Hip Hop Creator

[Ashermusic]

Wow, a tool for dummies with no musical skill to turn in a great authentic hip hop track? It's every Jay Asher dream come true!

.?

(it was an ironical moment )

Because I have posted that I think people should develop their skills and not just rely on the tools to do the work for them?

That's the one... when I first saw it I thought the sales pitch was likely the antithesis of everything you hold dear.

I have softened my position on that because it’s like pissing into the wind. It is what it is.

[Mike Greene]

Wow, a tool for dummies with no musical skill to turn in a great authentic hip hop track? It's every Jay Asher dream come true!

.?

(it was an ironical moment )

Because I have posted that I think people should develop their skills and not just rely on the tools to do the work for them?

That's the one... when I first saw it I thought the sales pitch was likely the antithesis of everything you hold dear.

FWIW, I had been thinking the exact same thing.

Also FWIW, I don't necessarily disagree with Jay's opinion on that. I didn't create HHC with the intention of dumbing down the genre, it was more of just a personal challenge to see if I could make an instrument that could auto-generate tracks. Kinda like AI - probably not a good thing for humanity, but I can see the attraction for coders wanting to develop it.

[Mike Greene]

The main advantage of something you coded directly would be to separate the kits from the patterns I think, ultimately it would be great to control these separately. Dammit, something else on the wish list...

Yes, that's definitely the plan.

In that same vein, we'll also be adding an option to freeze/lock certain tracks, so that when you click the Randomize button, you can select certain tracks to stay as they are. That way, you can develop a beat, click a lock button for the specific tracks that are working great, then with those elements safe and secure, keep clicking the Randomize button to fill in other ideas.

Which brings me to another feature we need to add - A revert/undo button. It drives me nuts that I'll have something I like, then stupidly click the Randomize button (I can't help myself - I love that button so much), wiping out the cool beat I had going. So I really, really need to add an undo button. Preferably with several levels of revert/undo.

[Guy Rowland]

These all sound like wonderful things, Mike...

[Guy Rowland]

Version 1.4 is born! Here's a list of changes:

* Start/Stop synced to DAW transport - Yep, you can now start and stop Hip Hop Creator by pressing Play and Stop in your DAW.
* Undo/Revert buttons - Want to go back to where your beat was before (up to 9 levels)? Now you can!
* Individual tracks can be locked when loading Presets or Randomizing. So if you like most of your beat, and just want to change the other tracks, you can!
* Keyswitches (at user selectable locations) are now available for selecting instruments, user presets, and Start/Stop
* User Presets - Wait … did someone say “User Presets”? Yep, we sure did!
* More intuitive “Live Mode” (Where you play the chords and HHC follows you)
* “Info" for all controls - Hover over any knob or switch and the info pane (enabled in the Kontakt Master section) will explain what that knob/switch does.
* Drag&Drop, Snapshots, and various other bug fixes

Lots of important changes here imo. Undo and Revert is a huge - there's so much store placed on experimentation and randomisation and so many modes to switch between, its very easy to find something good then accidentally screw it up. Locks are great, as are user presets and the ability to switch between them for live playing (you need to save versions of the nki to do this for multiple songs, the presets seem to be stored with the instrument so you'd run out fast in a set list). The user-preset-switching is seamless, you can do it off time and it keeps the beat perfectly. Live mode works well now.

One glitch - the start / stop keyswitch only seems to stop, never start. {EDIT - me=dum dum, they are two different keyswitches.]

Another area that is still a bit frustrating for me is that despite some keyswitch options, I still think there's no way to have the drums mapped AND a selected instrument, and you're still swtiching between modes a lot. Also it would be nice to have an option to move the octave for user presets or what have you out of range... I have a nanokey mapped to the lowest possible octaves I use for keyswtiching, but can't reach them currently in the settings page.

Still, its a really solid step forward. After the previous version I was concerned it was such a headache in action it would stop me reaching for it often, now once your head is round the basics it feels more controllable. That start / stop issue needs some rapid attention (unless I screwed up my install somehow), then maybe one more round of tweaks and it'll be killer.

[Mike Greene]

Are you sure the Start keyswitches don't work? I've asked a few people to check, and for both Macs and PCs, they seem to be working fine. (Just so we're on the same page, Start is the D# above the C# Stop keyswitch - for whichever octave you've chosen.)

Regarding having Drums and a selected instrument both playable on the keyboard at the same time ... that's a tall ask for what is essentially just an overblown Stylus RMX instrument. Are there really that many times where you need to play drums with one hand while you're playing a bass or keyboard part with the other hand?

[Guy Rowland]

Mike I am a DUMMY. It's not start / stop, they're on different key switches! So-reeee.

