentioned, I'd like to see play start time & stop time be perhaps a slider (or something) relative to the start/end of the sample. Does that make sense?

Probably it does but I don't understand it ;) Can you go into more detail?

Hi i got Playtime and I got it to work with launchpad pro mk 2 I have to have a copy of Abelton open to backend it thats Ok. Im looking forward to Playtime 2 I have a couple of feature requests mainly about resizing its a bit squidgy for the old eyes so being able to resize would be good and also having a color adjuster I use a blue theme (so for me blue boxes would be good being a main go- to having it blend into Reaper more would be good) it would be nice if it all matched, also maybe a mode that stops the entire transport so you dont have to press stop all the time I dont know if thats possible or play stop button in PlayTime to keep continuity and reference Im just grateful to be able to work this way in Reaper so these upgrades would make me very happy and I sure others would like these features to thanks... Jar

Resizing will be possible. BTW, you can put Playtime 1 into fullscreen mode which will also make it much bigger. But with Playtime 2, this will also be possible without entering fullscreen mode.

As for themes, I plan to offer a dark and a light variant. Providing an additional primary/secondary color selector shouldn't be a big deal. If the initial version doesn't have this, simply request it again *after* the launch - it will be a journey.

Playtime 2 will have arrangement transport controls, if that's what you mean? BTW, Playtime 1 already has a button to stop all clips.

[deseipel]

Let's say I'm live looping and I record a take but its late; if each sample had an adjustable start time (relative to itself), one could nudge the start time to be on time instead of late.

Or if a sample/take is too long for some reason and you want it to end earlier, a setting to adjust the end time of the sample/take would solve this.

Adjusting sample start/end times is pretty common on samplers. I thought it might useful for those live looping.

[helgoboss]

Let's say I'm live looping and I record a take but its late; if each sample had an adjustable start time (relative to itself), one could nudge the start time to be on time instead of late.

Or if a sample/take is too long for some reason and you want it to end earlier, a setting to adjust the end time of the sample/take would solve this.

Adjusting sample start/end times is pretty common on samplers. I thought it might useful for those live looping.

Got it. The Clip Engine already has this feature (adjustable section start and length) and the App will provide a slider for it.

[helgoboss]

As a big part of Playtime 2 is free and open-source, please read my call for help: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=267890

Thank you!

[sound warrior]

Hi Benjamin, hope you're well thanks for your help so far. And it's brilliant what you're doing. Do you have any idea how much playtime2 will cost to buy? Thanks for everything :-)

[helgoboss]

Hi Benjamin, hope you're well thanks for your help so far. And it's brilliant what you're doing. Do you have any idea how much playtime2 will cost to buy? Thanks for everything :-)

Hi Trey, sorry for not having replied yet to your PM. I'll let you know as soon as it makes sense to have an online call regarding the Clip Engine, Playtime App and accessibility.

I don't know yet how much, maybe something around twice as much as Playtime 1 ... but don't quote me on that, it could also be more. It depends a bit on how well the call for donations works out. I guess, the less people are ready to donate for the free stuff, the more I will have to ask for the payed stuff. If that makes sense :)

[SmoothOperator]

I am interested in this. I haven't tried Playtime yet, but I like the sound of it. I had tried a number of the live looping vsts and didn't have much success. I recommend making the defaults with a kid in mind. I was trying to hook my daughter into recording which I think is the best way to get proficient at music. Record yourself and listen. In particular the reaper looper had issues with focus, and toggling states. Very difficult to get to operate in a basic, start a loop, record new loops to play along with in that same frame, part of it was just getting all of the hardware configured. EG basically like a guitar loop pedal. I really want it to record to sections of the reaper tracks, or at least have backing tracks to record over.

In practice I have gotten pretty good with Reapter hotkeys, I feel like I could almost get that operation with those ctrl-R start record etc, but its too much of a figgy wig config to pull off with a kid standing there, what do I do this time daddy?

[Rangler]

How much will it cost?

[Garax]

Hello, Benjamin,

First of all, thank you very much for your work, I have been testing PlayTime today and I can't imagine the time it must take to develop such a powerful tool.

I hope I'm not too late to suggest some things that I think would be awesome to incorporate in version 2. If some of them have already been discussed or are already implemented, I apologize, as I haven't read all the comments and, although I have read the whole manual, there are still many things I might not fully understand. If this is the case, I would appreciate if you could let me know, please, and I will try to find the information.

