organizing patches
 

I am very interested to hear about how you organize your virus presets and patches!!

Up until now, I've mostly used my virus in Single mode. I send midi from ableton, get a good sound, and record the results back into ableton. I rarely bother to save the virus patch itself, I just have a couple of starter patches which I can call up and tweak to produce new sounds.

I'm now changing my workflow, and got rid of the computer entirely. I now have a midi sequencer (an emu xl-7 command station) for sending midi and controller tweaks to the virus. But I have no idea how to go about arranging the presets on the virus in such a way that I can recall the same sounds for the same patterns in the xl-7.

I guess you don't need to have an xl-7 to understand the problem. I am making a live drum and bass set, so I need to manage multiple songs, and recall the right sounds at the right time. Help! I am completely lost, and would appreciate any ideas or strategies you have developed for this kind of job.

You need to find how your xl-7 can send program change messages, in order to recall the right virus patch associated with your pattern.

usually if you set 34 as program change, you will recall the A34 patch in the virus. try it and let me know.

Yes I know how to do that. I can place the program change msg at the start of the pattern (and it will be sent once, as the pattern loads, and before the first note-on. It is not sent when the pattern loops). The trouble with this approach is that the virus is taking a short moment to change program, and it misses the first note of the pattern... am I doing something wrong here? This is noticible with just one patch playing in the patterns and a single program change msg when changing patterns.

Should the program change be instant? I am running at 175bpm, maybe slower tempos would give the virus the time it needs to change patch, I dont know.

I should add that I'm not entirely sure if I changed multi, or just a single within the multi-single mode...probably the latter.

i think you're right, the virus needs some milliseconds to change patch.
i never tried multiple fast program changes, usually i recall my multi and play with it.
you could try a similar way: organize 16 different sounds in a multi, then simply change sound using another midi channel, not calling another different program. hope it helps.

Hmm, that will work as long as I am using only those 16 sounds, but I'll need to change patches eventually. My ultimate goal is to make an automated set, where I just start the sequencer and music comes out for around an hour. I will play drums along with this so my interaction with the gear will be limited.

I have thought about adding transition bars where one or two patches would remain the same (and sounding) when entering the transition piece or intro pattern, and the other channels would silently be performing program changes, and then the sequencer switches to the following pattern. I'm having enough trouble just trying to structure some basic patterns and sounds at the moment. We'll see if this works well or not.

I also have an XL7, but only use my MPC since I got my TI. I always create a new multi for each song. Cool thing about the TI is the singles get saved inside the multi so I don't have to worry about losing my presets or anything. I hate pgm changes in my setup. Also, the redundant naming helps keep things organized at the end of a project when I'm archiving everything I've got a sysex file with all my presets, sequences, multitrack/PT sessions, etc. I've been working this way for probably six years. The only problem was with my Virus Classic that just referenced the singles from the multi so if I used the same sound in two songs or moved the preset my song got screwed. Good naming and redundancy is key. Also, develop a protocol for your multis. By this I mean sub is always on ch9, mid bass is always ch10, FX/processing like vocoders or aux processing is always ch16. Drums are usually 1-4 (on the xl7 its always top row, eg 1-8 ). This way I always know where to go to get a particular sound regardless of what song.

Whats up? Thats sounds like good info... I need to learn how to assign sounds to different channels. I want to use my Indigo as a module with my MPC 2000... I'm sure it's possible... isn't it?