Properly roundup recording of a track when switching to a new (empty) Part

During the past few years I had the BB as heart of my looping rig, feeding AEROS plus various external MIDI sequencers. BB was the first drumachine (or should I say MIDI player) that was made for guitarists. Because of the current state of the AEROS (past two years) I had to accept using only the 2x2 mode, as the tap dancing needed for the 6x6 was out of the question in my complex rig. It’s a big limitation, but there is little competition out there.

After the first serious expansion of the MIDI set of the AEROS and having experienced the complete creative freedom of external drummachines (like the Arturia DrumBrute), I don’t feel like working for a couple of hours just to have a song ready to go in the BB (first Ableton for recording then the ancient BB manager, then turn off BB connect USB turn on BB, Upload new song…). I had expected the SS would give itself an advantage with AEROS by selecting next Part as default in 6x6, but they did not feel like it. So there is not a single reason to keep the BB as master of my rig. I moved on and have now my main sequencer (Pyramid) as master unit. It gave me the chance to start working with the 6x6 mode.

PROBLEM:
I start with an empty 6x6 song. When MIDI start is issued, I am entering an empty Part1, and recording of the first track begins automatically and in sync, great. But when I switch to another empty part (cc102) without stopping the recording of the first track, strange things happen. It seems like the recorded track of the previous part is not properly stopped by default.

REQUEST
What I want is

  • start with an empty 6x6,
  • use remote MIDI for selecting Parts and local knobs to select tracks
  • song starts, track1 of Part1 is recorded
  • when I switch to PartX (not necessarrily Part2) by MIDI command, then
    - track1 of Part1 is closed and saved in memory,
    - track1 of PartX starts recording.
  • I select another TrackX, same workflow as above, TrackX stays selected through all Parts
    etc.
1 Like

Hey there,

You are using the incorrect command to do this, you should be using CC113 to change parts on the Aeros and obey the normal rules of recording and playback.

Change Part (Transition)

Value 1-6: Begin the transition to part (part # = value #)
according to the Change Part setting
(Immediately/End of Measure/End of Loop). If using the
BeatBuddy, the CC:102 command will override this
command. If the part doesn’t exist in the song,
the Aeros will ignore the command.
Value 101-106: Begin the transition to part
(part # = value # minus 100 , so value 102 is part 2)
according to the Change Part setting
(Immediately/End of Measure/End of Loop). If the part
doesn’t exist in the song, the Aeros will ignore the
command. This allows you to send a single on-press
command for changing parts. This also allows you to
switch the part on the Aeros without switching parts
on the BeatBuddy (which ignores values 101-106) when
they are on the same channel and being controlled by a
MIDI controller.

What you want should already be possible, just not with CC102 unless it is sent immediately as part is meant to switch (like BB does).

Let me know if this solves the issue or if I’ve misunderstood, thanks!

Yes. CC 113 works just fine for me. I am glad I can finally start using the 6x6 in my workflow.
Good job with the MIDI implementation so far.