There I go with the functions that I think would be really useful (IMHO):

- One thing I appreciate about Ableton's Session View is that you can map clip launching to computer keys (the letters and numbers). It is very useful for those people (like me) who don't have launchpads or other similar devices.
In relation to this, being able to assign clips to keys on a midi keyboard seems like a very good idea, but I've run into a problem: since I also use the keyboard to play what I'm recording, the key I use to record/playback is heard as an intrusive note. Curiously it doesn't appear when I open the midi editor so I can remove it. So, another idea (I don't know how complex it would be to implement) would be as follows:
- Automatically mute those notes that are used as "launchers", so that they are not heard in the recording. It would be very convenient because it would allow you to have your hands already on the instrument. Which makes me link to the following,
- As some workstations allow, it would be great to start recording automatically when you start playing. That is to say, that the trigger to record is given when signal (either midi or audio) is noticed. I often feel that it is a nuisance for me to have to take my hands off or put them on my instrument in a hurry because I had to move them away to hit one button or another. (Adding support for looping pedals would also be a good option, but it would mean having that extra device that not everyone has).
- Again, something I like about Ableton (and since my goal is to switch 100% to using Reaper exclusively): you can predefine the loop duration. It would be great to be able to decide in advance the number of bars. So once you have recorded x bars, it would stop recording automatically, avoiding once again having to quickly hit a button to stop.

I apologize for my English and congratulations once again for your effort and the wonderful tools you put at our disposal.

[sound warrior]

Hi Benjamin, thanks for your message. Will we be able to configure play time2 to work with any midi controllers we have? Thanks for your help kind regards Trey. Hi Trey, sorry for not having replied yet to your PM. I'll let you know as soon as it makes sense to have an online call regarding the Clip Engine, Playtime App and accessibility.

I don't know yet how much, maybe something around twice as much as Playtime 1 ... but don't quote me on that, it could also be more. It depends a bit on how well the call for donations works out. I guess, the less people are ready to donate for the free stuff, the more I will have to ask for the payed stuff. If that makes sense :)

[nathan.f77]

Hi Benjamin,

Playtime 2 looks awesome! I bought the first version of Playtime and have been playing around with it for live looping.

One request would be to honor the quantization options under "Track recording settings". This is especially important for drum loops. I tried enabling these settings but I noticed that Playtime seems to ignore them.

The other thing is that I have a Nektar Impact LX61+ MIDI controller keyboard, including sliders, knobs, buttons, and 8 pads. The 8 pads can be configured to send MIDI CC messages (or notes.) The pad LED lights can also be controlled by sending MIDI CC to the keyboard (0 = off, 1-126 = green, 127 = red.)

I would like to set up the 8 pads on my keyboard to control Playtime and record/play tracks (just like you are doing with the AKAI keyboard in your Playtime 2 demo video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iEMKUcwzMs)

I might just get a 8x8 Novation Launchpad X, in case it's easier to get started with this. But I'd still like to figure out how to set up all the knobs and pads on my keyboard and get a nice live-looping environment.

In the meantime, I was wondering if I could ask for some tips on how to achieve my desired workflow:

My keyboard has 8 pads, 8 buttons (numbered 1-8), and buttons for record, play, stop, next, etc. These can all be configured to send custom MIDI CC messages, so I think I have everything I need to build a good physical controller for Playtime. I just don't know how to wire everything up and build all the logic.

My idea is to use the numbered buttons on my keyboard to switch between "rows" of tracks. E.g. If I press the "1" button, then pressing the "1" pad would refer to Track 1, Row 1 in the Playtime UI. And after I press the "3" button for example, the next time I press the "1" pad, this would refer to Track 1, Row 3. This way I can work with the full 8x8 grid even though my keyboard only has 8 pads.

Here's a state machine I'd like to build:

* The pad light is off by default.
* Touch the pad => starts blinking red, to indicate that recording is about to start
* LED goes solid red while recording.
* Touch the pad => LED goes solid green to indicate that the loop is currently playing.
* Touch the pad => LED starts blinking green, to indicate that the track is present but is stopped
* Touch the pad => track starts playing again, LED goes solid green

Then, if I hold down the "Record" button on my keyboard and press a solid/blinking green pad, it would enter recording mode again so I could overwrite the recording.

I wanted to see if I could build this logic via ReaScript using a Lua plugin, but I couldn't figure out how to receive/send MIDI input. Maybe I need to build a full extension / plugin? I also just installed ReaLearn but haven't played with it much yet. Can I do something like this with ReaLearn?

Finally, I attempted to make my own controller JSON file, but got a bit stuck here as well. But in your Playtime 2 demo video, I saw how you are controlling the pad LEDs on your AKAI keyboard, and how you can scroll up and down between rows. Is all of this logic something that is built in to Playtime 1 or Playtime 2?

Sorry for the long comment, I've spent all afternoon trying to figure it out! So just thought I would post all my thoughts here and see if you have tips or suggestions. Thanks a lot!

[nathan.f77]

No way, I can't believe that ReaLearn can actually do most (or all?) of what I described above! I'm reading through the user guide and am blown away - https://www.helgoboss.org/projects/realearn/user-guide#conditional-activation

Thanks for building this incredible extension, I can't believe how powerful it is!

