Advancing Steps in a Sequence With Foot Controller.

[foxpop]

Hello Tapeop!
I have a possibly misplace question. I'm wondering if theres a way to advance trough the steps of a sequence through some sort of midi (or otherwise) controlled foot pedal. Is these some kinda of program or plug in that can do this? I have logic 8 (which kinda dated, i know), and a Kurzweil K2000. I'm open to buying something new, a board or software etc... Sorry if this question is vague, it's kinda tough to explain what I'm looking for. Also, very sorry if I posted this in the wrong area. Cheers,
Alex.

[Marc Alan Goodman]

It's an interesting question, and one I had to solve myself when playing solo shows a few years ago.

The solution I came to was to map the sequences to different midi keys on a organ style pedal controller, set it to monophonic, and then hit the correct key at the top of each section. It worked pretty good, but wasn't tempo locked, so if I didn't hit the key right on the one the beat would jump. There has to be a way to simply flick through the sequences with midi control, but I never learned enough about system messages to make it work for me. There are also pedalboards out there of midi triggers which would do the job if you don't ever want to play it as a keyboard. I was also using the thing to play bass parts :)
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-marc alan goodman

http://StrangeWeatherBrooklyn.com

[percussion boy]

Another way to do this would be to use a laptop running Ableton Live in session view, with the laptop attached through some kind of basic MIDI interface to one of those MIDI pedalboards that sends out a different MIDI note for whatever pedal you press.

You could set up an Ableton session with a different MIDI sequence (directed to a soft synth, or an external synth like the Kurzweil), or audio loop, or combination of several sequences and audio loops, that would all play together when a certain pedal was pressed.

The advantage to using LIve is that the transitions could probably all be smooth -- you can set things up so you hit the pedal just BEFORE the new sequence should start, then Live will bring the new sequence in right on the one (as George Clinton would say).

If you were willing to commit to a set format (eg. intro sequence once, then verse, then chorus, then verse again, etc.), you could dispense with the pedalboard and just set up Ableton to walk through a song's sequences automatically. Then you'd start the next song "by hand" at the laptop (one mouse click) before you started playing again. This approach would save the price of the pedalboard, which might be your biggest expense.

Depending what your needs are, you might be able to get by with the cheapest, most basic version of Live if you want to try this.

Hope this helps. It's not as complicated as I'm making it sound.
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"The world don't need no more songs." - Bob Dylan

"Why does the Creator send me such knuckleheads?" - Sun Ra
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[ashcat_lt]

These are great ideas, and might help with some projects I'm trying to accomplish, but I'm not sure they answer the question. Granted, the OP is (admittedly) vague. What I got out of it, though, was that he's got one sequence that he wants to step through manually, not a set of sequences that he wants to switch between on the fly. Like, a sequence of notes where it plays the first note the first time he hits the pedal, then hit the pedal again and it plays the next note. One may wonder why he wouldn't just play it by foot on something like organ pedals, but I know that I don't have that much coordination. Heck, if I'm playing guitar and singing I have trouble just hitting the right guitar pedal at the right time!
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it only hurts if you let it...

[percussion boy]

If the OP wants to go note by note with each foot press, like Ashcat said, then a Drumkat 3.5 with a footswitch or pedal would do it, at least up to like 8 notes before starting over. I will sell mine at a reasonable price if that would be helpful.

And yeah, I'm a little unclear which goal we're trying to accomplish here.
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"The world don't need no more songs." - Bob Dylan

"Why does the Creator send me such knuckleheads?" - Sun Ra
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[Marc Alan Goodman]

[foxpop]

[percussion boy]

[leigh]