Modstep > BeatHawk in AB3, how to control both pads and notes on single pad?

skrat

I would like to use Modstep as a sequencer for multiple BeatHawk AUs, hosted in AB.
I was only able to manage to either control single hits of the pads (works well for e.g. only drum samples), or a currently selected instrument on a single pad when I want to play melodies with various pitches. But not mix them both, e.g. having drum samples on pads 1-6 and a melodic sample on a pad 7 and play all of them together.

I would probably need to understand how this should work in "raw" MIDI. Is every pad a single channel and in "drum mode", you simply send some default note (e.g. C3) on that channel? Or is it completely managed by the receiver itself and there is no standard way how to handle this?
Based on my experimenting, it looks like BeatHawk does not care about the channel and it either play each pad based on the received note, or when I select a pad and switch to keyboard mode inside BH instance, it plays only the single pad sample in various pitches. But there is no way of recording sequence of melodies for e.g. several pads layered, although you can do that using the sequencer inside BH (which I don't want to use).

I would stop here and say goodbye to the ability to control both, but there are several "suspicious" options in BH settings under MIDI/Audio, which are also available when used as an AU and maybe there's some chance to make this work. But honestly, I don't really understand what they do exactly, maybe I am just missing something:

• Send Omni to Pads
• MIDI Select
• Send to selected pad (this one is actually pretty clear, but it does not seem to really work like that - no matter if this option is checked or not, it behaves the same)

Anyone already investigated this with some luck? Is there some way how to set this up?
Thanks a lot for any answer!

ricksteruk

I've had a try at using Beathawk hosted in AUM - I found that I should turn off "Send Omni", "MIDI Select", and "Send to selected pad" in order to get it to work as I wanted.

Then each of the 16 pads in BeatHawk just responds to one of the 16 MIDI channels you send to it. Bottom left is Channel 1.

I was mainly using instruments inside BH which simply play when you send MIDI to the relevant pad - so if you were just using a sample on one BH pad you might need to figure out which is the best note to send on that channel to trigger that pad correctly at the right pitch.

CracklePot

For the BH instance with the drum kit spread across the Pads, set Send Omni to Pads to on. Each Pad responds to a midi note, starting at C3 (note 48) and going up a semitone per Pad. The sequence can be input on any channel.

For the BH instance with pitched instruments on each Pad, set Send Omni to Pads to off. Each Pad receives on its respective channel 1-16, and each will respond to note sequences sent on its specific channel. It will play the whole midi note range (octave range -2/+5 in Bassline, at least).

You can have different Midi settings per instance.

Here is an AB preset, with a kit on one instance, and a bass on the other. Kit driven by Rozeta XOX, bass driven by Rozeta Bassline.

http://preset.audiob.us/HQ8XgN86H27CEQF

For the Kit instance, I only have Send Omni to Pads active.
For the Bass instance, I don’t have any options active.
But make sure you have the relevant midi channels active.

skrat

@CracklePot said:
For the BH instance with the drum kit spread across the Pads, set Send Omni to Pads to on. Each Pad responds to a midi note, starting at C3 (note 48) and going up a semitone per Pad. The sequence can be input on any channel.

For the BH instance with pitched instruments on each Pad, set Send Omni to Pads to off. Each Pad receives on its respective channel 1-16, and each will respond to note sequences sent on its specific channel. It will play the whole midi note range (octave range -2/+5 in Bassline, at least).

You can have different Midi settings per instance.

Here is an AB preset, with a kit on one instance, and a bass on the other. Kit driven by Rozeta XOX, bass driven by Rozeta Bassline.

http://preset.audiob.us/HQ8XgN86H27CEQF

For the Kit instance, I only have Send Omni to Pads active.
For the Bass instance, I don’t have any options active.
But make sure you have the relevant midi channels active.

Oh, beautiful, it just works! 🙂 maybe I haven't been fiddling enough with the settings. It was worth asking here, you guys are awesome. Thanks!