-------

UPDATE: I got really far with ReaLearn, and I wrote a Ruby script to help me generate the JSON config: https://github.com/ndbroadbent/reaper-scripts/blob/main/generate_realearn_json.rb

I was able to get the pad LEDs to show the state from Playtime, where green = triggered and red = recording. I made it so that it starts recording if I hold down the Record button and then press a pad. I can also hold down the rewind button to clear a recording. (And I also used ReaLearn to wire up all the volume sliders, etc. It's such a powerful tool!)

It's not perfect yet, but I'm really happy with what I have so far. I was already able to use it to record loops and make some music.

------------------

Feature requests:

* Support for quantizing after recording. Maybe add quantize on/off param that can be controlled?
* Add a new param for each slot/track which is set to Off when there is no recording, and set to On when a recording is present. I can't seem to find a way to get this information out of Playtime and into ReaLearn
* Add an easy way to untrigger all items when I stop REAPER. (Param for scene group stop button.) At the moment I have to build a very complex set of mappings in ReaLearn to untrigger every item individually.
* I just noticed that the sustain pedal is not recognized if I already held it down before I started recording. (This is important for piano or pad tracks.) It would be great if playtime could detect if the pedal is already down, and inject a sustain pedal event (CC64) at the beginning of the recorded MIDI. (Or is this something that REAPER can do?)

[Freiin]

I do orchestral music and i'll support this project of course! This is soooo huge!

[nathan.f77]

Hi @helgoboss, I was just wondering if I might be able to help you beta test Playtime 2? I would also love to contribute a few features if possible. Thanks!

[deseipel]

anyone aware of a 'virtual Launchpad MIDI device' ? I don't have a real one but I really wanna test the new Playtime.

[BenjyO]

anyone aware of a 'virtual Launchpad MIDI device' ? I don't have a real one but I really wanna test the new Playtime.

You could try out TouchOSC (a mobile app) which allows you to build one. It does cost around 10 $/€ though.

[foxAsteria]

You could try out TouchOSC (a mobile app) which allows you to build one. It does cost around 10 $/€ though.

Demo is completely unrestricted though, like Reaper. There are two versions and I'd recommend the PC version ($20) if you only buy one, as it's vastly easier to edit templates on a computer than a phone.

[helgoboss]

Hey guys, just wanted to give you an update.

The current state in a nutshell:

1. The Playtime Clip Engine is part of the current ReaLearn version 2.13 (as you probably know already). It's partially usable (though not user friendly).
2. The Playtime App (the GUI which is supposed to make it user-friendly) is still missing.

My initial plan was to work hard on the Playtime App right after releasing the Clip Engine ... and I started doing so. But the situation changed a bit in the meantime.

When I think back, the way it has always been for me in life is that my "creational mood" oscillates between making software and making music. When I'm in the "software mood", I usually totally focus on it and don't make much music ... and vice versa. In the previous years, I've been in software mood most of the time.

A couple of weeks ago, it suddenly hit me, BIG mood change ... I felt the strong urge to make music again. I believe it has something to do with the heat wave here in Germany, which reminded me of good times performing music live/open-air with fellow musicians in warm summer nights. I immediately started to dig up some older compositions/improviations and came up with a few new ideas. In the meantime, I gathered a couple of friends to prepare a live set. And that's what I mainly do at the moment. There's not much time right now to develop the Playtime App.

Important: This doesn't mean the Playtime App is cancelled! This project is very important to me. It will just take longer than I initially planned. Sorry to anyone who was hoping to get their hands on it very soon and is now a bit disappointed.

On the bright side, I believe the fact that I occasionally completely dive into making music, tends to make ReaLearn and Playtime better in the long run, because everything that I miss software-wise during the "music phase" will sooner or later find its way into the product. Software dudes call this "Eating one's own dogfood" ;) The music I do these days, it's a hybrid between electronic/loop-based and acoustic music, with the setup of some tunes being rather complex. ReaLearn plays a central part of that setup. I make heavy use of some of its more recent features such as "Mapping snapshots" (amazing for switching between different live setups) and using parameters as sources (great for macro parameters that change multiple other parameters in one go). I'm surprised myself how useful that is in practice! Some of the ways in which I'm using it right now, I didn't even have them in mind when developing it. The Playtime Clip Engine is involved as well, primarily to play MIDI clips at the moment, and probably will get more battle-tested soon.

Oh, and one more thing. REAPER is awesome. During the last few years, I've spent much more time giving REAPER new features (especially in the live/performance domain) than using its existing ones. Now, I'm back doing the stuff that REAPER is already good at: Recording, arranging, mixing, rendering, tempo mapping and what not ... I'm once more amazed how well that works. There are multiple ways to reach your goal, and when it comes to DAWs, I feel that's a good thing. I like that because you almost never hit a hard limit like "That's not possible, you need to approach this entirely differently". This is important because sometimes you clearly know that in this certain situation, the way you want to do things is the most appropriate one. It's also a good time to get catch up with some of the more recent REAPER features, such as razor editing, normalization during rendering ... man, I love it. And subprojects can be so useful. Some of the stuff in the feature branches of current pre-releases is really exciting. Good times to be a REAPER user :)

I guess at the latest when autumn hits and things cools down, I'll get into software mood again ... although at that time I'll also have to work for a company (learn more about my working model here (https://liberapay.com/helgoboss/)), so I expect the Playtime App to develop a bit slowly at first. Initially, my plan was to polish the Playtime App very much and not release it until it looks awesome and can do most of the stuff the Clip Engine currently is capable of. Considering the current situation though, I'm thinking about changing that process and publish unpolished versions of the App, "early access" so to say. I'm not sure yet if this is a good idea. But that way, users could check where things are going and get something slightly usable already. I think that would be feasible because the Playtime App is "just" the GUI. So things that you create with it should also run with future versions of the App. Let's see.

