I’m using an FCB1010 to control my BB for praise and worship playing, allowing me to jump directly from say part 1 to part 4 of a song via a transition. In this case, the BB will play the transition that follows part 1, and then go to part 4.
Part 1 beat → post-Part 1 transition → Part 4 beat
In other words, a transition is linked to the part of the song that it follows. And so if I instead went from part 2 to part 4, I’d get a different transition
Part 2 beat → post-Part 2 transition (different one) → Part 4 beat
However in many cases it would be better for the BB to consider a transition to be linked to the part of the song that it precedes, so that every time you to go to a certain part of a song, it gets there via the same transition.
Part 1 beat → pre- Part 4 transition → Part 4 beat
Part 2 beat → pre- Part 4 transition (same one) → Part 4 beat
This would be particularly useful in e.g. song parts that are for a solo that needs a strong build before it, or for an acapella section that needs drums to cut out before hand, or for a time signature change… or whatever other situation where you need a particular kind of transition beforehand irrespective of where you were in the song just before.
Is there a way to do this with current firmware? I can program as much MIDI as needed but can’t see relevant commands in the guide.
Alternatively, do we need a global option that would mean that a transition between parts x and y of a song can be interpreted as preceding y rather than following x?
Since you can jump from part to part with the FCB 1010, the easiest way is to build the song to work with the present limitations of the devices. In this case, that would mean adding extra main loops with the alternate transitions. Nothing says you have to use every main loop when playing every song. You can skip around. Build the options into your main loops. Create sets of various loop&transition pairs.
Thanks @Phil_Flood and appreciate you understanding what I’m trying to do here!
I think I follow your suggestion - you mean I could create multiple versions of verse and chorus loops each with a different transition following, to cater for what might come next, is that right?
Challenge is that given it’s a live setting and song structure is fluid, the worship leader is often deciding “on the fly” when to go to an acapella / bridge / solo section for example. So by the time I know what’s happening next I’ll already be partway through one of the loops. I think that with firmware 4.1 I could solve that by (as soon as I know what’s next) doing a a fill-free transition from the “normal” chorus loop to the “before acapella” chorus loop and then transitioning from there to the “acapella” section, but that starts feeling like a very complicated workaround to keep in my head while playing and singing…
Any other takers on this topic? There must be others on this forum who are in a praise and worship setting or similar, where song structure is being called live and the transitions to are more important than the transitions from.