PLANET-H.COM

pnoman wrote:I'm trying to see if G-Stomper Studio could be used as a "beatbox", providing drum and percussion tracks for live playing. The Live Pattern/Song Arranger mode seems almost ideal for this kind of situation; I plan to have a tablet/phone on top of my keyboard, and would like to be able to start a pre-determined song arrangement, but change it on the fly when we e.g. decide to repeat a chorus or continue soloing over a bridge, etc. And this appears to be a strong feature of G-Stomper Studio

pnoman wrote:So compared to the competition (C******), this is very nice -- although I find the G-Stomper interface a little more multi-layer menu-driven than I would prefer.

pnoman wrote:I plan to do the drum tracks in the Drum Grid, but cannot find out how to 1) individually vary the levels of each note, and 2) vary the timing slightly compared to the rigid grid -- which I can do on the competition. I know I can put accents on some notes, which basically means I can get to two different levels on each track, but I would like to be able to also put in e.g. more faint notes (e.g. like an up-beat ghost note). I would also like to be able to e.g. shift the timing individual notes (and maybe also the entire track) slightly away from the grid (e.g. putting some snare notes a bit late compared to the grove, while keeping the hi-hats on the exact beat, etc).

is there a way to do this?

pnoman wrote:Also, I would mainly use this in (semi)acoustic settings, and therefore need an acoustic driven drum set (like the Rock kit, but with a bit more variation to choose between) as well as some percussion sounds (bongo, conga, shaker, cowbell, ...).

What add-on packs addresses this segment? Or maybe my planned use is slightly outside of the focus group -- in which case I guess I could create my own drum samples from my existing libraries?

pnoman wrote:Thanks for the quick reply. I've played around with the automation feature/step edit features, and I agree that it could cover the needs for volume variation -- just need to get used to how it works

pnoman wrote:I guess there is no way to step edit from within the drum grid itself?

pnoman wrote:Is there any way that the colour of a note could reflect e.g. its the volume? As it is now, an accented note is coloured differently, but it would be nice if this scheme could be extended so that you could see at least some levels quickly from the colour.

planet-h wrote:

pnoman wrote:Is there any way that the colour of a note could reflect e.g. its the volume? As it is now, an accented note is coloured differently, but it would be nice if this scheme could be extended so that you could see at least some levels quickly from the colour.

Reflecting the sample level in the color of the note is not an option, as the sample level lives logically in another context.
But the color might reflect a new added velocity value (planned for some future update).

planet-h wrote:Accentuation and Velocity in general is a tricky thematic.
A lot of users prefer a real velocity (like the poly grid has) while others (usually those who come from hardware drum machines) prefer accentuation.

I'm not sure yet what's the right way to go here.
To replace the complete accent handling by a regular velocity
or to add velocity and keep the accentuation (so that users can choose what they want to use)
or to enhance the accentuation to three levels Accent, Normal, and Ghost.

What is your opinion here?

pnoman wrote:Been thinking a bit on these options.

Maybe the most flexible option is to make it so that 1) the velocity of individual notes can be assigned to any value you select (like in the poly grid), with a suitable default value if you don't change it.

Then, in addition, 2) the accent button could have maybe 4 modes: Off, Accent, Normal and Ghost (almost like you say), and for each key press it cycles to the next of these. When in Accent, Normal or Ghost mode, pressing a note would then assign the current accent velocity to the note. This way, the note is not really marked as accented (or ghosted); it is just a quick way of assigning a velocity to several notes.

This way, you could quickly use the accent mode to get the velocity into the right ballpark, and then you could make individual adjustments on top as/if needed (or not at all, if it's not in your interest)?

pnoman wrote:This sounds great, thanks! Is the beta live now -- and if so, how do I go about testing it (i.e. signing up for beta releases)?

planet-h wrote:

pnoman wrote:This sounds great, thanks! Is the beta live now -- and if so, how do I go about testing it (i.e. signing up for beta releases)?

Just visit https://groups.google.com/d/forum/g-stomper-public-beta-group and click "Apply for membership".
Once joined/+approved, click the dedicated link in the Community info/about section and then on the resulting page, click "become a tester".
Please take note that the BETA is only available for Google Play buyers (Amazon and slideMe buyers cannot be part of the beta tests).

Btw. BETA2 will go online within the next two hours.
It'll bring two more mind-blowing new features to the drum machine:
Step/Trigger conditions - apply conditions per step to generate endless variations for live use.
Micro Steps - Move every step up to 31 micro steps towards the next regular step