Okay, hope you guys have understanding for the interruption. Looking very much forward to getting back to Playtime, soon!

[daniellumertz]

What a nice text to read! Thanks for sharing with us all that is happening. I feel the same myself, and actually talking with others scritps this music/programming phases switches are kinda common thing, is a very though field music and programming are very big areas and combining both is hard, normally we switch states so we can truly focus, instead of trying to hold more than we can.

I like how Brian Eno talks about this in a interview that there is an infinite loop between developers and artists that generates the technology. Artists take tools and find new things to do with it explore new techniques and perspectives. While a developer can look at a certain artistic procedure and try to make it better/flexible/cheaper/portable that will open new ways for experimenting. I think these roles are much more ambiguous than the description specially when we do both. But still I think this a great point of view where the artist is also affecting the technology development. So I really like the idea of you taking the time to use it and experiment.

You are a great programmer I am sure you do some awesome music, would like to hear !

[foxAsteria]

Hey man, if the app was called "Worktime" instead of "Playtime" we might be able to fault you for taking some time to play around with it...

Anyways, I'm sure we all understand your voluntary work on this project is driven by passion, and I for one encourage you to follow that wherever it leads!

It is a wise thing to recognize your "oscillations" of mood. We would all do well to make the most of our own natural rhythms.


Quick question though: Is the recording feature usable currently?

(I hadn't been following the progress because I primarily want to use this engine for recording and auditioning ideas on the fly that feature was not yet implemented.)

[helgoboss]

Thanks for the nice words!

@foxAsteria Recording is usable in principle but for sure has a couple of bugs. And I want to make some changes how MIDI is recorded.

[Tommy Zai]

Looking forward to v2!!

[SeanTypedThis]

Thanks for the update, Ben! I think most of us REAPER long haulers can relate, programmer or not, going through meticulous phases of prototyping, and having a hard time balancing that with actually creating and making music, it might be in our nature/what draws us to this platform; for instance, right now I've been quite obsessively shrinking and adapting my EWI/WARBL setlists to operate on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W running Sunvox semi-headless with a Pirate Audio HAT...I shudder to think about how much time I will spend working out a setup using Playtime 2 on this unit...haha...

Glad you hit a good run with the most important of the two: actually making music. Hope it continues for quite some time.

As much as I can't wait to see what Playtime 2 brings, it's a good reminder of the tools I already have at my disposal, probably the most important of which would be ReaLearn (well, aside from physical instruments), of which I could never give enough thanks!

[Dave 2099]

Enjoy the fire while you have it, Ben! Personally, I find that making music (even if it's not particularly good at times) is the only thing that fixes my brain these days. Fix yourself, brother! : )

[/AND/]

This being designed to work in Linux is awesome, so kudos for that!

I have one question / FR: is it possible to handle loading of long audio files in another 'compressed' fashion, instead of having to put them inside a track first?

I'm asking because I remember when I was DJing with Ableton I could load a whole song (not just short clips) into one of the field and let it play off it. Now I'm thinking about loading stems from songs I have, which take up to 5 mins or so.

[Freiin]

Can't wait! If this extension allows us to make live looping, i'll pay twice for it. Thanks!

[kale]

Woah,

Yeah this seems really really cool. I've been working with ableton live and external hardware and I'm not completely happy - however this project seems to be great and well customizable. Can't wait!

[Dennio]

Hey Ben, I was absolutely amazed when Playtime 2 suddenly popped up on Youtube when I was searching for an Ableton alternative in Reaper. It looks absolutely amazing. Can't wait to try it out today.

My reasons for wanting to try out Playtime 2 are that the full versions of Ableton are quite expensive and Ableton doesn't run really smoothly on my PC with just 8 Tracks and a few FXs. Reaper on the other hand can handle 100 tracks projects with a lot of effects and VSTi's.

I also started out to write a Realearn preset for the M-Audio Oxygen Pro 49 last week because this controller works really nicely with Ableton but not so much with Reaper. Normally Reaper cannot control the LEDs and they are simply always on. Therefore you always have to look at the screen to see if something is armed, selected, muted etc. In Ableton you can see everything and on top you also can record, launch and stop clips aswell as scenes with the drumpads which in turn light up.
I managed to intercept the SysEx-Messages that Ableton sends to the Oxygen Pro to start the special Ableton-Mode and implented them into Realearn so now I can control the LEDs. Hopefully I can enable Realearn to control the record-, launch- and stop-functions like in Ableton and it will work like in your demo with the APC Key 25.

