Aphelian makes an amazing drum sequencer!

Edward_Alexander

Saw that Aphelian was on sale today for half price, thanks to @Poppadocrock and the “iOS app sales and discussion thread, so I decided to snag it.

I soon discovered that it makes an amazing drum sequencer!

Here, I’m using it to sequence a multi-out session of HammerHead in AUM. This is one of my older, odd measure pieces that I’ve recreated with different instruments for experimenting with.

Edward_Alexander

Aphelian drum sequencing starts at 1:21

Poppadocrock

You know whats crazy last night after messing with it for a good hour or 2, I put it down and thought this would be great on drums I’ll try that tomorrow, so it’s ironic to see your post today. Lol.

Poppadocrock

Yeah in Au sequencer mode you can just select the keys that send the proper midi notes to the drum machine. Dope. Sounds so cool.

Edward_Alexander

@Poppadocrock its definitely a lot of fun going through all the shape designs for different rhythms.

michael_m

I am going to have to try this later

NimboStratus

Can anyone explain how to set this up so I can try? Thanks

reasOne

This sounds effing great man!

Pxlhg

Great Stuff Ed! Here's a little thank you to you

I should say that after I'd filmed that I couldn't get it to work again. I added more channels so I could separate them but I don't know what happened. I could skip Gadget and use Aphelian only to drive VS via bluetooth so no problem there. Probably got a bit too much with the extra app in between, what annoys me is that it did work a while as we can see in the movie.

_ki

Nice and creative idea that generates drum pattern one wouldn‘t come up

@NimboStratus How to setup:

• Add a drum plugin like FAC Drumkit, DrumComputer, RuisMaker etc that can be triggered by specific midi notes
• Add Aphelian AU to a midi slot and send midi to the drum plugin
• Set Aphelian to SEQ mode, tap the notes to be triggered on the small keyboard at the bottom, This latches/unlatches the notes. In case of FAC Drumkit, a C1 will trigger the Kick on pad1, C#1 triggers pad2 etc - this depends on the drum plugin used.
• For trigger distribution choose the polar variant and then maybe the high-low-high placement and 1 for range - this will place the lowest note (kick) in the top and left and right of the ‚distribution circle‘ will run through the input notes with the highest note on the bottom.
• Now choose a shape, if needed rotate it so that its start marker is placed in the top kick position. The shape influences the order of the triggered drum notes
• And lastly choose a an event pattern - this influences the rhythm of hits

Placing the kick note at the top and rotating the shape to this note help to produce rhythms without offset to the main beat.

Off couse you are free to vary this setup - choose another distribution, placement and range, or add swing, manually edit the trigger positions etc.

.

@Edward_Alexander Thanks a lot, that was really fun to try out.

_ki

Here the list of trigger-notes for several drum plugins that needed to be selected on Aphelian‘s mini keyboard:

DrumComputer

The default mapping doesn‘t start with the kick (Pad1) as lowest note, one need to turn the shape so that the start marker is 90deg to the right.

  Note | Pad
  -----+-----
   C 0 |  4
   G#1 |  2
   C 1 |  5
   G#1 |  1
   B 1 |  6
   G 2 |  8
   F 3 |  7
   B 4 |  3

EG Pulse

C1 to D#2 for its 16 pads, starting with kick, snare, clap

FAC DrumKit

C1 to D#2 for the pads 1 to 16

FractalBits

All Aphelian notes from C0 to C6 trigger sounds

Hammerhead, RuisMaker and RuisMaker FM

C2#, D2#, F2#, G2#, A2#, C3#, D3# (RuisMaker FM only the first 6)

MV08

C3 to D#4 for its 16 pads, starting with kick, snare, clap etc

Poppadocrock

There’s a couple ways as shown by Multiple members above

Poppadocrock

@_ki cheers for that little midi map there.

Edward_Alexander

@Poppadocrock said:
There’s a couple ways as shown by Multiple members above

Of course there’s several ways of going about it, but the basic concept is to treat it like any other sequencer plug-in right? Just stick it in a midi processor slot and route the midi to your favorite drum app.

@_ki said:

@Edward_Alexander Thanks a lot, that was really fun to try out.

Sure thing! I hope everyone has fun trying this and also hope the developer of Aphelian gets a little boost in sales!

ervin

@Edward_Alexander said:
Saw that Aphelian was on sale today for half price, thanks to @Poppadocrock and the “iOS app sales and discussion thread, so I decided to snag it.

I soon discovered that it makes an amazing drum sequencer!

