Stochastik Drumming: How to use Circuit (by xoxos) in Ableton Live

Some time ago I wrote about Tools for Stochastic Drumming and I would like to give a short update and a quick tutorial how xoxos’ circuit can be used in Ableton Live.

First the tutorial. I found the solution with the help of the kvraudio forum. An interesting source of information, so I recommend to check it out. The volume of information is a bit intimidating at first, but I think it’s worth you time.

Let’s have a look at this picture

In Steps

1. Place circuit plug-in in an already existing MIDI track or create a new track by dragging it to an empty space in the upper section. When you do this a MIDI track with circuit is created automatically
2. Create a new MIDI Clip into the track created in step 1, for example by double-clicking into the slot. And yes, the clip may be empty. Circuit seems to be ok with a play/start event it doesn’t need a MIDI note.
3. Create a second MIDI Track, place your drum machine – or whatever should create sound – here. IMPORTANT: you have to route the MIDI information from track 1 to this new track by setting “MIDI from” to Track 1 and the second choosebox to “circuit”
4. Switch Monitor on track 2 to “In”
5. Start playing the clip and you should hear sound.

If you still having problem with it, let me know. I’m happy to help after I had some hard times figuring it out, too.

So, to the second part: What’s up with the other tools. Well, not much.

My iPad app “Stochastik Drum Machine” by “xitive” is still waiting for the promised MIDI update. Because it was planned for 10/2012 I gave up the hope that it will be coming at all. This is bad, because I like the interface but audio alone just don’t cut it for me. For stochastic drumming MIDI rules over audio.

Now, that I was able to get circuit up and running, I’m trying to figure it out. I think it’s very hard to understand because of complexity and a very technical user interface. There is documentation, which is more a hint than a tutorial, so expect to spent sometime with it if you want to use this tool. After the first few hours with it (and some frustration), it still looks (or sounds) very promising. The possibilities are endless 🙂

I’ll keep you updated on this, but it seems that I don’t have to program my own tool, which is sad and cool at the same time (quicker results, but no chance to learn about JFuge).

-mE

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