If anyone uses an Oxygen Pro Controller and would like to try this out I can send you the preset.

[Vish1211]

Hello, It's amazing the work behind the playtime2.
I tried working it out with my apc key25, I've been having isssue with
*Import the main preset
Copy the content of apc-key-25-to-clip-engine.lua and import it into ReaLearn.

endup with the error in the attachment, am I missing something or doing something wrong?

THankyou!

[helgoboss]

This being designed to work in Linux is awesome, so kudos for that!

I have one question / FR: is it possible to handle loading of long audio files in another 'compressed' fashion, instead of having to put them inside a track first?

I'm asking because I remember when I was DJing with Ableton I could load a whole song (not just short clips) into one of the field and let it play off it. Now I'm thinking about loading stems from songs I have, which take up to 5 mins or so.

By default, the Playtime 2 Clip Engine reads directly from disk and does some pre-buffering. So that should work without exhausting memory. But you could even load it all into memory, especially if you use something like OGG or MP3.


I also started out to write a Realearn preset for the M-Audio Oxygen Pro 49 last week because this controller works really nicely with Ableton but not so much with Reaper. Normally Reaper cannot control the LEDs and they are simply always on. Therefore you always have to look at the screen to see if something is armed, selected, muted etc. In Ableton you can see everything and on top you also can record, launch and stop clips aswell as scenes with the drumpads which in turn light up.
I managed to intercept the SysEx-Messages that Ableton sends to the Oxygen Pro to start the special Ableton-Mode and implented them into Realearn so now I can control the LEDs. Hopefully I can enable Realearn to control the record-, launch- and stop-functions like in Ableton and it will work like in your demo with the APC Key 25.

If anyone uses an Oxygen Pro Controller and would like to try this out I can send you the preset.

Good luck! Welcome to ask questions on the ReaLearn thread if you have some. ReaLearn is quite powerful, so it should be possible to replicate or even improve the behavior that Ableton gave you.

Hello, It's amazing the work behind the playtime2.
I tried working it out with my apc key25, I've been having isssue with
*Import the main preset
Copy the content of apc-key-25-to-clip-engine.lua and import it into ReaLearn.

endup with the error in the attachment, am I missing something or doing something wrong?

THankyou!

Maybe try a new pre-release of ReaLearn. I remember I updated "apc-key-25-to-clip-engine.lua" to my needs some weeks ago.

[biasply]

Hi Benjamin,
I only just discovered Playtime today, and it looks REALLY interesting. While I've been a very longtime Reaper user/preferer, I had to employ Ableton Live for some performance workflows. Long story short, the new audio rig I built HATES Live, and runs Reaper like butter, so I've been looking for something to trigger clips like Live for my performances (basically live dub mixing, dropping things in and out with songs arranged into groups of scenes).

So what I can't figure out is if the grid can be extended to more than the 8x8? Maybe someone can chime in here?
My performance 'setlist' is just one big long project in Live that I scroll around in with my controllers (APC40 and Launchpad mini).

Cheers,
Steve

[helgoboss]

Hi Benjamin,
I only just discovered Playtime today, and it looks REALLY interesting. While I've been a very longtime Reaper user/preferer, I had to employ Ableton Live for some performance workflows. Long story short, the new audio rig I built HATES Live, and runs Reaper like butter, so I've been looking for something to trigger clips like Live for my performances (basically live dub mixing, dropping things in and out with songs arranged into groups of scenes).

So what I can't figure out is if the grid can be extended to more than the 8x8? Maybe someone can chime in here?
My performance 'setlist' is just one big long project in Live that I scroll around in with my controllers (APC40 and Launchpad mini).

Cheers,
Steve

Are you talking about Playtime 1? Or the new Playtime 2 Clip Engine?

[biasply]

Are you talking about Playtime 1? Or the new Playtime 2 Clip Engine?

Either really. This is the closest solution I've found so far.

[SeanTypedThis]

So what I can't figure out is if the grid can be extended to more than the 8x8? Maybe someone can chime in here?
My performance 'setlist' is just one big long project in Live that I scroll around in with my controllers (APC40 and Launchpad mini).



In Playtime 1, you can add as many group columns or scene rows as you want. You just need to right click on one of the group headers and select "Insert 1" left or right, and for the rows, right click on one of the scenes and do "Insert 1" below or above. Think the grid can be as big as you need it to be.

[dupont]

Maybe 3 months for a first release (which won't contain all bells and whistles yet but is supposed to grow evolutionary). I'm taking my time with this, don't want to rush.

hello Helgoboss is a previous release planned, your wrote in june in 3 months time, were are now closed to november...

