Breakage

This page

Pattern editor
Neural network
Morph
Pattern database

Beta features - ChucK hackers only!

Other pages

MIDI sync.

Composing steps

Use the left mouse button to turn steps on and off. Drag with the right button to fade step volumes up and down. Drag with the left to edit a series of steps.

Channel volume

Drag the number between the channel name and steps to change the channel's volume. Right button drag for fine (1/4 speed) control.

Loading samples

Left click a channel name to load the currently selected sample from the browser.

Preview

The pattern editor shows two patterns at once to allow transitions to be previewed. The currently playing pattern is shown with the central red circles and the next pattern is indicated by the circle's borders.

Use the "show" checkboxes in the pattern database, morph and neural net panels to toggle the preview display on and off.

Popup menu

Right click a channel name for a popup menu. The menu has controls to toggle the pitch editor, add and remove channels, copy data between channels, fill steps and shift hits.

Keyboard controls

Select a channel with keyboard up and down arrow keys.
Shift hits left and right with keyboard left and right arrow keys.
Set volumes with qwerty keys.
Set pitches with note name keys (a, b, c etc).

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Using the neural net

Follow the tutorial to learn how to use the neural network.

Choosing a network type

The default RProp (resilient backprop) network should handle any size patterns but currently cannot save (vote for this bug fix). The alternative Backprop network can save and is fine for 4x8 patterns but may struggle with larger sizes.

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Create smooth transitions from one pattern to another with morphs.

Using morphs

Select a type of morph and a target pattern. If "Show target" is selected, the target will be previewed in the pattern editor. Select the number of steps / patterns to morph over then press Go. The pattern in the editor will be morphed into the target.

Types of morph

Fade to, add and subtract.

Interrupting

Starting a new morph while one is running will interrupt and override it.

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Using the pattern database is essential to make the most of Breakage.It lets you store your work, provides training data for the neural net and targets for the morph.

Name your patterns and press save in the pattern editor to store them to the database. Double click a pattern's name in the database to change it. Use the buttons to delete and load patterns into the editor.

Files of patterns can be saved and loaded. Re-use patterns across tracks, and contribute to the Breakage library.

Preview

If "Show pattern" is selected, a selected pattern will be shown in the editor preview.

Training

Toggle if patterns are included in the neural net's training set.

Similarity

Breakage automatically calculates the similarity of every pattern in the database to the current pattern in the editor. Try sorting the table by similarity and watching it re-order as you edit a break.

Sort

Click a column heading to sort by that column.

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Warning - these instructions are out of date. Might be useful if you're hacking the ChucK script.

Record sequences by saving the ChucK script's output to a file. A future release of Breakage will be able to parse these file into sessions and export them to MIDI files.

For now, you could do the same with your own text parser, but be warned that this feature is far from complete and the format is likely to change.

The script output is commented out; it's far from complete and slows ChucK down considerably.

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Warning - these instructions are out of date. Might be useful if you're hacking the ChucK script.

Use the alternative sequencer-midiout.ck ChucK sequencer to send MIDI events instead of playing samples. MIDI events are sent to the first MIDI device, each drum channel is sent on a separate MIDI channel.

The midiout script is far behind sequence.ck. You could copy the relevant parts across if you want to use MIDI out.

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