Beatcutter: Crowdsourcing the learning curve

Gavinski

@celtic_elk said:

@Gavinski said:
Really fun: let’s say the control and output busses are both set to bus mode 3. Change output to 2, then soon after change control to 4, then output to 1, then control to 5, etc etc. get really crazy dynamic changes.

Building on this idea: set up the app in a way that seems pleasing to you in terms of the use of pitch, effects, trigger sensitivity, etc. Block template randomization in all positions except the five positions with a # at the end of the label (positions 2, 5, 14, 21, and 34) - these are the positions that control the bus mode for the various bus groupings. On the Sequencer page, set Template to some number in the teens or tweens, and leave Numbers at 1. On the main page, set Change to a value around 2/3 of the Template value you just set. The sequencer will now move one bus at a time to a random location, slowly morphing between settings but still giving you a few cycles to hear the results before something else shifts.

Brilliant, you really have the right kind of mind for this app. Do you do something to do with maths or science as a job by any chance? Hmmm... Thinks in terms of....I'm guessing engineer or actuary? 😜

Gavinski

Great examples guys @Toastedghost @cuscolima @Obo @Obo I especially loved the groove you got going there, and the name and pic matched perfectly. I hope the naysayers are paying attention to this thread. I could easily have ended up ditching this app myself at a certain point some days ago but it's proving to be a kind of benevolent pandora's box of weird and wonderful music and intellectual stimulation

celtic_elk

@Gavinski said:

@celtic_elk said:

@Gavinski said:
Really fun: let’s say the control and output busses are both set to bus mode 3. Change output to 2, then soon after change control to 4, then output to 1, then control to 5, etc etc. get really crazy dynamic changes.

Building on this idea: set up the app in a way that seems pleasing to you in terms of the use of pitch, effects, trigger sensitivity, etc. Block template randomization in all positions except the five positions with a # at the end of the label (positions 2, 5, 14, 21, and 34) - these are the positions that control the bus mode for the various bus groupings. On the Sequencer page, set Template to some number in the teens or tweens, and leave Numbers at 1. On the main page, set Change to a value around 2/3 of the Template value you just set. The sequencer will now move one bus at a time to a random location, slowly morphing between settings but still giving you a few cycles to hear the results before something else shifts.

Brilliant, you really have the right kind of mind for this app. Do you do something to do with maths or science as a job by any chance? Hmmm... Thinks in terms of....I'm guessing engineer or actuary? 😜

Librarian. But science librarian, so you’re not that far off. 😄

Obo

@Toastedghost said:

@celtic_elk said:
@Toastedghost Very nice!

Thanks, this app is amazing totally up my street, though I must admit at first I thought I’d bought a duck. Love Igor’s other app but often fail to get anything musical where as this baby is so tweakable. I find now I am taking a new approach, at first I was producing small snppet samples with Enso but now find when setup I can let it unwrap. Lovely

I couldn’t agree with you more. Right up my alley as well I’m finding and I wasn’t so sure at first either. Now that I’ve passed that first little learning curve, it’s like I can sense how powerful this thing really can be with a bit of understanding.

Particularly stoked it gives me a good reason to sort through and re-listen to this enormous sample library I’ve compiled but have done very little with. I love crate digging and finding new sounds but I’ve never really used many samples in my compositions. Just havent been able to find that balance of using loops and samples while still scratching the creative itch that comes with knowing you’ve made something all your own. I feel like app is definitely tool that can be used towards bridging that gap.

Obo

@Gavinski said:
Great examples guys @Toastedghost @cuscolima @Obo @Obo I especially loved the groove you got going there, and the name and pic matched perfectly. I hope the naysayers are paying attention to this thread. I could easily have ended up ditching this app myself at a certain point some days ago but it's proving to be a kind of benevolent pandora's box of weird and wonderful music and intellectual stimulation

Thanks man! This thread, your vid and other tips around here definitely helped get past that first uncomfortable period where it looked far too dense. Now it just seems like a full blown creative wonderland ready to be tapped!

And Iol at the title and photo. I vaguely thought of some of your comments in that tutorial video as I was coming up with that title actually so it’s funny you picked up on it! It was borne out of similar sentiments you shared!

Gavinski

Yah, this thing is so damn insanely cool. But I am a bit confused by the matrix still. Ok, look at this, this kind of configuration is clear:

If I understand right, in this above setup, input 1 source material will be recorded every time trigger 1 fires, and its sound will be changed according to the settings in Control 1. That will play every time sequence 1 lights up, and will go through the processing on output 8 channel. So this is the basic way and is clear enough. But what about this next one:

In this configuration, it looks like input 2 is terminating in 3 different squares in the matrix. Is that right? I am unclear to what extent Igor is visualizing this exactly as it is and to what extent there might be an element of trying to make it look cool, though I strongly expect it is the former!