Edit : I don't want to put the pressure but i'm excited, currently working my techno live sets with bitwig but would like to make it with Reaper and playtime 2.

[helgoboss]

hello Helgoboss is a previous release planned, your wrote in june in 3 months time, were are now closed to november...

Edit : I don't want to put the pressure but i'm excited, currently working my techno live sets with bitwig but would like to make it with Reaper and playtime 2.

It's explained in my posts above. I paused development for the sake of getting a band together and getting back into live music for a while. I'm slowly picking up on Playtime development again but now I also have an almost full-time contract for some months (the money needs to come from somewhere) so better don't expect any miracles. No release in this year.

[biasply]

In Playtime 1, you can add as many group columns or scene rows as you want. You just need to right click on one of the group headers and select "Insert 1" left or right, and for the rows, right click on one of the scenes and do "Insert 1" below or above. Think the grid can be as big as you need it to be.

Thanks SeanTypedThis! That is the clincher for me, will prob purchase 1 now and 2 later then. This awesome, I so much prefer Reaper.

Thanks for making this Benjamin!

Cheers!
Steve

[kale]

Will it be possible to load playtime 1 clip / scene set on the playtime2 somehow, when the time comes?

[dupont]

It's explained in my posts above. I paused development for the sake of getting a band together and getting back into live music for a while. I'm slowly picking up on Playtime development again but now I also have an almost full-time contract for some months (the money needs to come from somewhere) so better don't expect any miracles. No release in this year.

OK,I did not noticed that. Enjoy your live music and let's wait for playtimes2 perhaps next year.

[Trekopep]

Super excited to try this out! Been trying to get into live looping recently, just discovered ReaLearn2 over the weekend and was incredibly impressed with how much functionality is built into it. (And excellent documentation!) Was trying to figure out a good way to get it working with Super8, but lo and behold, Playtime 2 sounds like exactly what I've been looking for! Going to try out the Clip Engine when I get a chance.

[reapero]

@helgobosss awesome stuff!

I am happy to pay what you think Playtime2 is worth at this point, but i need an invoice. I am afraid that if i buy v1 now, i´ll have to pay again for the full v2.

Is there a way to make this happen?

Thank you!

EDIT: Maybe knowing if there would be an upgrade price for v1 owners would be great to know

[helgoboss]

@helgobosss awesome stuff!

I am happy to pay what you think Playtime2 is worth at this point, but i need an invoice. I am afraid that if i buy v1 now, i´ll have to pay again for the full v2.

Is there a way to make this happen?

Thank you!

EDIT: Maybe knowing if there would be an upgrade price for v1 owners would be great to know

My plan is: Once Playtime 2 is out (or in early access), I want to send Playtime 1 customers a discount code (via email) for purchasing Playtime 2 at a lower price, which should be more or less (not taking VAT or other special stuff into account) the price difference between Playtime 1 and Playtime 2.

[reapero]

Cool, then i´ll buy 1 today.

Thanks!

[TonE]

With Playtime 2 or better the clip engine, making it free and open source you opened indeed a tunnel to live freedom in Reaper, friend. Wonderful, great respects!

Clip engine deals only with midi events right? If I would record audio, and those are not placed to arrange, closing and reopening RPP how would I access those audio recordings? Those would be lost or? I need to read its manual, did not do yet. I could get, events are saved as JSON which can be exported, imported to/from clipboard. But audio will not be saved as JSON right? Which trick is used for audio? Well there is super8 and even super16 for that we could say. Mixing/combining clip engine with super8/16 might be interesting maybe?

[TonE]

Can the clip engine load / fill the clips from .mid files in project directory?

Example:
project_dir/column_1/a..f.mid
project_dir/column_2/a..z.mid
project_dir/column_3/k..o.mid
...

Any placed or recorded .mid files in subfolders named e.g. column_x would be used for filling the clips. If the matrix is too small it would fill only as much as is possible, ignoring rest. There could be further functions, refill from its directory. refill selecting .mid files randomly. shift-all-to-next in dir. shift-all-to-prev in dir.

The idea is instead of using only JSON export/import to/from clipboard, clips would allow loading/filling from .mid files placed into subdirectories in project directory. Is this possible? Planned? Will never happen? Thanks in advance, friends.

[helgoboss]

With Playtime 2 or better the clip engine, making it free and open source you opened indeed a tunnel to live freedom in Reaper, friend. Wonderful, great respects!

Clip engine deals only with midi events right? If I would record audio, and those are not placed to arrange, closing and reopening RPP how would I access those audio recordings? Those would be lost or? I need to read its manual, did not do yet. I could get, events are saved as JSON which can be exported, imported to/from clipboard. But audio will not be saved as JSON right? Which trick is used for audio? Well there is super8 and even super16 for that we could say. Mixing/combining clip engine with super8/16 might be interesting maybe?

It does audio as well. The audio is not encoded in the JSON, just the path to the audio file.

Can the clip engine load / fill the clips from .mid files in project directory?

