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Cykle: play longer than just a Pulse?
I'm trying Cycle for the first time and there are a couple of things that bug me (most likely because I didn't understand them yet):
I seem to be able to play notes only by using a Pulse channel.
But, as the name says, it's just a pulse: no holding of the note, no envelope happening, no sustain.
But... I wanted to play a bassline. As a pulse input sounds more like a click rather than a bass.
How can I make the play be held?The notes available in the Pitch channel are limited to a single octave. I found it to be pretty limiting.
How can I get more octaves?If I find a melody improvising on the MIDI keyboard, when I try to get it into Cykle.... I have no way other than manually inserting it:
setup the scale, then the notes, then figure out how to make its rhythm with the timing I want (hence figuring out the length of the Pulse channel).
Not really comfortable.
I know that is supposed to be generative based on what I click/tap on, but that feels limiting my workflow if I cannot switch quickly from discovering the base of a melody (on the MIDI keyboard) to the actual melody implementation & randomization (inside Cycle).
Is there any alternative more improvisational ways to input notes? Something like a Record MIDI function?There's no Undo.... and that's annoying, given that there's a random/dice option 🙁.
Maybe somebody has advices for this n00b? 😅
Comments
No worries, we all started somewhere. I believe the gate or length extends the notes played by the pulse, the pulse just determines when a note is triggered. You then set the pitch, to determine which note is triggered, and gate for how long the note is played, and the many other parameters available to set in cykle.
You can set the scale in the settings aka hamburger menu in top left corner, it then only displays the notes in that scale.
There is an octave bar you can add with the plus sign in upper right corner, so the notes can be played in different octaves.
Can’t recommend watching a couple YouTube videos enough. There’s some great content creators that cover iOS music apps. You might not get every answer, but it will definitely help a lot. I do it for the majority of the apps I get.
Must say I also never really clicked with the workflow of cykle. Beautiful interface, some great features, just something doesn't make me feel inspired to use this.
Cykle is one of my absolute go-tos. You can set the key, change the length of the steps, the octaves, the pitches, the progressions, probabilities, and set different repeat loops for all of these independent of each other.
Probably utterly hopeless for building anything like a regular song, but if you want a generative, always changing soundscape made out of tiny little pieces of a thing, Cykle has got you. Click that top right plus button, set different pulse and pattern lengths and playback repetitions, and see where it takes you.
Got something good going? Drop in an Atom instance, and record it for posterity/further editing.
Yea cykle is cool but I like polybeat better for drums
Exactly. I dig it to record patterns into hardware grooveboxes. Or record sections that I can arrange or edit later to my hardware QY-70 or Xequence/Beatmaker 3 within iOS
We have so many generative and small midi sequencers, I prefer feeding them to other stuff and keep the main midi info elsewhere
Also @Pictor cyckle isn’t really for recording midi or Melodies. If you play something on the keys you like, You’d be way better off recording it directly into a piano roll like Atom 2, Helium, LK Matrix.
It does have an Arp setting that will take midi input and Arpeggiate it. It’s in the hamburger settings menu
Cykle is one of my favourite sequencers for "Berlin School" sequencing. The midi input functionality is indeed limited. The biggest drawback I found is that all MIDI notes are getting quantized to the single octave that the pitch lane uses. In other words a C4 and a C1 will always change into a C2 if that is in the range of this octave.
I also do that religiously indeed
Above all I do watch lot of videos from HaQ AttaQ, Gavinski and Sound Test Room, if iOS related.
I'm sure it would be super inspiring if it would act as a AUv3 effect!
Do you know if there is anything like that?
Yes, I figured out (and confirmed by writing the developer) that Cykle isn't supposed to act as MIDI-effect 😞.
It is cool for generating complex patterns giving lot of control with single parameters sequencing; but shows up few limits/walls on the power it gives (I didn't yet notice the limit on octaves).
IMHO this app would become extremely powerful as MIDI FX, if it would allow to filter/transpose/edit the incoming MIDI, allowing for melodies to be varied, rather than only applying to the internally generated notes & scales.
Because I'm not sure if Atom2 or Helium do actually provide anything similar, without recording the variations (ideally would work live as midi filter).
I posted a more generic thread dedicated to the topic: https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/60103/midi-effect-to-transform-melodies-and-arpeggios/