QUESTIONS ABOUT RMX FEATURES NOT IN VIDEO

[slinky]

I've only RMX a few days and of course I am in awe. My question this: There are a couple of things I have noticed that are not explained in any of the tutorial videos such as:
- The settings button on the directory page
- The first five options in the edit group assign pull down >
(enable add/remove slice etc.)
I checked out all the tutorials and I believe these were not covered.
Since there is no manual or online help, does this mean these are not yet implemented?

[spectrum]

Those features are implemented and will be covered in new online video tutorials coming in a couple of weeks on the RMX community page.

http://www.spectrasonics.net/rmxcommunity/

Gabe can jump in here and explain the Settings and Create Edit Groups manual assignment things...

spectrum

[Gabe S.]

There are a couple of things I have noticed that are not explained in any of the tutorial videos such as:
- The settings button on the directory page
- The first five options in the edit group assign pull down >
(enable add/remove slice etc.)
... does this mean these are not yet implemented?

Hi.

1) If the "Settings" button in the Browser page is lit up, then all the parameters reset to their default values each time you change a groove. If it is unlit, then you can have a set of parameter changes in place, switch grooves and all the changes stay where they are, so you can listen to your tweaks on several grooves.

(I'll address the Edit Group question a bit later today...)

Thanks.
-gabe
(For the record, I beta-tesed RMX)

[Kevin Perry]

Also.....does the "master play" button respond to any midi note or controller signa?.

[Gabe S.]

My question this:
- The first five options in the edit group assign pull down >
(enable add/remove slice etc.)
I checked out all the tutorials and I believe these were not covered.
Since there is no manual or online help, does this mean these are not yet implemented?

Hi.

Yes, these features are implemented. I'll do a little mini tutorial on doing Custom things to Edit Groups that will demonstrate a couple of them. This will be a step-by-step, follow along kind of tutorial.

(The following is a long post. It expands a little bit on Eric's video introducing Edit Groups. I beta tested RMX so I'm fairly familiar with the program. Spectrasonics is working on new videos that will be on their website, but before they arrive, I thought I'd tackle one of the newer concepts of RMX.)

Ok. First, I would tell you to watch Eric's tutorial video regarding Edit Groups again. He does a really fantastic job of introducing this new concept of Edit Groups. I'll repeat what Eric says: Edit Groups are a VERY powerful tool to manipulate your Grooves. Understanding how to use them really opens up RMX's sonic shaping abilities.

In the video Eric only uses the predefined auto-Assign choices in that long list found with the Assign button; for example, "Downbeats". These are great assigning options--very fast and convenient, but there may be times you don't want all the Downbeat Slices in the same Edit Group getting the same changes. Or you may want additional Slices in an Edit Group that weren't there originally and no predefined Assign option can catch just the Slices you want. In our little tutorial, we want to ONLY have the Slices that contain Kick Drums in an Edit Group. So let's try to remove Slices that we don't want from an Edit Group and add "missing" ones and this example will have us adding and removing Slices from a predefined Edit Group.

To begin:
Load a fresh new instance of RMX so that nothing will affect our tutorial. Make sure you're in Slice Menu midi Mode, and your keyboard is set to play notes on Part1/midi channel 1 of RMX. We'll use "100-Locker Room HH a". This is a good example where the Kick does not reside only on the Downbeats.

