Organelle for Drummers?

Organelle
1

Anyone want to collaborate on some patches an electronic drummer could use?! I have tons of ideas but here’s just one:

I’m not a PD programmer - although I am a software programmer and drummer. But I started a simple POC in PD years ago and the premise seemed totally feasible.

What made me dust the idea off today was seeing this product announced. It’s close to what I’ve been thinking about for years, but could be SO much better on an organelle: http://artificialnoise.ca/key_control.html

The idea is to use the Organelle as a midi note remapper that would go between a module like a Roland vdrum module and an external synth set to a melodic patch.

How a drummer would use this is to trigger melodic tones from his pads, without having to change the drum module’s note number assignments (which is deep in the menus on most drum modules). I do this a lot and it’s laborious and each combo takes up a patch, which is surprisingly limited on most modules. And since a patch is note# configs + internal sounds, if you want change these independently, you need to copy the patch. Further, changing note assignments messes up the mapping with drum VST’s. So a re mapper makes total sense. Also most drummers are not knowledgeable about scales.

So an Organelle based evolution of the Artfulnoise device would be to use the organelle keyboard to set the key instead of a rotary knob. It should even be possible to capture scales using key combos like pressing C + D# to put it in c minor scale. And going in and out of Key/Chord choosing mode could be done with a footswitch or the Aux button.

The cool thing a drummer can then do is layer melodic tones with the drum module’s sounds and play both rhythmically AND melodically. This is a lot of fun. I can’t even tell you how often this makes me late for work.

(Adding in Sustain pedal capabilities is also a cool aspect, where one can drum over drones. I do this using a midisolutions footswitch device but I see no reason why this also couldn’t be done via the Organelle. What makes this work so well is percussive sounds ignore sustain cc’s.)

If I use a cool guitar sound, say something that can even handle chords from a single note like AAS Strum, I can sound like a very tight metal shredding duo by myself. This makes me very very late for work.

Extra credit would be to not just let the Organelle keyboard drive setting the Key but a second incoming MIDI signal on a diff channel (easy since the drum modules usually use 10). Then a separate keyboardist could change the notes the drummer’s triggering, similar to what Zach Danzinger does in Mr Barrington. And while he is an amazing drummer who kicks my ass, I bet I thought of this years before him. I’m just lazy and hate mixing my day job with my home job!

I really think this could be useful, and the way drummers drop money on ridiculously overpriced electronic drums (though I buy used), they could easily afford an organelle.

I have a few other ideas that are loop and motif oriented but would involve a similar config.

Any takers or suggestions? Been there done that?

-Bill W

1 Like
2

Hey Bill,

Just got my Organelle and have been thinking about a very similar idea. What I want to try and build is a patch that will run through a sequence of notes, each note being triggered when there is an input (e.g. from a drum mic) that goes above a certain volume threshold. Basically you could play a sequence of notes on the keyboard and it will store those and then cycle through them when you hit your bass drum or something above a certain volume level (that you decide). Obviously this could be easily modified to trigger from a midi input. The eventual plan is to do this in orac. That way you could access all of those synth sounds, samples, etc to be triggered.

I am just beginning in PD but have some programming experience, so I have a rough idea how it will be done but will need some more time playing around before I can realize it fully. I would be interested to hear if anything ever came of your idea! Either way, it is good to connect with other drummers using the organelle. There are a lot of cool possibilities here but a lot of patches seem more geared towards guitar and keys.

If there are any other drummers here I would be interested to hear about your setup. I am still putting things together but I will probably end up with something like [bass drum mic, snare mic, sample pad] → mixer → organelle

2 Likes
3

I’m interested about this thread. I’m also an analogic drummer. well, well…

1 Like
4

I haven’t put any work into this unfortunately.

This guy’s been doing some things using Max for Live and I’ve been thinking of doing similar lately. So I started to move my VST and DAW from Reaper to Live so I could use Max and some other things. But I’d still be interested in using the organelle for this too. https://blog.abletondrummer.com/

I started to document some requirements once. Let me see if I can find my list.

5

Hi Wolf
New here
Just read your post of Organelle for drummers and since I’ve been searching for something like this
Would love to know if you or the community have gone further or if there is a patch for this

I don’t have an organelle yet cause I whiny to make sure it can work .
Basically I what to start with 2 drum triggers from ddrum
I connect the triggers to Roland TMC-6 trigger midi convertor and from there to organelle via midi

I would like to trigger sounds , synths from a step sequencer patch
And every time you hit your trigger different sounds will trigger

Seems something very simple to do but not sure there are patches that can do this

Thanks a lot for your reply
Have a nice day
Pablo

6

It sounds doable. I’ve never done this specifically but it sounds simple enough to either write from scratch or modify an existing patch.

As for connecting, the TMC6 doesn’t seem to have midi over USB - older blue Organelles only have midi over usb, so you’d need something like a midihub or computer in between. But the newer Organelles have a midi in/out via 1/8 jacks. So you could plug in directly.

As for my original message, I haven’t done a thing on that since 2019! Lately I have been using an eventide Misha Eurorack module to step through musical sequences. I got pretty into eurorack and my friend Leon invented that particular module and it seemed like a better way to do things than the half assed Max for Live I’d been trying to create.

But I have been meaning to spend some time getting better at PD and have clearer ideas of what I want to accomplish so maybe I’ll try building this again. I hope another 5 years doesn’t just fly by! At least I have an old and new Organelle. But I’m lazy and mostly use other people’s patches.

I have been triggering misha from my edrums. I’m using a combination of things for that. One is Misha lets you assign a note# to an interval key. So that is basically doing what I stated in my original post. It will convert a pad’s note # to something musical and cycle through the sequence in different ways.

If I was to restate what should be doable, it would be to emulate a Misha in PD.

I’ve recorded a # of experiments to youtube. But I think it’s starting to come together better now lately and I need to record some new things that aren’t just chaos or me wailing out, but are actually musical and useful!

2 Likes