Recording the "Drummer" X-Y axis controller in realtime?

[MonoPoly307]

Hi guys

 

I've never been into using pre-recorded beats and loops, but this week have been working with another musician on some new ideas, without access to a drummer for the writing sessions.

 

Instead of recording some acoustic drums and looping them, we decided that it would be more efficient in the writing session to try Logic's Drummer feature. When we fired it up, we found that the drum tracks are quite good for mockup purposes or a writing session.

 

So - we started recording our session and getting ideas down. I opened up the Drummer editor, that has the great little X-Y axis thing where you can choose simple / complex / soft / loud, by moving the little button around in the box. It's very nicely done!

 

I discovered while we were recording that I could reach over and move it, and that the next bar would adopt the new feel I had chosen (louder, or more complex, etc). That actually brought things a bit closer to having a drummer in the studio with us, who would follow along with the feel and intensity of what we were playing.

 

So - now I've discovered this handy feature, I have a question: is it possible to record the movements I make on the X-Y axis, in realtime? And therefore, to play back the drum track with the rest of our jam, with all the changes I've made to the intensity of the drum part along the way?

 

We tried to make this work. We noticed there's no record button on Drummer tracks, so we instead turned automation on to "write", figuring that any movements on the X-Y axis would be recorded as automation. However, this didn't seem to work.

 

So - my question is: is there a way to achieve this? If anyone knows of any way to record these movements in realtime, I would be very happy to hear how it's done!

 

Thanks guys!

Mike

[David Nahmani]

No, you cannot automate the puck on the XY Pad.

 

You can however cut a Drummer region into several, smaller regions, and have different XY puck positions for each region. In fact you can select the first region, click on the XY pad, press the right arrow, click somewhere else, click the right arrow.....

[MonoPoly307]

Hey David

 

Thanks for the quick reply. Yes - I suspected that would be the answer.

 

Thanks for the info about cutting the regions and assigning a different XY setting for each. I had started to fiddle around a bit further with Drummer, and discovered that. It's great for arranging, but of course doesn't help with realtime.

 

It's such a shame the XY puck can't be automated really - because it works so well in realtime and can be cleverly used in lieu of a drummer in jam sessions! All they need to add is a recording option to automate the movements of the puck. 

 

Perhaps that might come in a future version of Logic!

 

Cheers

Mike

[MonoPoly307]

Hey David

 

Thanks for the quick reply. Yes - I suspected that would be the answer.

 

Thanks for the info about cutting the regions and assigning a different XY setting for each. I had started to fiddle around a bit further with Drummer, and discovered that. It's great for arranging, but of course doesn't help with realtime.

 

It's such a shame the XY puck can't be automated really - because it works so well in realtime and can be cleverly used in lieu of a drummer in jam sessions! All they need to add is a recording option to automate the movements of the puck. 

 

Perhaps that might come in a future version of Logic!

 

Cheers

Mike

[David Nahmani]

It wouldn't be that easy. You may have noticed that when you move the puck in the XY pad, the Drummer region doesn't react in real time. Once you stop moving the puck, a new performance is calculated based on the current puck position, and that takes a little bit of time, then the Drummer region is updated. If you keep moving the puck around, the Drummer region does not update. 

 

So it wouldn't be as simple as allowing the puck position to be automated, they would have to actually rethink the whole way the Drummer regions are being generated based on Drummer Editor settings. I wouldn't catch my breath!

[DSKcomposer]

No, you cannot automate the puck on the XY Pad.

 

You can however cut a Drummer region into several, smaller regions, and have different XY puck positions for each region. In fact you can select the first region, click on the XY pad, press the right arrow, click somewhere else, click the right arrow.....

 

 

This really helped me out! Thank you.

[David Nahmani]

You're welcome!

[Shimi]

I know this is an old thread, and I don't know if it is still impossible to record Drummer X-Y automation.  However, I came up with a workaround that's not entirely kludgy:

This only works if you have an audio interface with enough I/O, I'm using an older 18i20...  Essentially what I do is physically (using 1/4" TRS cables) loop back a stereo pair of outputs and send the Drummer track there.  [EG: Route Out 3/4 to In 7/8]

If you record that loopback (In 7/8) you end up with a scratch copy of what the Drummer track was doing during playback, including any changes from moving the X-Y puck or other parameters.

Per the example above, I monitor Out 3/4 rather than monitoring In 7/8, just to avoid any latency issues.

Hope that makes sense.  

 

[Shimi]

My last response was a little braindead.  You can do that in Logic's routing without the physical loopback.  Just bus out the Drummer track, and record the bus to an audio track.