With the drums and keys, it's not that I want to play both (I have trouble enough playing one thing at a time as everyone knows), it's that I want for things behave the same way all the time, to not always be wondering what mode I'm in. So if you could have both I'd always know where the drums are. Actually that was definitely a thing with start / stop too.... maybe that's possible now, I'll check tomorrow when I'm back on it.

[playz123]

Where does one download the update? I didn’t receive any notice and can’t find anything in my account about it.

[Guy Rowland]

Hi Frank, I see no harm in posting it directly here as it can't be used with the licensed copy and there is no sample content:

https://realitone.net/realitone/uploads ... Update.zip

[playz123]

Hi Frank, I see no harm in posting it directly here as it can't be used with the licensed copy and there is no sample content:

https://realitone.net/realitone/uploads ... Update.zip

Many thanks, Guy. Just wondering though why there has been no notice posted to purchasers about this or why it isn't obvious on the Realitone site. Is this some sort of Beta update or something, or one not yet ready for general release? Regardless, it's now downloaded...apparently I was still on version 1.2

[Guy Rowland]

I had it on a mail shot - not sure why you didn't get that Frank.

Install instructions:

1. Replace the old Documentation folder with the new Documentation folder. (The new manual is in this folder. We spent a lot of time writing this manual, so it’s worth reading.)

2. Replace the old Instruments folder with the new Instruments folder. We’ve tested this release pretty thoroughly, but if you want to be safe, you might want to save the old Instruments folder in another location.

3. Do NOT replace the Samples folder. Instead drag the “HHC Resource Container.nkc” file and the “HHC Resource Container.nkr” file from the new Samples folder into your existing Samples folder.

4. You can now delete the old “Resource Container.nkc” and “Resource Container.nkr” files that were just under the Instruments folder. (Or if you’re the cautious type, save them along with the old Instruments folder you saved in Step 2.)

Confused? Here’s a video where we show this update process:

[wst3]

Many thanks, Guy. Just wondering though why there has been no notice posted to purchasers about this or why it isn't obvious on the Realitone site. Is this some sort of Beta update or something, or one not yet ready for general release? Regardless, it's now downloaded...apparently I was still on version 1.2

Perhaps Mike decided to mess with you a bit? More likely it got caught in a spam trap, the email was sent out to all registered users.

It is a very cool update, I had a blast playing around with it over the weekend.

Bill

[Mike Greene]

It's because we don't like you, Frank!

I only sent that update to a couple people who had asked for these changes. (Don't tell Guy, but I was sneakily using him as a beta tester!) An email to everyone else was supposed to go out a couple days ago, but then I noticed the keyboard doesn't light up when you play notes on the new assignable keyswitches. (I forgot to include the command: "Hey, make the keyboard lights go on when you play these new keyswitches!") Kinda minor, and the instrument performed correctly, but it's a visual thing that bugged me, so I fixed that this weekend.

I now need to test that update before I email the masses. (Believe me, you do *not* want to send a mass mailing for an update if there's a flaw.) Testing is important, because you would be amazed at how often it happens where you fix one thing and break something else in the process.

This was an example of that. In fixing the lighted keys, I broke the playable GUI Pads, so they no longer made notes play. They're not even related, but they broke! Okay, they have to be related, obviously, otherwise they wouldn't have broken, but it took literally hours to figure out why. (I seriously need to stop working on this instrument because there are so many interconnected moving parts that nothing is easy anymore. That keyboard lights issue should have been simple!)

Anyway, here is the newest version. It's still called "1.4" and the link is the same as what Guy posted, but the content is updated. I'm pretty sure this will be the version that gets sent to everyone later this week, but before I do that, I still need to test a bit more, just in case.
https://realitone.net/realitone/uploads ... Update.zip

To install, unzip that file, then:

1. Replace the old Documentation folder with the new Documentation folder. (The new manual is in this folder. We spent a lot of time writing this manual, so it’s worth reading.)

2. Replace the old Instruments folder with the new Instruments folder. We’ve tested this release pretty thoroughly, but if you want to be safe, you might want to save the old Instruments folder in another location.

3. Do NOT replace the Samples folder. Instead drag the “HHC Resource Container.nkc” file and the “HHC Resource Container.nkr” file from the new Samples folder into your existing Samples folder.

4. You can now delete the old “Resource Container.nkc” and “Resource Container.nkr” files that were just under the Instruments folder. (Or if you’re the cautious type, save them along with the old Instruments folder you saved in Step 2.)

If that's confusing, here’s a video where we show this update process:

[Guy Rowland]

Doh, sorry Mike (AGAIN!) I thought that was rolled out to everyone...

[playz123]

It's because we don't like you, Frank!

I figured that! Must be age discrimination or something!
Anyway, thanks to all for the additional information. No problem at all doing the update. Cheers!

[wst3]

Doh, sorry Mike (AGAIN!) I thought that was rolled out to everyone...

Don't feel bad Guy - I did the exact same thing!