Easy Way to Edit All Patterns in a group?

Hey guys, I was just wondering if there was an easy way to edit multiple patterns at once in a group. Say for example in my drum group, I have a pattern for the intro, verse, and chorus. But later on in the creation process, I want to lag my hi hats a little bit in a specific timing. I fiddle around with my main corus pattern until I have those hats moved exactly into the spots I want them to, and now I have to go into every other drum pattern and attempt (I say attempt because its terrible copying midi data in Maschine into the exact positions they were on the original) copy these hi hats and replace the hi hats in all other existing drum patterns. If anyone has suggestions as to how to make exact copies on timing, I am open to hearing it. I have not found the perfect way to do this yet. In the end, it would be great if there was an easy way to apply those hi hats to all the patterns in that drum group (replacing the old hi hats in each of those patterns and having them put in the exact timing of the original). This seems to be my primary complaint with Maschine thus far.

 

You're trying to do it from the software (mouse/keyboard) right? Maschine takes Grid, selected sound and playhead position into account when you copy-paste, all that takes some getting used to. If you using the Mouse and right-clicking to paste then where you click is also important, it pastes from the click position forwards... all sort of confusing...

For your specific scenario I think doing it from the hardware is more practical:
Hold the Events button and press the Pad with the HiHats. (this selects all MIDI from that pad)
With the HiHat Pad still in focus press Shift+Pad11 (Copy) then go to the next section/pattern and just do shift+Pad12 (Paste)

In some situations, (especially if the grid is Off) to prevent things from getting copied/pasted out of place I put a temporary dummy note in the 1, the downbeat, with Grid On, then paste and remove the dummy note. This is mostly when I am working on the same pattern, copying things around... But it's useful in many scenarios. (see gif in next post)

Maschine also has an invisible focus thing that often prevents us from using copy/paste from the software, this is hard to explain but i'll try, if you select some events and do cmd/ctrl+C then move to another section/scene you will be unable to paste unless you click once in the Piano Roll first, this is because the piano roll is not in focus so Maschine doesn't know where to paste the MIDI (in the gif example it's because I clicked in ideas view to change the pattern, so ideas became the focus).... But there's no visual indication to tell us if the Piano Roll is in focus or not... this is major UX issue IMO, it confuses the heck out of people.

 

Maschine often requires you to be a workaround-ninja...
Perhaps this gif helps when for some reason you dont want to use the hardware:

 

D, that was an amzing gif! Thanks for spending the time with this. I was using the dummy note idea, but not in the exact way you did. I think the way you did it (by using a long note extended through existing notes) will resolve my problem. And yes, exactly the failures you exhibited in the gif, are the exact ones I am experiencing. So there is no way to apply/paste the change to multiple other patterns at once with some type of shortcut? I would have to paste the selection over to each and every pattern in that group?

Thanks again D, very helpful as usual.

 

I dont think so, you really have to paste it manually to every pattern individually, also, clear the MIDI they contain before pasting...

Some people use a trick to get around this and other issues, separating drums across two or more Groups, for example: Group1 will have hi-hats, cymbals, crashes, etc... while Group2 has Kicks, Snares, etc... This simplifies editing since you can duplicate/overwrite patterns that just affect certain parts of the drum kit leaving others unaffected. Like so:


The example above assumes the hats are always the same and the kicks & snares or other things change a lot, for this specific scenario it can be more manageable to have thr HH in a separate Group if you're the kind of user who tends to change your mind about details late in the production process... You would only need to edit one single pattern. But of course, this also has disadvantages.
(It can also be cool to mute/solo drums from the Group buttons)

Yeah... A long note might not make much difference in such a simple example but for longer patterns it's quite handy, for a Piano for example with lots of notes/polyphony where we can barely see that some notes are off-grid a long dummy 1 bar note helps a lot, not just to copy but also to move things around correctly, It's a lifesaver if you're OCD about details and do a lot of editing... (I sure am and do. )

 

That's actually not a bad idea to separate them like that. But in the creative process, we never know what we are going to wind up needing to change down the line. I used to always create separate tracks for each drum sound in programs like reason, and even on my MPCs to maintain mute control over each one. so maybe I will just start doing that again. I stopped doing it on the Maschine cause of the way the work flow is setup in groups, and also due to the fact you cannot record pad mutes any ways (I think you can with some type of free vst).

Thanks D!