RAYZOON

Hello,

Im new to JS3 and this forum. Been playing with it for the last 2 weeks or so (around 12 hrs total maybe).

It is a very interesting software and definitely the way forward in music technology. Seems to be a huge jump from prob. based early contenders like slifty, erratic and rps-1.

I have not posted in the support section of the forum, because for me this is not critical , but it is more of an important discussion.

I have got to the point with JS3 where I can make easily come up with pretty good drum tracks for most of the basic rock/punk/metal stuff (Songs where the groove remains mostly the same throughout the song, with variations in intensity, busy-ness, time, hat work etc for different parts). Things get a little more complicated if Im working on a prog metal epic ect (ill advised, but bear with me)...

Based on a thread I read here earlier, I am interested to know what is the fastest workflow for seeding with your own groove and let JS3 do its magic.

In a nutshell :
I define a groove in the drum grid. I turn it to a style.
I add new parts and tweak fills and accents as well as groove settings to my liking.

Questions :

How does locking / unlocking work in the context of the above workflow ? If I turn off/on Auto in the bar area of JS3, isnt that like a lock/unlock ? This auto on/off method is what im using right now.

What if the song needs more than 1 groove, and I dont want to save it as a style ? As in, I do not want manage what will eventually be 100's of styles in various folders. I just want to turn grooves into styles for different parts. From what I see now, it just saves one style now as default and overwrites it everytime. Or am I completely wrong ?

The power knob : How do I set it to different levels for different parts ? It seems to be a song based setting, with an option for MIDI based automation. I would rather set it for different song parts in JS3 rather than write / record a song length power knob automation lane in my DAW.

How do I use the audio jam mode ? Do I need to have at least one part in there for it to work ? And does the DAW transport / play button have to be pressed for it to work. Is there any chance of , for eg : locking the the kick to the live played bass guitar transient ? I know it presently interpets (only?) audio amplitude.

I know thats a lot of questions, but Im quite excited about the software.

Pretty lively forum , no ?

Some experimenting partially answered some of my own queries :

What if the song needs more than 1 groove, and I dont want to save it as a style ? As in, I do not want manage what will eventually be 100's of styles in various folders. I just want to turn grooves into styles for different parts. From what I see now, it just saves one style now as default and overwrites it everytime. Or am I completely wrong ?

It actually does save muitple grooves unobtrusively. But I would still need some kinda confirmation from a more exepreineced user or Rayzoon, before I rely on that. For eg : where are they being saved by default ?

The individual power settings for different parts in the song builder seems to still be a complete mystery. Where to define it individually for different parts ?

Is there an echo in here ?[/quote]

I don't think there is a way to have different power settings other than daw automation. But it is definitely worth it, IMO. For me, learning to automate the power level was the single biggest breakthrough I had while starting to use JS.

Thanks for confirming that. Its quite easy in Reaper, but I was hoping to have a complete solution in JS3 without resorting to MIDI automation.

How does locking / unlocking work in the context of the above workflow ? If I turn off/on Auto in the bar area of JS3, isnt that like a lock/unlock ? This auto on/off method is what im using right now.

AUTO in bar editor just controls recomposition logic but does not protect the bar completely. If you need to absolutely keep a bar or part from being touched by Jamstix AI, use the big lock icon on the bar or the lock function in the part menu.

What if the song needs more than 1 groove, and I dont want to save it as a style ? As in, I do not want manage what will eventually be 100's of styles in various folders. I just want to turn grooves into styles for different parts. From what I see now, it just saves one style now as default and overwrites it everytime. Or am I completely wrong ?

When you turn a groove into a style, it does reuse the same style file on disk but the actual information is stored in the song project so existing projects are not affected.

The power knob : How do I set it to different levels for different parts ? It seems to be a song based setting, with an option for MIDI based automation. I would rather set it for different song parts in JS3 rather than write / record a song length power knob automation lane in my DAW.

Setting song position per part is on the list for Jamstix 4.

Thank you for those conclusive answers.
Much obliged.