Here, I’m using it to sequence a multi-out session of HammerHead in AUM. This is one of my older, odd measure pieces that I’ve recreated with different instruments for experimenting with.

"I mean, it's promising, but a bit naked without a tenor sax or something. You know what, Ed, maybe you should try adding that to your song some time!" 🤓

Edward_Alexander

@ervin said:

@Edward_Alexander said:
Saw that Aphelian was on sale today for half price, thanks to @Poppadocrock and the “iOS app sales and discussion thread, so I decided to snag it.

I soon discovered that it makes an amazing drum sequencer!

Here, I’m using it to sequence a multi-out session of HammerHead in AUM. This is one of my older, odd measure pieces that I’ve recreated with different instruments for experimenting with.

"I mean, it's promising, but a bit naked without a tenor sax or something. You know what, Ed, maybe you should try adding that to your song some time!" 🤓

chuckles 🤣 I might do just that! lol

now where did I leave that elusive saxophone…

Edward_Alexander

@michael_m said:
I am going to have to try this later

It’s super fun!

@NimboStratus said:
Can anyone explain how to set this up so I can try? Thanks

See above. Let us know if you need any help.

@reasOne said:
This sounds effing great man!

Thank you! 🙏

@Pxlhg said:
Great Stuff Ed! Here's a little thank you to you

I should say that after I'd filmed that I couldn't get it to work again. I added more channels so I could separate them but I don't know what happened. I could skip Gadget and use Aphelian only to drive VS via bluetooth so no problem there. Probably got a bit too much with the extra app in between, what annoys me is that it did work a while as we can see in the movie.

Ah, Thank YOU!

You know, I started up Gadget last night after our discussion and ran into something that made me quit Gadget right away… I wanted to loop 1.5 bars, but could not see anywhere in gadget how to move the loop bracket to anywhere but the next full bar.

It was either 1 or 2 bars. Is there a way in Gadget to loop 1.5 bars?

insight

This is dope. I bought Aphelian on sale today like everyone else, but I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet. Can’t wait to check it out when I get home tonight.

Pxlhg

@Edward_Alexander said:

@michael_m said:
I am going to have to try this later

It’s super fun!

@NimboStratus said:
Can anyone explain how to set this up so I can try? Thanks

See above. Let us know if you need any help.

@reasOne said:
This sounds effing great man!

Thank you! 🙏

@Pxlhg said:
Great Stuff Ed! Here's a little thank you to you

I should say that after I'd filmed that I couldn't get it to work again. I added more channels so I could separate them but I don't know what happened. I could skip Gadget and use Aphelian only to drive VS via bluetooth so no problem there. Probably got a bit too much with the extra app in between, what annoys me is that it did work a while as we can see in the movie.

Ah, Thank YOU!

You know, I started up Gadget last night after our discussion and ran into something that made me quit Gadget right away… I wanted to loop 1.5 bars, but could not see anywhere in gadget how to move the loop bracket to anywhere but the next full bar.

It was either 1 or 2 bars. Is there a way in Gadget to loop 1.5 bars?

It can loop 3 but I get what you say, Haven't thought about it though and I'm sure you can come with some project that does not include half measures (pun intended)

Poppadocrock

@Edward_Alexander said:

@Poppadocrock said:
There’s a couple ways as shown by Multiple members above

Of course there’s several ways of going about it, but the basic concept is to treat it like any other sequencer plug-in right? Just stick it in a midi processor slot and route the midi to your favorite drum app.

@_ki said:

@Edward_Alexander Thanks a lot, that was really fun to try out.

Sure thing! I hope everyone has fun trying this and also hope the developer of Aphelian gets a little boost in sales!

I was responding to @NimboStratus who asked how, then got multiple responses. I should have tagged him so it was not so ambiguous.

But yes for me it’s all about the AU, with 2 modes, sequencer and Arp mode. The standalone is fun to play around with and do all kinds of crazy, interesting, inspiring and great things but for actually making music the Au as a midi generator will be my preferred method.

I could see Sometimes getting something I really like in standalone then recording all 4 midi channels into atom2.

Poppadocrock

On a side note… I loaded two separate instances in AUM and the second one didn’t seem to be transmitting the midi, could be user error but had the first one working. Anyone experience this or experience running multiple instances of Aphelian inside AUM? Any tips, or straight forward?

Poppadocrock

@Edward_Alexander said:
@Poppadocrock its definitely a lot of fun going through all the shape designs for different rhythms.

You are spot on, there’s a lot of great aspects, least of not is fun.

