Fugue Machine Rubato is an advanced sequencer capable of spawning elaborate, shifting patterns. Drum Trigs are a new addition to Fugue Machine that allows you to weave drum hits into your melodies. Here’s your guide to getting started.
See the overview of Fugue Machine Rubato. If you’re quick, there’s still intro pricing available, and Alexandernaut recently added AUv3 support across desktop and mobile. That allows this to run as a MIDI plug-in on various iOS hosts, as well as on macOS in Logic Pro as a MIDI effect.
This article is a collaboration supported by Alexandernaut, the developer.
If you’re unsure about the purchase, a free demo version is available on TestFlight. It’s limited to fifteen-minute sessions, but my tutorial should fit that easily!
Drum Trigs are a big part of the Rubato upgrade
Fugue Machine Rubato expands on what you can do with melodies and pitch information, including bending time, adding echoing, and arpeggiating. But in addition to all those melodic possibilities, Drum Trigs make it easy for you to trigger drum parts from your patterns, too, independent of the pattern’s pitches.
Freely assign Drum Trigs to notes in your pattern. Now, as each playhead intersects any notes with a Drum Trig enabled, it will output a drum hit, adding kicks, hats, etc., in addition to any active outputs for the melody. (And of course, that could also be 16 sample slots, or anything else you want to receive independent trigger information. It could be VJ clips if you wanted. You can configure the Drum Trigs so that they correspond to the parts you want to trigger on the receiving app or hardware.)
Here’s an example, as demonstrated on the macOS version with Oberheim DMX by GForce and AAS Chromaphone 3:
Drum Trigs features:
- Up to 16 separate triggers
- MIDI output bus for all Drum Triggers (port, MIDI channel)
- Each trigger has an associated MIDI Note (customizable, so you can map to a drum machine/instrument)
- Sends velocity and note length (plus any effects, like Echo)
- Configure each note to have none, some, or all of the triggers
- Configure each playhead to play none, some, or all of the triggers
That gives you an additional way to send MIDI output from Fugue Machine Rubato to sequence other iOS or macOS apps, plug-ins running inside Mac hosts, or outboard gear.
Drum Triggers work exclusively via MIDI to apps or hardware; there’s no internal playback in the app. So first, you’ll want to configure your MIDI settings before you begin.
MIDI connections
Fugue Machine Rubato now includes AUv3 support, so you can use it as a plug-in in hosts on iOS, or in macOS desktop hosts that support AUv3 MIDI plug-ins (like Logic Pro).
Choose Settings – tap/click the […] More button at top right, then Settings > MIDI Output. Scroll down past MIDI Output (MIDI Out 1-8) to Drum Trigs. There, you can assign a single port and channel, connected to your drum machine. Tap/click the > for each Drum Trig 1-16 to set the MIDI pitch for each note to match the note mapping of your drum machine.
On both iOS and macOS, Fugue Machine Rubato will spawn its own virtual MIDI port (FMRubato MIDI Out). Some apps will also create their own virtual MIDI ports (as Logic Pro for iPad does). On macOS, you can also choose one of the IAC Driver Buses (Inter Application Communication).
You can also use external hardware, via a connected MIDI interface (or send gate/trigger signals via a MIDI-to-CV interface).
Back on your receiving app/host DAW/hardware, don’t forget to configure MIDI on the correct port and channel. Some listen to all MIDI inputs by default, so select just the MIDI channel with Drum Trigs. (Make sure they’re listening to the desired device/port, too.)
Configuring Drum Trigs
Any note in your sequence can be a Drum Trig – one of 16 available.
First, select the Sequence Note. You can marquee-drag across them, or tap-down and slightly wiggle the note horizontally as if you’re about to move it, then release. (Alternatively, on Mac, you can shift-click a note or notes, or on iOS, you can use the shift button at the top left of the main interface; see the manual’s shift explanation.)
Next, you can enable or disable one or more triggers for that note by clicking the Drum Trig icons along the right-hand side of the screen.
So if you’ve set up trig 1 to be a kick and trig 2 to be a hat, for instance, you can have specific notes trigger those with playheads.
And from there, there’s more customizability…
Drum Trig and Note Playhead behavior options
You can activate and deactivate individual Drum Trigs – for muting parts as you jam/perform, for instance. And you can set per-Playhead options.
Mute or Solo Drum Trigs globally. From the Global module, swipe over to routing options, and you can mute by part.
Enable/disable Drum Trigs per-playhead. For each Note Playhead, you can also disable individual Drum Trigs.
Customize Drum Trigs. You can choose which MIDI Note pitch each Drum Trig sends, plus which corner is rounded in the sequence as a visual reference. (Other options may be coming, but that’s what’s available as I write this.) Choose Settings > MIDI Output > Drum Trigs, and then drill down to each Drum Trig to customize it:
You could also use this to make a semi-independent trigger “lane” by disabling drum trigs on all but one Note Playhead, then adjusting its settings accordingly.
Putting it together: one more example
All in all, you get something different from a conventional trigger sequencer. You can trigger drum parts with all the features of Fugue Machine Rubato and its unique playheads, or blend together melodic and rhythmic materials in unique ways.
Here’s Alexandernaut’s own video showing how he uses Drum Trigs in his own approach. This gives a great handle I think on what these mean musically.
Where to go next
Get more rubato! Now that you have the triggers under your belt, the next logical step is to understand the Segment Curves and Point Grid, which add all the time warping features.
If you’re not ready to wrap your brain around everything, check out the presets and try adding Drum Trigs to those. Check the Alexandernaut Patterns that come with the app, try selecting notes and adding triggers, and then muting/soloing globally or disabling on individual playheads.
It’s all an instant source of inspiration for your desktop plug-ins, iOS apps, and outboard gear.
Let us know what you might like to see next.
Alexandernaut has some great demos showing this in action on macOS. In Ableton Live (and many other tools, like Reason), don’t forget that you can use Ableton Link. You could do that between desktop and mobile. And you can run as an AUv3 plug-in in both the macOS and iPadOS versions of Logic Pro, seen here on desktop. I find I didn’t need the AUv3 as I could happily run with just MIDI between standalone apps or a DAW of choice running plug-ins. But it’s an additional option.
“Red means it’s working!”
Previously: