Oktagon

Hi @Murmoons, I'm not sure what the issue would be there, but worth looking at this discussion in this thread where some people were having issues.

http://soniccharge.com/forum/topic/1422-new-max-for-live-device-for-microtonic?~post5924

The device relies on Microtonic being in the right place such that M4L can launch it directly by name.

This works well for me, thanks. I did have to set Sync to 'Clock' rather than 'Clock+Transport' in Overbridge though.

Hi @Shadebx, I've released an update which helps with the issue you're seeing, although there are still more events in the undo queue than I would like. Hopefully the problem where it gets stuck in a loop undoing should be improved/resolved though.

@juandaco Thanks, very glad it's of use!

@telkmx each instance of JustTheTonic has a separate instance of Microtonic. Microtonic is pretty lightweight so it's not an issue.

@gnessis I'm not having issues with Live 11 but I don't have an M1 mac to test on at present. If Microtonic itself is working ok then in theory JustTheTonic should work too.

Not sure what the prompt looking for files would indicate, the main thing is making sure the device file is put in the right location otherwise the drum rack won't find it.

@braduro, thanks for the feedback! I guess my initial goal for this patch was to recreate a hardware drum machine workflow with Push but using Microtonic as the sound engine. The appeal of the Microtonic drum synth to me is that it makes a wide range of sounds with a small set of parameters, so it lends itself well to mapping on Push, which to my taste doesn't work so well with synths that have too many parameters.

I actually wanted to get away from the Microtonic sequencer because it's a bit too self contained - I wanted to work with midi clips in Ableton directly. I also don't really use any premade patterns, I always start from scratch. I do love the range of Microtonic presets as starting points for designing sounds though, which is why I made the preset system.

@claytonc, it's not currently possible though it could be added I guess. My typical use case is in a drum rack so the midi note is normally triggering the specific instance. I will have to take a look if that part of Microtonic is controllable via Max.

@chrisfreeq, you're very welcome! Let me know if you have any issues getting it up and running.

I found a workaround - group the entire fx chain including the receiver into an fx rack. Then you can enable/disable the entire rack to compare to dry with no latency issues.

Looks like it might be coming from your use of plugsend~/plugreceive~ ?

https://cycling74.com/forums/plugsendplugreceive

Thanks for the cool device!

I'm seeing a significant delay when I enable bypass mode on the receiver. No issues in processed mode.

@LeeMartin, newest version supports exporting to preset files. Hope it's of use!

@LeeMartin, thanks for the feedback!

Saving a drum patch isn't currently possible but in theory it could be added if the javascript environment in Max will allow for writing text files. I'll investigate.

It is possible to access the parameters of each Microtonic pad from a single vst instance, yes. However there are limitations with exposing all Microtonic functionality in a Max device because not all the Microtonic features are controllable via cc/midi events.

If you were happy with requiring the user to open the Microtonic UI from inside the Max device you would have more options, but the goal for this device was originally to make it work nicely with the Push & drum racks.

Great, glad it's of use!

@MProd, I've updated the device to switch the Mix control to the Microtonic style. Unfortunately this requires an update the underlying patch data stored in the device. When you load a preset created with the old version this should be done once only under the hood and things should sound as before.

There is one tiny issue where if you load consecutive ableton presets created in the old version, the data update only happens on the first preset loaded. To avoid this issue, open any ableton presets you've already made once in a new device and save them.

Thanks for the useful info Mprod. I had noticed the confusing behaviour with the example drum rack not finding the Max device unless it's in that specific location, but I hadn't realised it breaks the presets if you relink it. I wonder if there's a better way of packaging this up so that it's more robust...

Thanks for the useful info Mprod. I had noticed the confusing behaviour with the example drum rack not finding the Max device unless it's in that specific location, but I hadn't realised it breaks the presets if you relink it. I wonder if there's a better way of packaging this up so that it's more robust...

Fantastic, glad you go it working! Let me know if you have any other issues.

@AuralBee: Do you have a licensed version of Microtonic? If so and it’s somewhere Max can see it (in the standard vst dir) you shouldn’t need to do anything but load the device and it should already respond to midi.

If that’s working, try loading the included drum rack for a demo of how it works.

Thanks for following up with feedback! Will take a look into the mixer thing, I hadn't noticed that. There are a few compromises with the controls because Microtonic has surprisingly complex response curves for each parameter that can only be approximated with Max for Live parameters. But hopefully that should be fixable.

Yes, the decision to not support showing the Microtonic UI was deliberate, partly because I need to have explicit control over it the whole time to make the device work. And yes as you say it's ultimately designed to use on the Push.

The velocity adjuster - you can do that with the velocity curve control on the device hopefully? I ideally want to put all the 'standard' controls you might need on the device so you don't have to menu dive in the Push as much.

Hey, thanks! I had the same problem which was what pushed me to make this... love the Microtonic synth but wanted to use the Push to sequence. They actually work really well together!

Oh and yes the theme should be mirroring the Live theme (other than the browser controls I think which are fixed). Let me know if this doesn’t work as expected.

Could do that. I guess I could have an additional toggle to allow editing the a/b presets and then a separate morph control. Would have to think about how to do it without making the UI confusing.

I did look at the pitch mode option. There is an issue that there’s no way of enabling pitch mode programmatically, the only options would be to have the user make it the default setting for Microtonic or to provide a button that opens the Microtonic gui which I wanted to avoid. So I’ll continue to try and think of a nice solution but it doesn’t seem obvious how to do it in a non-confusing way.

Thanks for the complement! :)

I agree that the morph slider would be a really nice feature. Originally when I started implementing this I was planning on using the build in preset blending feature of Max's pattrstorage object. With this it would be possible to have the preset control become a floating point dial letting you blend between consecutive presets rather than just switching which I think would have been fun replacement for the morph control. However it turns out pattrstorage generates so many undo events in Live that it's not really usable, so I had to build my own preset system using the Live API.

Perhaps I can resurrect the morph function in a future version. It does make editing tricky if you're 'mid morph' because you're editing the a & b patches simultaneously. I'll have to think about it.

Pitch mode was something I thought about adding at some point, yes. Hopefully that shouldn't be too hard to implement.

Theming should just be driven by the Live theme, seems to work for me on Live 10.1 anyway.

Ok version 1.01 should work with choke groups (although I didn't turn them on in the example drum rack).

Thanks for the positive thoughts, much appreciated! It was a bit of a struggle to make it work as I wanted but I'm glad I persevered...

I had a look into the choke group issue. Turns out Live drum rack choke groups work by sending the other channels in a choke group midi cc 120 to silence them. I should be able to implement that fairly easily and then this should work in the normal way.

I'll try and address that at some point this week.

Fair enough, I'll take a look tonight. Should be able to sort something out either way as you say...

Thanks for the feedback! I have to admit I haven't actually tested choke groups but I had assumed that drum rack choke groups would work for this. Is there something that the Microtonic choke groups do that the drum rack ones can't?