Example:
project_dir/column_1/a..f.mid
project_dir/column_2/a..z.mid
project_dir/column_3/k..o.mid
...

Any placed or recorded .mid files in subfolders named e.g. column_x would be used for filling the clips. If the matrix is too small it would fill only as much as is possible, ignoring rest. There could be further functions, refill from its directory. refill selecting .mid files randomly. shift-all-to-next in dir. shift-all-to-prev in dir.

The idea is instead of using only JSON export/import to/from clipboard, clips would allow loading/filling from .mid files placed into subdirectories in project directory. Is this possible? Planned? Will never happen? Thanks in advance, friends.

It's possible to reference MIDI files (instead of embedding the MIDI data).

The clip engine and its contents are part of the complete ReaLearn session. There's a way to feed ReaLearn with a JSON snippet and it will restore that session encoded in the JSON. With that, you should be able to achieve what you are looking for by writing a ReaScript that reads the directory contents and creates the necessary JSON. But I would not get into that yet. Always replacing the complete ReaLearn data is too much in a lot of cases. Soon, I want to make it possible to replace only parts of its state, e.g. only the clip matrix: https://github.com/helgoboss/realearn/issues/656#issuecomment-1234544848

Be aware: The clip engine - although available and accessible already - is still very experimental. Lots of rough edges. Working on it.

[TonE]

Just sharing ideas, do not worry. State could be saved without requiring the midi item data again represented as json, just their paths would be ok, saving space in json. Then, the looper could support kind of "plugin" mechanism, for in future to be developed "feature plugins" just for the looper itself. Imagine something like jsfx or lua but allowing manipulations for the looper itself.

I am thinking here to lots of great features implemented in Sequetron*, a midi looper by Phil Tipping, for example force to chords, force to notes, force to scale. In this Sequetron are so many features nowhere else available. Those might get interesting for clip engine as well, maybe in a far future. If such tiny single features could be added as "plugins" this would support adding more variety into the looper as well. You never know which ideas some genius Reaper user will have in 5 years.
Sequetron's documentation** is very extensive, you can check it as well. Mentioned TonE there is me. :)

I am envisioning clip engine going into Sequetron direction feature wise, with added benefit of being fully connected to Reaper. Actually how I was using Sequetron is like clip engine, looping all midi material in Sequetron, which gets midi clock sync from Reaper via a midi clock vst, looping recorded midi or live midi from Sequetron going to Reaper, with its tracks and fx. So exactly like now in clip engine, timeline of Reaper is completely empty, all data looping outside (of course only midi, no audio there). Go ahead clip engine!

* http://www.philizound.co.uk/freebies/software/sequetron/sequetron.html
** http://www.philizound.co.uk/freebies/software/sequetron/sequetron-docs.html

[andy79]

Happy to support Playtime 2, when out.
What can we expect on integration with Launchpad Pro Mk3? Doesn't seem to work with current Playtime, unless I'm missing something.

Thanks

[sound warrior]

Hi Benjamin, hope you're doing well. Do you have any idea when playtime two will be released? And do you have any idea when it will be ready for accessibility testing? Thanks very much for your help kind regards tray. PS sorry if this appears pushy or overeager, I'm just really excited for this! I'm very keen to help :-)

[andy79]

Maybe future users of playtime2 should support Benjamin more on https://liberapay.com/helgoboss/
He proved with playtime1 he will deliver a Pro product.

[vonglan]

I am thinking here to lots of great features implemented in Sequetron*, a midi looper by Phil Tipping...
* http://www.philizound.co.uk/freebies/software/sequetron/sequetron.html
** http://www.philizound.co.uk/freebies/software/sequetron/sequetron-docs.html

I hadn't seen this program before, thanks for the link. I agree it has many interesting features.

[Travesty]

Looks like a big improvement over the first one, I bought it but I didn't get on with the way that it drew clips to the arranger and hijacked the play cursor. I'm glad you were able to make it work invisibly, looks really powerful.

I have one question, the only clip controller I have is Maschine Jam, will it be possible to support this controller, thanks.

[andy79]

Hello Benjamin,

Any news for the people waiting for Playtime 2 ? :) Can we hope for a Q1 2023 release?

Thank you!

[PianoGeek]

Hi, Benjamin! New in the forums here. Super interested in what you’re building here, it sounds exactly like what I’ve been trying to do in Reaper for a long time. My question: Will individual rows/columns have the ability to contain independent tempos? For example, Column 1 is all 126 bpm, column 2 is 143, etc. I’ve read through this thread and didn’t find a clear answer to this.

[/AND/]

Also interested in this seeing the light of the day!

[helgoboss]

Looks like a big improvement over the first one, I bought it but I didn't get on with the way that it drew clips to the arranger and hijacked the play cursor. I'm glad you were able to make it work invisibly, looks really powerful.

I have one question, the only clip controller I have is Maschine Jam, will it be possible to support this controller, thanks.