-On the Browser Page, click on "100-Locker Room HH a" to load it into Part 1. You should hear the groove once it's been chosen and loaded. You can click the name again to stop it from playing. Click the Edit page button in the Footer to go to the Edit Page.
-Click the cover plate on the Edit Group area to make it disappear.
-Click the Assign Menu and choose "Assign Downbeats". Click on "Main" in the Edit Group area and select "Downbeats" from the popup list. Now you should see "Downbeats" in the window.
-Press the Part Play button for Part 1.
-Click the Solo button to the left of "Downbeats". Now you should hear the Kick on beat 1 and only a hi hat on beat 3. But there were other Kicks in this groove that didn't get Assigned because they weren't on downbeats, plus we have these hi hats I don't want in the Edit Group.
-Click the Stop button to stop playing the groove. Great, so now we want to get rid of the hi hat-only Slices and be left with only Kick Slices.
-Click on Assign and choose the top choice, "Enable Add/Remove Slice". You'll notice a new button appears above the "Downbeats" window. This button allows us to Add or Remove Slices from an Edit Group. But we have to find the Slices we want to remove.
-FIRST, Unsolo the Downbeats by clicking Solo again. This is important because, while in Solo, RMX will keep the non-Downbeat Slices muted, even if we play from a keyboard.
-(C4 is what I use as middle C in my setup.) So, the Groove's lowest note is C2. Play notes on the keyboard starting from C2 and you'll see the button change from Remove Slice to Add Slice depending on what Slice you're on. On C2 and E2, it says Remove Slice because those are the Downbeat Slices that are part of the Downbeats Edit Group. Play D2 and D#2 and it changes to Add Slice because these Slices are not part of this Edit Group but can be added by clicking the Add Slice button. Ok, so let's get rid of the hi hat-only Slices.
-The hi hat-only Slices are on keys: E2, C#3, A#3 and G4. Each time you reach one of these, click the Remove Slice button. You'll notice the Button changes to Add Slice each time because now you could add it back to this Edit Group if you wanted. Any time we Remove Slices, these Slices return to the MAIN Edit Group. So, now all the hi hat-only Slices are removed, but I know for sure we're missing some kicks. So, let's go find the kicks and Add them to this Downbeats Edit Group.
-The missing Kicks are on keys: F2. D3, B3 and G#4. (There's a different sounding Kick on B4. We'll just leave it there.) Click the Add Slice button each time you press any of those keys. Now this Edit Group contains all the Kick Drum Slices in this Groove. If you click Solo, you can confirm that you only hear Kick Drums. Let's do something simple like lower the Pitch of the kicks by moving the "Coarse" slider to the left . Notice, the rest of the groove stays untouched.

Let's do one more thing to this Groove. I want to add verb to a couple of the snares. Let's say we just want to find a couple and add them to a new Edit Group--we don't want to use a predefined Assignment option. In this example we'll CREATE our own Edit Group and go from there.

-First make sure you Unsolo the Downbeats group.
-Start playing the keyboard and find the snare at F#2. Make sure F#2 is the last note that was played on the keyboard.
-Click on Assign and Choose "Create Edit Group (First Play a Slice).
-Now click on the "Downbeats" window and choose "Edit Group 1" from the popup list. This new Edit Group contains 1 Slice: F#2. Let's find one more snare to add. Play the Slice at C4 and click the Add Slice button. Now we have two snares in this "Edit Group 1". I want to add some verb to these two snares, but let's do something before that--let's give this Edit Group a Custom name.
-Click Assign and choose "Rename Edit Group". Before entering the new name, you MUST click the name "Edit Group 1" itself to allow typing. Now type a custom name like "Snares Verbed". Hit Return. We've given this Edit Group a custom name so that we don't have to guess what it's for. Now let's go add the verb.
-Click the FX page button. Make sure "Inserts" is lit up at the top. On one of the fx racks, click on the downward pointing triangle and choose EZ-Verb at the bottom of the list. Now if you play Slice C4, you'll hear that this Slice has verb, but none of the surrounding Slice do.


Hit Play in the footer and now we have a groove with a custom pitch-lowered kick and a couple of custom chosen snares verbed.

If you don't like any of the changes we did, click on Assign and choose "Assign all slices in Element to Main." This basically gets rid of everything we just did and returns all the Slices back to Main.

This just touches the tip of Edit Groups. The Main thing to remember is that each Edit Group has it's own Edit Page, Chaos Page, and FX (inserts) page. Each time you create a new Edit Group, a new set of all of these pages is created just for that Edit Group. This allows for a high degree of customization options.

Anyway, there's a bit more about what Edit Groups can do. I hope people find some of the info here useful.

Happy RMXing!
-gabe

[Bo Clausen]

Thanks Gabe for the info tutorial

RMX is simply fantastic - holly macral

All the best
Bo

[slinky]

I completely agree Bo. I really think words are not enough to express how impressive this software really is.

[sbonvallet]

Also.....does the "master play" button respond to any midi note or controller signa?.

Nope! Master Play & Stop buttons don't respond to MIDI data. They are shortcuts that command the Play button of all channels at once (which respond to MIDI Control). So if you want to setup a MIDI Master Play button though, it's very easy. MIDI Learn the play button of each channels and affect it to the same controller.