Useful Envir Layer Switches GB Bass Bass Vi's in Real Time

[8E8s]

You might find this template useful. It includes an environment layer that switches between several bass instruments as you play. This idea may be old news for some but I've been wrestling with a way to manage/switch different articulations of a VI (strings for example) while I play. I thought I would give this a shot first with a few simple garage band bass plugs. It worked. Here's what it is.

 

The template loads the 3 instruments: muted bass, thumbstroke bass and fingerstyle bass on separate audio instrument tracks. A fourth track (mod switcher) is cabled thru to some transformers and a cable switcher on an environment layer. This is the track you want to actually select and "play." When you do, rotate your mod wheel on your midi controller and you will switch between playing the three bass plugs. No, the switch is not subtle, there's no way to blend them. Don't think, velocity crossfades in a sampler for example. This is a fast way to switch between different articulations of a single instrument or a few different but similar-sounding instruments.

 

The mod wheel data is sent through a transformer that scales it using simple division. If you wanted more range from your mod wheel (if for example, you wanted to include more plugs to switch between) then you could lower the denominator in the division).

 

The output of this is sent to a cable switcher which sends its three outputs (or more if you wanted) to the three bass VI tracks. When you rotate the mod wheel you control the cable switcher in real time. This is useful.

 

A problem I've encountered is that if the channel switcher switches while you've got a note held down then that instrument will never get the "note off" message and the note will ring . . . forever, or at least until you start and stop the transport or send a midi note off panic command. This is never actually a problem for recording. If you record a midi passage and this happens while you record, the hung notes won't be there when you play back owing to the way Logic handles note lengths and note off events in its sequencer. But it's a drag to hear it while your trying to be inspired to play as you record.

 

To fix this I inserted another transformer in the environment which filters everything but note off events and I have those sent to all of the VIs all the time. That solves one problem but introduces another - some of the bass plugs have subtle release noises like slides. I'm now triggering them all the time on all 3 of the plugs.

 

If you try this you might disconnect that second transformer that sends the note off events and just live with the occasional ringing note . . or practice releasing all keys before you move the mod wheel too much.

 

Anyone have any ideas how to better avoid that problem? With additional transformers and another cable switcher I'm sure there's a way to send note off events more specifically when the mod wheel is in the range of switching between the plugs.

 

Anyway, here is the attached template. I think is supposed to go in user/Library/Application Support/Logic/Project Templates

Bass_Switcher_Environ.logic.zip