Multiple midi tracks for one drum machine designer

[AnalogCircuits]

While its possible to route multiple midi tracks into one instrument "Track -> Other -> New Track with Same Instrument", routing multiple midi-tracks (which can include any midi note) for one DMD is not possible, am I right?

[David Nahmani]

What is the goal? DMD is already organized as a track stack that contains many MIDI tracks, and you can add more if needed. 

[polanoid]

3 hours ago, AnalogCircuits said:

While its possible to route multiple midi tracks into one instrument "Track -> Other -> New Track with Same Instrument", routing multiple midi-tracks (which can include any midi note) for one DMD is not possible, am I right?

You could create an empty software instrument channel strip and cable it directly to the DMD main channel strip in the MIDI environment. Then create an arbitrary number of tracks using that empty channel strip. All of them will send their data to the DMD. Note that you will have to manually rec enable the DMD track to make this work for live MIDI input. And when you are actually recording MIDI on one of those empty channel strip tracks, you will probably end up with double MIDI regions (because the DMD track records as well), but the regions on the empty channel strip will not result in any sound.

Edited February 2, 2023 by polanoid

[polanoid]

7 minutes ago, polanoid said:

You could create an empty software instrument channel strip and cable it directly to the DMD main channel strip in the MIDI environment. Then create an arbitrary number of tracks using that empty channel strip. All of them will send their data to the DMD. Note that you will have to manually rec enable the DMD track to make this work for live MIDI input. And when you are actually recording MIDI on one of those empty channel strip tracks, you will probably end up with double MIDI regions (because the DMD track records as well), but the regions on the empty channel strip will not result in any sound.

Thinking about that, it makes absolutely no sense, so, better disregard my post 😉 

[JakobP]

You can create multiple tracks pointing to the same DMD either by reassigning a track to the DMD main track aux, or simply record an overlapping region with the "create track" recording option set, or unpacking a take folder, see the link. But I wouldn't use it myself due to the buggy behavior:  DMD unpack Take Folder bug So, maybe @polanoid's suggestion might be the best workaround ? 😉

Edited February 2, 2023 by JakobP

[polanoid]

10 minutes ago, JakobP said:

or simply record an overlapping region with the "create track" recording option set

That creates a new DMD stack for every overlapping recording here on my machine (and Logic 10.7.6)

[polanoid]

14 minutes ago, JakobP said:

ut I wouldn't use it myself due to the buggy behavior:  DMD unpack Take Folder bug

BTW that bug is still alive and well in 10.7.6, so be aware!

[JakobP]

4 minutes ago, polanoid said:

That creates a new DMD stack for every overlapping recording here on my machine (and Logic 10.7.6)

Aha, then that behavior has changed since 10.5.1...

[AnalogCircuits]

16 hours ago, David Nahmani said:

What is the goal? DMD is already organized as a track stack that contains many MIDI tracks

Yes, but these track spaces are AFAIK specific to the cells. If you have complex patterns (containing multiple toms on different cells etc...) I cannot use these stacks.

[David Nahmani]

16 minutes ago, AnalogCircuits said:

Yes, but these track spaces are AFAIK specific to the cells. If you have complex patterns (containing multiple toms on different cells etc...) I cannot use these stacks.

In that case you can use @polanoid & @JakobP suggestions and create a software instrument track, then Control-click the track header and reassign the track to your DMD channel. 

[AnalogCircuits]

Thanks  I will try 🙂

[polanoid]

3 minutes ago, AnalogCircuits said:

Thanks  I will try 🙂

Note that you will find that channel under "Aux" (so, "Reassign Track -> Mixer -> Aux -> your DMD main track)

[JakobP]

When doing a reassign like that here on 10.5.1, the DMD button on the channel strip is replaced with a standard input slot, making it impossible to access the DMD gui (as in the link provided earlier) The button stays there if the DMD gui is open during the reassigning... 🙄 Wonder if this has changed in recent versions ? 

[David Nahmani]

2 minutes ago, JakobP said:

Wonder if this has changed in recent versions ? 

Yes, I get a DMD channel strip here in 10.7.7, albeit without the track stack icon so I can't open it to see the subtracks:

[JakobP]

4 minutes ago, David Nahmani said:

Yes, I get a DMD channel strip here in 10.7.7, albeit without the track stack icon so I can't open it to see the subtracks:

Ok, that's an improvement 🙂 The stack icon thing seems to be the normal behavior when recording to track stacks, at least here... Did you try unpacking a take folder on a DMD track ? That's another way to lose the DMD button here...

[David Nahmani]

7 minutes ago, JakobP said:

The stack icon thing seems to be the normal behavior when recording to track stacks

I'm not sure what you mean by that? I wasn't recording, I just reassigned a track to the DMD channel strip. 

8 minutes ago, JakobP said:

Did you try unpacking a take folder on a DMD track ? That's another way to lose the DMD button here

I just tried, it works as expected here. Maybe another 10.5.1 issue that was resolved?

[JakobP]

2 minutes ago, David Nahmani said:

I'm not sure what you mean by that? I wasn't recording, I just reassigned a track to the DMD channel strip. 

Oh, sorry, disregard that 😄 Are you saying you get that icon when reassigning to "normal" track stacks ? 

[David Nahmani]

43 minutes ago, JakobP said:

Are you saying you get that icon when reassigning to "normal" track stacks ? 

That's not what I was saying, no, in fact I've never tried that - but I can try now. Let's see... so no, I am not getting that icon when reassigning a track to a normal track stack. 

However thinking about it, that makes sense: you're assigning an environment object to the track. The environment object is just a channel strip, it doesn't know it's the main track of a stack. The track stacks exist only in the Tracks area and the Mixer.