When I said in my video that I understood 90 percent but the ten percent I was missing was the most important ten percent, this is the kind of thing I meant. This matrix has just confused the bejaysus out of me

Gavinski

I have to say it, I had a few doubts, but I am now a believer. Igor is a genius, hats off 🎩, or should I say, mortarboards on 🎓🤓

Gavinski

Ok, when in doubt go to the source. Here we are, drawing by Igor, highlighting by me

This is an example showing what cells will be used by bus mode 8. The trajectory will be slightly different for different bus mode numbers but you get the idea

Gavinski

I mean, you can see this just by looking at when the lines light up in the matrix, but there is a lot going on usually, so this makes it very clear

Gavinski

Showing how low and high bitmasking levels radically alter how natural the sound is

Charlesalbert

@Gavinski Rebought 👍 thanks for all the help guys learning this.

Gavinski

@Charlesalbert said:
@Gavinski Rebought 👍 thanks for all the help guys learning this.

Good man! I genuinely understand why you asked for a refund, I don't think you will regret the repurchase. Thanks again to @celtic_elk for significantly helping me improve my own understanding

celtic_elk

@Gavinski said:
Ok, when in doubt go to the source. Here we are, drawing by Igor, highlighting by me

This is an example showing what cells will be used by bus mode 8. The trajectory will be slightly different for different bus mode numbers but you get the idea

You can think of it mathematically as well: bus 1 points to a 1-cell diagonal line, bus 2 to a 2-cell diagonal line, and so on until bus 8, which points to the 8-cell centerline. Since all buses contain 8 cells by definition, the remaining bus 1 cells are in the next diagonal row after the centerline, which contains 7 cells, and so on until the 1-cell row in the opposite corner, which is the missing cell from bus 7. The diagram probably makes more sense to most people who are not me, though. 😉

RUST( i )K

I have accepted that I will never CONTROL Igors apps. They more control me. I accept it. Being that the majority of instruments I use are hardware, his apps to me are exceptional ancillaries for sonic textures or manipulation. I am about to grab this once I decide on iOS update or not.

celtic_elk

@Gavinski said:
do you have any insights into creative uses of the various 40 different bus configurations

As I was thinking about math and Beatcutter this morning, I realized that this is a substantial underestimate: there are, by my calculation, 8^4 = 4096 unique bus configurations in Beatcutter. That alone ought to keep us busy for a while.

Toastedghost

Gotta read through some of the new insights, thanks for trying to dismantle this beast.
my latest fiddlings.

Eschatone

@RUST( i )K said:
I have accepted that I will never CONTROL Igors apps. They more control me. I accept it. Being that the majority of instruments I use are hardware, his apps to me are exceptional ancillaries for sonic textures or manipulation. I am about to grab this once I decide on iOS update or not.

Does it > @telecharge said:

You seem to be ahead of the game. Not sure if you noticed, but @Gavinski quoted this in the description of his YouTube walkthrough...

@celtic_elk said:
The realization that made this app start to make sense for me is this: each cell is a dynamically-triggered sampler. Each of the buses represent a stage in the sample/playback process: the input bus defines the sound source for a cell, the trigger bus defines the conditions for recording (trigger conditions, sample length), the control bus defines important aspects of playback (pitch, direction, how many times a cell plays before it empties, whether its first playback is delayed for one or more cycles), the sequence bus triggers playback (and can contribute to sampling as well, depending on how you set the trigger bus), and the output bus (which has two pages, one for effects/filtering and one for level/pan/EQ) handles downstream processing when a cell is played. Each trigger bus records no more than one cell when it fires; each sequence bus plays no more than one cell when it fires.

It gets complicated from there, obviously, but that’s the basic setup.

Thanks for the tips!

It’s a shame people blindly buy it and immediately 1-star because they didn’t know what they were buying and couldn’t get their head around it after a few minutes.

I’ve never used an octratrack but from my basic impression of what it can do, it sounds like Beatcutter might share more than a little in common with it’s sampling capabilities, especially combined with Drambo. Worth it if you’re willing to invest a significant amount of time to learn it.

Toastedghost

@Gavinski said:
Showing how low and high bitmasking levels radically alter how natural the sound is

Radically alters the sound, cool

Gavinski

@Toastedghost said:

@Gavinski said:
Showing how low and high bitmasking levels radically alter how natural the sound is

Radically alters the sound, cool

Yeah, the playback speed setting in template section is another one to really pay attention to.

Gavinski

@Eschatone said:

@RUST( i )K said:
I have accepted that I will never CONTROL Igors apps. They more control me. I accept it. Being that the majority of instruments I use are hardware, his apps to me are exceptional ancillaries for sonic textures or manipulation. I am about to grab this once I decide on iOS update or not.

Does it > @telecharge said:

You seem to be ahead of the game. Not sure if you noticed, but @Gavinski quoted this in the description of his YouTube walkthrough...

