 After completing my first goals, it is time to set some new goals. My new goal is to make a playable mini set with 2 songs triggered from one scene each. I already have my first playable song and I will aim to be able to control the second song in an identical way.
The Second Scene
I'll be using different sounds and different loop patterns, but Ichoose to use the same tracks. If I would choose to add more tracks foradditional songs at this stage, then I will inevitably end up with toomany tracks than I care to handle. I want to keep it simple and easy to manage. I'll be using another simple beat, an Operator Bassline, a 303 sound from ABL2 and a pad generated with yet another Operator. Since I'm sticking with the same 4 tracks, I will need to come up witha solution for having multiple instruments on a track. Because Ihaven't decided on the minimum and maximum amount of tracks that I wantin my set. The beat is easy, I'm only using 4 slots of the 128 available slots on the Drum Rack. So I can just add more samples and make a different MIDI Clip to get a new beat. For the 3 remaining sounds, I'll set up an Instrument Rack on each track that allows me to have select different sounds for different clips. On the bassline track, I select everything except for the MIDI Muter and group it into an Instrument Rack. The MIDI Muter isn't racked because otherwise I'd have to set up a mute for each instrument I add. If I use the same mutes, then I can use the MIDI Assignments that i mapped for my first song.
Once I have grouped the instrument and all the effects that come with it, into a single chain of an Instrument Rack, I create a second chain within that Rack. This second chain will contain my second instrument. I do the same thing for the other 2 melodic tracks.
- Click here to read more about the Chain Select Ruler
At the moment I still have the 1 scene from my first song and its still playable as I programmed it earlier. I have now set everything up that allows me to play multiple instruments from 1 track. I'll start with adding a new beat because it is the easiest thing to do. I just have create a new MIDI Clip and add a few sounds to my Drum Rack. I can also choose to reuse sounds from other tracks. Regardless of what is going to change in my set later on, I'm very satisfied with having one Drum Rack for multiple beats.
For the melodic instruments there is one thing that needs to be done to the Instrument Rack and the MIDI Clip. On the Instrument Rack you need to set the Chain Zone of the second chain to "1-1". The Chain Zone for the first chain can stay on "0-0". 
When you create a new MIDI Clip for the second instruments of the melodic tracks, you need to set the clip automation of the Chain Select Ruler to "+1". This makes it so that the MIDI Clip only plays the instrument of the specified chain and not the instruments in all the other chains that the Rack may contain. You can quickly access the modulation lane for that parameter by right-clicking on the Chain Select Ruler and picking "Show Modulation" from the menu.
I'll do the same thing for all melodic instruments. The clips in the first scene do not need to be altered. They will only play the first chain by default. Now that this has all been set up, I get different sounds when I trigger the different scenes. I can mute everything except for the drums sounds I added to the Drum Rack on my beat track. 
Assigning The Controls
Making sure that I can mute the drum sounds of the beat of my second scene is the first thing I am going to do. I'm sticking to the same restrictions I have set for my previous scene. So I'll be using the same MIDI Mute Rack to mute the sounds. I got 4 sounds that I want to mute with the same 4 buttons that are used to mute the drum sounds of the previous scene.
The kick is on the 5th drum slot, the snare on the 6th and the hats are on the 7th and 8th drum slot. I assign the Kick mute button on my controller to the mute button on the 5th chain of the MIDI Effect Rack that is used to mute the sounds. So the button on my controller is now assigned to the 1st chain and the 5th chain. The second button is assigned to the 2nd and 6th chain, the third button is assigned to the 3rd and 7th chain and the 4th button is assigned to the 4th and 8th chain. Currently I am able to mute the drum sounds of either of my beat clips. 
It will come as no surprise that I choose to go the same route for the knobs. The same 4 knobs that I used to control the drum sounds of the first scene will be used to control the sounds of the second scene. On the first bassline I will control the Frequency Cutoff and the Tone parameter, on the second (303) bassline I will control the Frequency Cutoff and the Resonance and on the last track I will be controlling the Frequency Cutoff of a pad sound. The details of these settings are irrelevant though. This is still a test project and I'm not wasting any time trying to get the sounds perfect. The sounds will change and everything I've assigned and set up so far does by no means reflect the final sounds I'm going for.
Everything has been assigned. I now got 2 songs that are virtually identical to play. The current method obviously has the problem that it wont be manageable once you get too many songs. But that is a problem I will tackle later. Every decision I make will inevitably lead to problems. Even if I can anticipate the problems. It is not my goal to solve this problem right now, so it shall remain unresolved until I choose to focus on it. The Second Performance
I got 2 playable scenes set up, it is time to make another recording. Since I haven't set anything up to trigger clips yet, I'll be triggering the clips with the mouse. Its far from ideal, but it will do for now.
- Click here to listen to the second performance
That kept me entertained for about 9 minutes. I'm not too happy about that pad in the first track and the way I played it, but that will change at a later stage anyway. The 303 is in there because that will become a much used device in my setup, I had to break it out early. The Next Steps
Now it is time to have a long hard brainstorm about how I am going to proceed next. Up until now I have been faithful to restrictions that were made up as I went along. I hope to keep it that way, because it has already paid off. I can not predict what will happen next. I have many options to consider. Should I stick to just using the BCR2000? Should I involve some 3rd party tools to get more functionality out of the BCR? Should I write some custom tools? Why would I need custom tools? Should I start focusing on my sound? Should I... There are no rules. There is no guide. Its just me, myself and I!
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