Poppadocrock

@Poppadocrock said:
On a side note… I loaded two separate instances in AUM and the second one didn’t seem to be transmitting the midi, could be user error but had the first one working. Anyone experience this or experience running multiple instances of Aphelian inside AUM? Any tips, or straight forward?

Lol. There’s a thread about this.

https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/37386/aphelian-auv3#latest

Weird… that’s the First and Second quote yourself in a week. What does it all mean?.. lol.

Edward_Alexander

@Poppadocrock said:

@Edward_Alexander said:
@Poppadocrock its definitely a lot of fun going through all the shape designs for different rhythms.

You are spot on, there’s a lot of great aspects, least of not is fun.

Wow, I didn’t even realize there was a standalone version until I went back through these threads.

Quite the capable little app we have here!

Edward_Alexander

@Pxlhg said:

@Edward_Alexander said:

@michael_m said:
I am going to have to try this later

It’s super fun!

@NimboStratus said:
Can anyone explain how to set this up so I can try? Thanks

See above. Let us know if you need any help.

@reasOne said:
This sounds effing great man!

Thank you! 🙏

@Pxlhg said:
Great Stuff Ed! Here's a little thank you to you

I should say that after I'd filmed that I couldn't get it to work again. I added more channels so I could separate them but I don't know what happened. I could skip Gadget and use Aphelian only to drive VS via bluetooth so no problem there. Probably got a bit too much with the extra app in between, what annoys me is that it did work a while as we can see in the movie.

Ah, Thank YOU!

You know, I started up Gadget last night after our discussion and ran into something that made me quit Gadget right away… I wanted to loop 1.5 bars, but could not see anywhere in gadget how to move the loop bracket to anywhere but the next full bar.

It was either 1 or 2 bars. Is there a way in Gadget to loop 1.5 bars?

It can loop 3 but I get what you say, Haven't thought about it though and I'm sure you can come with some project that does not include half measures (pun intended)

Cool, I just want to make sure it can do all the things I need/want it to do before I start spending money inside it with the IAP gadgets.

@insight said:
This is dope. I bought Aphelian on sale today like everyone else, but I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet. Can’t wait to check it out when I get home tonight.

Sweet! This app is tons of fun in standalone or AU!

NimboStratus

Thanks all for the help especially @_ki . With a single instance running in AU midi mode, in the arp mode I cannot seem to select any notes. Any ideas?

Edit. Doh. You have to use the AUM keyboard.

senhorlampada

@Poppadocrock said:
Weird… that’s the First and Second quote yourself in a week. What does it all mean?.. lol.

It's like that song...
"I don't want anybody else
When I think about you
I quote myself" 😜

@Edward_Alexander @Pxlhg - Awesome stuff you got going there guys 🥰
Haven't played with aphelian in a long time
Time to remedy that

Edward_Alexander

@_ki said:

Hammerhead,

C2#, D2#, F2#, G2#, A2#, C3#, D3#

That’s C2, C2#, D2, D2#, etc. (White and black keys)

Just thought I’d add a little tid bit more info, that
Just to the left on the keyboard, (C1, C1# and so on), controls the pattern changes in Hammerhead as well.

This pattern changing feature is also present in many of the other drum apps listed, (Drum Computer for example has a fully customizable mapping system for this)

I actually discovered this by accident one night, hit the C1# key and the pattern changed. I was like whaaat lol

I think it’s also important to note (poor choice of words, I should say “point out”) that one app’s “C2” might be another’s “C1”.. they don’t all agree on what is middle C.

Edward_Alexander

@senhorlampada said:

@Poppadocrock said:
Weird… that’s the First and Second quote yourself in a week. What does it all mean?.. lol.

It's like that song...
"I don't want anybody else
When I think about you
I quote myself" 😜

@Edward_Alexander @Pxlhg - Awesome stuff you got going there guys 🥰
Haven't played with aphelian in a long time
Time to remedy that

lol

I guess I missed it the first time it came around (Aphelian), but I sure am glad it found me this time! Every now and then we’ll get some kind of amazing musical app like this.

CalCutta

Thank you for making this thread. It made me go check out Aphelian again and it's an all-around wonderful sequencer. Loving running Arp's in odd-number beats for polyrhythmic synth arpeggios.

Edward_Alexander

@CalCutta said:
Thank you for making this thread. It made me go check out Aphelian again and it's an all-around wonderful sequencer. Loving running Arp's in odd-number beats for polyrhythmic synth arpeggios.

Sure thing! It really is an inspiring piece of software!