@celtic_elk said:
The realization that made this app start to make sense for me is this: each cell is a dynamically-triggered sampler. Each of the buses represent a stage in the sample/playback process: the input bus defines the sound source for a cell, the trigger bus defines the conditions for recording (trigger conditions, sample length), the control bus defines important aspects of playback (pitch, direction, how many times a cell plays before it empties, whether its first playback is delayed for one or more cycles), the sequence bus triggers playback (and can contribute to sampling as well, depending on how you set the trigger bus), and the output bus (which has two pages, one for effects/filtering and one for level/pan/EQ) handles downstream processing when a cell is played. Each trigger bus records no more than one cell when it fires; each sequence bus plays no more than one cell when it fires.

It gets complicated from there, obviously, but that’s the basic setup.

Thanks for the tips!

It’s a shame people blindly buy it and immediately 1-star because they didn’t know what they were buying and couldn’t get their head around it after a few minutes.

I’ve never used an octratrack but from my basic impression of what it can do, it sounds like Beatcutter might share more than a little in common with it’s sampling capabilities, especially combined with Drambo. Worth it if you’re willing to invest a significant amount of time to learn it.

Indeed it is a damn shame.

Gavinski

@celtic_elk said:

@Gavinski said:
do you have any insights into creative uses of the various 40 different bus configurations

As I was thinking about math and Beatcutter this morning, I realized that this is a substantial underestimate: there are, by my calculation, 8^4 = 4096 unique bus configurations in Beatcutter. That alone ought to keep us busy for a while.

😂
Yeah, wow.... About the diagram, the combo of the diagram and your description by the way is the best thing. Loving this thread.

Toastedghost

Here is a suggestion.
Could you guys post a screenshot or the numbers used when you create an interesting template.
Obviously it will not create the same composition since this is governed by what you feed Beatcutter in the way of either samples or instruments, but it could really help those strugling with this app.

Charlesalbert

@Toastedghost said:
Here is a suggestion.
Could you guys post a screenshot or the numbers used when you create an interesting template.
Obviously it will not create the same composition since this is governed by what you feed Beatcutter in the way of either samples or instruments, but it could really help those strugling with this app.

+1

celtic_elk

@Toastedghost said:
Here is a suggestion.
Could you guys post a screenshot or the numbers used when you create an interesting template.
Obviously it will not create the same composition since this is governed by what you feed Beatcutter in the way of either samples or instruments, but it could really help those strugling with this app.

That's a great idea. Unfortunately, it's not one I can adopt, because I don't tweak at the template level; I prefer to work on the individual bus channels, one parameter at a time.

By the way, an observation on the relationship between the template and the individual bus pages in the app interface: if you look at, for example, the control bus, you'll see vertical lines separating the pitch controls from the bitmasking controls from the Repeat/Skip controls. There's a template value for each of those blocks (and a separate one for the automation parameters for each block). That holds across all of the busses (although not all blocks have template controls).

ervin

Just a quick round of cheers from the sidelines. 👍 This thread is fast becoming the benchmark for the entire forum. Some of the conversation is now approaching a hitherto unknown form of pure dadaism, which incidentally is also true for some of the first musical efforts posted. More power to you guys! 🙏

Toastedghost

My latest fiddlings with Beatcutter

Below the number used to create the composition
(https://forum.audiob.us/uploads/editor/2q/gb3cacir8yww.png "")
Thumbnail pic was a Zombie makeup my daughter create on my face.

Jumpercollins

Actually took the plunge with Beatcutter, good time to jump in now the dust has settled and there are lots of lines of advice and a few how to u tube videos out there. Cheers everyone. Managed to get something sweet going with bird sounds and tiny bells wav files. Putting nature sounds into this I think going to be interesting 🤔

echoopera

Looks like @SoundForMore is going to help clarify things with this wonderfully complex and deep app as time goes by:

I really enjoy how he breaks things down on very complex apps.

celtic_elk

@echoopera said:
Looks like @SoundForMore is going to help clarify things with this wonderfully complex and deep app as time goes by:

I'm definitely keeping an eye on this. I've been mulling over whether I should try to do a tutorial of my own, but I have no experience in producing video tutorials, and if someone else is doing it well then it may not be worth duplicating the effort. That said, his approach to teaching the app seems to be substantially different from the one I'd take, so there might be room for multiple tutorial series.

Toastedghost

@celtic_elk said:

@echoopera said:
Looks like @SoundForMore is going to help clarify things with this wonderfully complex and deep app as time goes by:

I'm definitely keeping an eye on this. I've been mulling over whether I should try to do a tutorial of my own, but I have no experience in producing video tutorials, and if someone else is doing it well then it may not be worth duplicating the effort. That said, his approach to teaching the app seems to be substantially different from the one I'd take, so there might be room for multiple tutorial series.

Love to see a tutorial from you, seems like you have quite a drasp on this beast