Mmh, not sure about Maschine Jam, depends on its MIDI capabilities. NI hardware uses notoriously proprietary protocols, so I don't know. Once Playtime 2 is out, I will probably order/borrow controllers from time to time and make presets for them.

[helgoboss]

Hi, Benjamin! New in the forums here. Super interested in what you’re building here, it sounds exactly like what I’ve been trying to do in Reaper for a long time. My question: Will individual rows/columns have the ability to contain independent tempos? For example, Column 1 is all 126 bpm, column 2 is 143, etc. I’ve read through this thread and didn’t find a clear answer to this.

Rows yes. Triggering scenes will also be able to trigger tempo changes. But I didn't plan it with columns, I mean how is that even supposed to work? Multiple columns play in parallel ... so there would be multiple tempos at the same time ...?

[helgoboss]

Hello Benjamin,

Any news for the people waiting for Playtime 2 ? :) Can we hope for a Q1 2023 release?

Thank you!

Sorry, not Q1. I'm still in my "contracting" phase, working as freelancer for another company in order to earn some money (see https://en.liberapay.com/helgoboss/). When that contract is over, probably at end or April, I will be able to work full-time on Playtime again.

[andy79]

Thanks, great that you still have it planned, looking forward to it.

[PianoGeek]

Rows yes. Triggering scenes will also be able to trigger tempo changes. But I didn't plan it with columns, I mean how is that even supposed to work? Multiple columns play in parallel ... so there would be multiple tempos at the same time ...?

Thank you! Yeah you’re right, maybe independent column tempos might not be the best idea. But rows will be very useful!

[/AND/]

Hi Benjamin,

I was looking at Playtime 1 so I am wondering: what was wrong with it? It seems capable as it is now... I guess my real question is, why did you decide to create a new version instead of improving ver 1?

[PianoGeek]

I have another question… will there be an option for Playtime’s internal metronome to automatically sync with Reaper’s timeline if Reaper is already in playback when you launch a clip? This would be useful because you could have a default playback track (like drums) in Reaper’s timeline, and then launch clips in Playtime that are synchronized with the drums.

EDIT: I understand that the best way to do this is to have a clip of the drums in playtime as well, but this would be a great option to have.

[/AND/]

… will there be an option for Playtime’s internal metronome to automatically sync with Reaper’s timeline if Reaper is already in playback when you launch a clip?

This is a great question, and I don't see any big difficulty in implementing this.

[sound warrior]

hi benjamin, hope you're well. I'm just wondering and I hope you don't mind me asking is there any news regarding? playtime2 and beta testing? I know you said before, it would be due for release sometime this year just wondering how things are going hope you're doing well mate :-) kind regards, Trey.

[helgoboss]

Hi Benjamin,

I was looking at Playtime 1 so I am wondering: what was wrong with it? It seems capable as it is now... I guess my real question is, why did you decide to create a new version instead of improving ver 1?

Playtime 1 has some hard limitations that can't be tackled without using a totally different technique. Also, it has a technological foundation that is totally different from the one that I use now. This old foundation is hard to extend with new features.

I have another question… will there be an option for Playtime’s internal metronome to automatically sync with Reaper’s timeline if Reaper is already in playback when you launch a clip? This would be useful because you could have a default playback track (like drums) in Reaper’s timeline, and then launch clips in Playtime that are synchronized with the drums.

EDIT: I understand that the best way to do this is to have a clip of the drums in playtime as well, but this would be a great option to have.

Yes, syncing to arrangement is a feature already built in now, in the existing clip engine.

hi benjamin, hope you're well. I'm just wondering and I hope you don't mind me asking is there any news regarding? playtime2 and beta testing? I know you said before, it would be due for release sometime this year just wondering how things are going hope you're doing well mate :-) kind regards, Trey.

See this post, it's still valid: https://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php?p=2652689&postcount=238

[dna598]

I'm anticipating the end of April.

[helgoboss]

I'm anticipating the end of April.

Just to make it clear (for everyone's expectation management): I will start again working on it around end of April, not release it ;)

[TheSluiceGate]

Thanks for all your hard work on this Benjamin. I love and purchased Playtime 1, Playtime 2 will be a Day 1 purchase for me regardless of new features. Happy to support such an awesome project. 🤘🤘🤘

[TheSluiceGate]

Has anyone worked out a TouchOsc for Playtime for Reaper?
I've been messing around with it but can't figure out how to get the correct on/off/blinking light sequence on the buttons.

Any tips gratefully received and I will happily share with the community.

[TonE]

Did anyone implement a virtual apc key 25, actually I am only interesting in the blinking button matrix with rgb support, as I would not use the keyboard anyway, as a kboard user, and the faders in the fader version I do not need as well.
So having a rgb-button matrix solution for a smartphone or tablet would be just the right thing for the clip engine. No need for a special hardware midi controller, if you want only the clip triggers.
Are there any related tools? What is available already, any hints are welcome. Thanks friends.