'deus ex maschine' - the ultimate Traktor Pro 2 mapping for Maschine

Hopefully coming soon - I would welcome some suggestions as to what you'd like to see in your ultimate Traktor pro 2 mapping for Maschine. This is what I've got planned:

- 2 track decks & 2 sample decks, arranged A B C D

- Maschine-like tabs - the buttons to the side of the pads will be used to choose pad modes. Like Maschine you will be able to momentarily select the modes, and also 'lock' any mode for quick and intuitive switching

- 'Browse' and 'Sample Recorder' implemented through modes in left hand side

- layout intuitive for beatgridded synced tracks, with the ability to dig deeper for more controls

- ability to analyse, beatgrid and prep tracks from controller

- superknobs

- superfaders

- flashing lights

- no bomes or midi-pipe - works on mac or pc without extra software

More to follow soon hopefully - in the meantime, attached is a preview of a couple of the pad modes

 

Another feature I proofed today:

Beatsynced sequenced events such as auto loop rolls!

The proof of concept is in the below video - you can get Traktor modifiers to show the number of beats and bars from a certain action (say hitting the 'loop roll' button). Then you can have Traktor start the beatmasher with ever decreasing lengths over up to 64 beats (using 3 modifiers as below) before turning itself off.

This could be a sick, sick feature.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V9QvU75bPQ"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V9QvU75bPQ[/ame]

 

Here is another video showing some sequenced lights and a bit of an insight into how the pad mode momentary/locking system works:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79Mosglw14Y"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79Mosglw14Y[/ame]

 

Here's another video with a basic autoroll implementation: the sequence logic and beat phase source timing needs some work, but the fundamentals are there:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOh7e7g69Tk"]YouTube - TPro2: Sequenced & tempo synced autoroll with TPro2[/ame]

No hands! (Apart from triggering the loop and a bit of pointless filter)

 

Here is a picture of the FX knob page implementation. The other screen is basically identical. They can be switched to control FX deck 1/2 and 3/4.

This controls the FX decks in both single and group modes and as you see it here is 1/1 mapped with the FX deck in both modes.

To select a single FX, you hold shift and twist the knob under the -sign. This changes the FX group mode to single and allows you to select the effect.

To select group FX, you hold shift and twist one of the knobs under the =signs. This changes the FX group to group and allows you to select the respective FX.

Additionally, you will be able to select 4 favourite FX combos directly by holding down shift and hitting the buttons above the display.

In this picture, the light above the -sign shows that the FX deck is in single mode. When activated the LED flashes in time with the beat.

 

WOW! This looks soooooo promising and sick. You're the man! Right now i'm using dj endo's template, which also rocks. I love his fx section, did you check it out?

A feature that i'd love to see is the ability to delete hotcue's on the fly, without traktor jumping to that particular cue point.

I'm very interested how you'll turn out. Good luck!

 

Yeah, Im eagerly following this thread too.
I have a question, when you say you can change FX layouts by pressing the SHIFT button, are you referring to the SHIFT labelled button on the Maschine controller, or have you mapped a different button to act as a SHIFT button (modifier).
I didnt think the shift button was programmable.

Cheers Johnny.

 

@mat... thanks mate, what is it about endo's fx section that you like specifically? Hotcue deleting without jumping to the specific cuepoint can be implemented; maybe by hitting erase+hotcue when in hotcue pad mode?

@johnny... you are correct, the shift button is not programmable, it is reserved by the maschine controller software to access settings and change templates, so I currently use the Note Repeat button instead

 

Dayam!
looks like you're onto some cool stuff here. I'm looking to order a Maschine in about a week or so and will keep an eye on this.
*thumbs up*

 

Head in a vague place this morning so took the easy option and got the DYMO out. God I love those things.

In this photo you can see that control focus is set on A/B. This is where it'll spend most of its time if you are using C/D as sample decks or live input. If you've got C/D set up as track decks then you can switch inputs here. I was thinking of making the switch momentary with the ability to lock the switch. In this photo the switch is locked at A/B.

BROW is selected so the Transport section of Maschine is being used to browse for tracks. If S.REC was selected the Transport section would be being used to operate the sample recorder.

And finally, SNAP is on and QUAN is off...

 

Head buried in pad select logic today; 8 pad modes; 4 deck focus = 32 device mappings to implement. Phew!

Not much new to show, but here's another look at the Maschine-like pad select implementation:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gd0lSaJrwA"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gd0lSaJrwA[/ame]

 

There's a royal wedding or something today apparently so I'm legally obliged to get drunk today and have a hangover tomorrow. So no updates for a couple of days. I'll just post a fresh idea for implementation:

Keyboard mode

Maschine has it right? So will Traktor. Grab a note from a playing deck into a cued sample deck, play it like a synth on your pads, capture it with the loop recorder, add fx and drum loops, slam it into your mix.

PROFIT

 

wow! this is some advanced **** you've got going on there...

any chance you could post a .tsi for us dimwits to piggyback on?

 

Absolutely. When it is no longer in my head but in the controller manager!

 

lethal pizzle

lethal pizzle, i like where you're going with this you're doing some very interesting things, nice to see someone else with maschine also doing a ultimate traktor pro 2 mapping (it sure can't hurt to have more of them cuz everyone works differently).

