A number of weeks back, I wrote a couple of tips about using the Clip Nudge controls to navigate within your clips during a gig. (see: The Big Nudge and The Little Nudge)
What I didn’t mention is the extra mappable area that appears in between the nudge controls when you’re in the MIDI map (see right hand picture above). Last night, I got a lot of mileage out of this guy on my gig.
It’s called the Clip Scrub control, and it’s for nudging the clip’s playback location using a MIDI knob or anything that transmits CC data. Experiment with it, and you’ll find that it’s very different than moving through a song with control vinyl or the like. Just like the nudge buttons, it’s quantized – so, if you’re using 1 bar quantization, turning the knob will move forward or back through the clip in 1 bar chunks, and wait until the beginning of the next bar to play back from the new location.
If you map it to a standard MIDI control that sends absolute (0-127) MIDI data, you’ll probably find it to be less than subtle – in other words, it’s very easy to make big sudden jumps (which is how I like it, actually). Using an endless encoder transmitting relative MIDI data will deliver a more refined experience.
(We’ll talk more about absolute and relative MIDI modes another day. If you’re not sure if you’re controller can transmit relative data, crack the manual.)
Tomorrow I’ll explain a bit more about the reasons for my use of this particular control.
