How to change drum track on the fly

Alex_Korgo · Post by **Alex_Korgo** » Wed Dec 07, 2016 10:02 pm

Hello,

I have been using the M50 for a while, I normally play in Program Mode with Arpeggios. Or on Sequence Mode using RPPR. I really like the drum tracks, but to add variety I have to open the Drum Track tab on the touch screen and increase or decrease the selection. How do I jump to another specific one? Can I assign a certain key? Or can I somehow program it on the M50 Plug In running on a laptop?
Or triggered via MIDI?

Cheers!

Ovidius · Post by **Ovidius** » Mon Dec 26, 2016 2:49 pm

Hi,
you can do this using laptop (did not find any other way, see below). AFAIK drum track number is set by SysEx message.
I have tried to do this using:
- RPPR, but they do not support SysEx messages
- using Ableton with clips with recorded SysEx messages, however Ableton did not support SysEx messages at that time (version 8, not sure how now), also Bigwig Studio did not support them

To see what message is it, use MIDI monitor and change Drum Track. M50 has good MIDI implementation that sends MIDI message (SysEx in this case) on parameter change and when you send it back to M50, it will react the same way.

So easiest way is:
1) Use MIDI message recorder (some DAW or SysEx Librarian on Mac)
2) Change Drum pattern on M50 - message should be recorded
3) play back the message to switch to this pattern again.

If you look closer at the message, drum pattern number is encoded there. So you can automate this as you need.

If you have some coding skills and would like to cooperate on custom control panel for M50 written using Ctrlr, I will be glad to help. I was planning to do that, however did not get to it yet.

Alex_Korgo · Post by **Alex_Korgo** » Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:17 pm

Thanks Ovidius,

Great suggestion. I am not familiar with any DAW, but certainly will look around.

Interesting idea to create an M50 control panel, unfortunately I am very short on available time.

Ovidius · Post by **Ovidius** » Thu Jan 12, 2017 6:14 am

If you need just something that can record and play Sysex, have a look at Reaper. It is cheap but feature rich. It does not look fancy, however it is quite swift as well and has all the features from bigger DAWs.

It does not have any instruments or samples bundled.

Just a suggestion where to look.

voip · Post by **voip** » Thu Jan 12, 2017 9:50 pm

The keypad can be used to directly select a drum pattern that is numerically some distance away from the one in use. Just highlight the pattern number:description field on the screen and type e.g. 691<enter>. Ok, that's a screen tap and four keypresses in total, so not perfect, but one way to skin the proverbial cat.

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