I have created a set of tools that make the prototyping of the layout very easy and easy to change around so you can figure out exactly how you want things before you get to programing them. Then when you do program them another tool keeps track of all the crazy midi mapping and modifiers and macros for you so you can wrap your head around it much easier(i know where you are at, maschine is such a capable controller that when you mix modifiers and macros and when you run out of modifiers multiple virtual controllers. it gives me a headache quite frankly and i find later i dont remember which 32 mappings i had to do to implement that one function. this set of tools fixes all that and makes everything logical and keeps you from accidentally repeating a note or cc which totally ruin your day

And the coolest part is, they're extremely good looking and allow you to print off and save pdfs to include with your mapping for beautiful perfect self explanatory documentation.

If you'd be interested in beta'ing these pm me your email or im or what not, i can't send pms cuz i dont post on here alot and havn't hit 20 posts yet. I also don't want to post my email address on here for the world to see.

You're going to dig what I've done as much as I dig what you're doing. i can help you get those ideas in your head into the computer much easier and its thinkiing for the future really cuz you can easily use up 40 seperate mappings just to make a single function involving 4 buttons work not even counting the output feedback which can double that.

its brutal and i wanted to design the sickest mapping and knew i couldnt do it without making these first. honestly ni should have made these but i knew they would never put that kind of time into something that only 1% of their userbase would even understand enough to use. ;p

Cheers

Joe
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oh and pick up a casio p-touch off ebay and use the clear labels, they've been wonderful for me so far. they print small enough that you can see both maschines function and my mappings

 

Thanks Joe, I'm going to PM you mate. I currently keep all my notes in a single notepad file and my visual layout on a Google Docs spreadsheet and yeah, it's difficult to keep track. It's like the old days when I started out programming from scratch in Basic and I didn't know about subroutines and labels and got bogged down in nested loops and such
---
As for the p-touch. Though about thermal, but I thought maybe the friction from using the knobs etc might distress the plastic over time and ruin it. Plus I like the feel of the Dymo under the fingers!
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Oh and todays update (I've been down the pub basically) - I'm getting rid of the lock button. It's a waste of a button. You will now lock the pad modes by simply pressing any of the other pad buttons. Hopefully just as intuitive.

 

Recovery day today, so nothing new & concrete for you...

Very new, very unconcrete but very cool idea is adding a Mackie Control knob page. To utilise this we will need to run a Mackie emulator to convert Traktor's MIDI into Mackie V-Pots etc.

For example, you could have the knob labels on the LCD scroll through and show the fx, or update to show alternative text when a shift button is pressed. It may be possible to do something with the fact that V-Pots are capable of 10-bit inputs too!

 

Not a lot happening at the moment as I'm at work. But I've been thinking:

- Mackie Control emulation is not feasible at the moment. There are donationware emulators for the PC and commercial ones for the Mac. But they're not very stable, take a lot of work, cost money and don't fit in with my 'easy to setup' plan. So, no dynamic updating of text labels in the LCD windows for now. It's up to NI to give us this functionality; get to it chaps!

- You can do interesting things with the Maschine pads. You can send on/off messages and pressure messages at the same time. So, for example, in the keyboard/synth mode I proposed earlier, you could play the notes on the pads, and have the pressure control fader volume to emulate velocity and aftertouch. Or have it at a fixed velocity and have the pressure trigger superknob (superpad?) FX. This could be insanely cool.

- having various crises about how to layout the template. CABD (my preference) or ABCD? Should the controls be mirrored on each side of Maschine? How much should you have to use a shift button? How complex can a mode be before people get 'lost in the mapping'? Should I make it as in-depth as possible so you can use any mode or layout of Traktor at the expensive of simplicity, or should I make it more rigid but more intuitive?

Comments are welcome, as ever.

Laters, Rob

 

Had a bit of time between finishing work and starting sleep so I roughed out a proof of concept for a Deck Synth mode. Here's a couple of short clips. The first is a 1 beat loop playing over a drum loop, the 2nd shows me playing that 1 one beat note as a synthesiser:

http://demdj.com/MP3/Before.mp3

http://demdj.com/MP3/After.mp3

Why is it cool?
The synth sound in the second clip is me playing the 1 beat note spread across an octave on the Maschine's pads. Each note you hear is from me pressing one pad only.

How is the sound generated?
Note - Each pad triggers the loop from the start, but changes the deck pitch. The deck pitch is spread over 13 pads, one for each semi-tone, up to one octave above (you can similarly map each deck to an octave below). So you hit the pad relating to the octave you want to play.

Volume - Maschine can also send out a cc relating to pad pressure. Every pad has deck gain mapped to pad pressure. This means that the note is louder or quieter depending on pad pressure.

FX - lots of them. They are also mapped as superknobs (superpads!) to the pad pressure. This accounts for a lot of the variations in sound you can hear. The actual sound itself can vary wildly between the 3 FX chosen in group mode.

This would work as well if not better on a velocity sensitive keyboard. You can literally perform this one handed on the 'Traktor Synth'!

It is, of course, monophonic. I won't be able to sort playing chords etc. until we get keylock on the sample decks.

Cheers,
Rob

 

so impressed with the things you are doing..

but to answer your question earlier... Advanced techniques or intuitive simplicity .... Sleek and Simple wins every time.