After viewing a new machine demo online, I decided to try and emulate beat slicing a loop with Beatstep. (With the right loop this can sound pretty cool).
This is what I came up with.
(This is best if you use a longer evolving sample)
(Ableton, but the principle should be the same for any DAW)
(For this, I like to initially set Beatstep to External Sync to test)
Need 1 new Audio and 1 Midi track.
On new midi track insert drum rack.
On drum rack add percussive sample. (Fast Attack)
On drum midi track, set Midi from-- Beatstep
Set midi track to monitor in.
Set Beatstep to play continuous the same note
Move sample to beatstep's note being generated. ie; make sure Beatstep is triggering the sample.
On drum midi track turn off audio. (sends only)
Put loop on audio track.
On audio track add Gate. Side chain from Audio track.
This is Ableton-
On audio track apply (Audio Effects)-- Gate.
(The important part) On gate -- to the right of the bypass switch is a triangle, click.
Below that, click-- Sidechain.
Below that click-- Audio from-- then select the midi drum track that beatstep is triggering.
Adjust the Threshold level to where you are hearing the the sample being triggered.
Now turn off some of the pads, you should hear the sample opening and closing with the gate and not being triggered from the start.
Now the fun part starts, the various controls-- hold, release, etc will let you adjust the sample's response.
If you have it right, the sample will not be triggered from the beginning.
For some interesting effects try a midi delay on the midi track.
By the way, if you have a problem syncing to your DAW what I would normally do when testing this, is group all my other playback channels and set the group track delay to +0.42 ms, yours may differ (tried Mr. Artuia's fix but did not work on my system).
Hope this works for you, if you're interested.
Allnight.
P.S. To the moderator, after reading through other manufacturers forums, it would be nice to have a section in your forum about different users tips. What do you think? Seems the whole forum at the moment is only people's complaints (I have mine), pretty depressing. Just a thought.
