Mandala On Battery 3

[Braeden]

I recently bought Native Instruments Battery 3 for my Mandala to use
on my Mac Book Pro. Up until now I have been using Virtual brain which
I found incredibly user friendly, but I was left wanting more options
and more organic sounding instruments. So I guess my question is, how
do I use my Mandala with Battery 3? could someone explain it to me?
and assume I know nothing at all, thankyou...

[Vince]

Braeden,

Here is some more information regarding Battery 3 than what we've
already made available for you. There's also valuable Mandala Battery
information available elsewhere on this forum and in Appendix B of the
Mandala User Manual. All this together may help anyone else who may
be wondering the same thing.

Your Mandala is a standard MIDI controller (like a MIDI keyboard) but
in the form of a drum. Each zone of the Mandala is like a key on the
keyboard. Many people trigger Battery with those keys on a MIDI
keyboard but you will be doing it with the zones on your Mandala.

Since you already are familiar with your Mandala the thing to do is to
explore and learn Battery 3. Battery consists of cells which you load
up with samples which then get triggered by a MIDI controller. Each
cell can be set to be triggered by a single MIDI note or by a range of
MIDI notes. Each cell can also be set to a particular MIDI channel as
another way to keep them separated from other cells when triggering.

The best thing to do is configure your Mandala's internal memory to be
set for controlling Battery 3 and then think of your Mandala as
keyboard like mentioned above. The Control Burst app is a one shot
deal which pumps a configuration into your pad and gets it set for
Battery 3. The app contains a graphic which details exactly how your
pad will be configured, which is: 7 zones (midi notes
C3,C#3,D3,D#3,E3,F3,F#3 from center to edge).

The simplest way to start is to run Control Burst (available in the
Mandala Battery Presets download at http://synesthesiacorp.com/support.html)
on your Mandala and then start with a blank slate in Battery, adding
one sample at a time to different cells set to be triggered by the
different notes listed above, just as you would if controlling Battery
with a MIDI keyboard using the C3,C#3,D3,D#3,E3,F3 and F#3 keys.

After you are familiar with Battery 3, the Mandala Battery Presets
download gives you more to play with. It contains 50 Battery 3
presets which utilize the Mandala as a controller. This is a good way
to familiarize yourself with the full-blown possibilities.

Here's a detailed description of running Control Burst on your
Mandala, followed by Appendix B of the User manual which talks more
about controlling Battery 3 with the Mandala:


Running Control Burst:

Start by connecting your Mandala to your computer's USB port and
opening the Mandala Control Burst (CB) application. CB is included in
the Mandala Battery Presets download.

Choose your Mandala in the CB pulldown menu and then click the green
button and wait a few seconds for it to go out.

Now quit CB (if you are running Windows XP unplug your Mandala before
quitting CB and then reconnect after) and then start Battery 3.

That's it.



Later on you can explore with the Mandala Battery 3 Presets. Here's
how to get those going...

Loading the Mandala Battery 3 Presets:

To load any of the 50 presets from the Mandala Battery Presets folder,
use File > Open... in Battery 3.

Battery 3 will not automatically locate the necessary samples for
these presets.

Choose 'Browse Folder' when the files originally show up in Battery 3
as 'Missing' and then direct the program toward your 'Battery 3
Library' folder located on your hard drive. The 'Battery 3 Library'
folder was created when you installed your official version of Battery
3.

Once you've loaded any preset you can resave it from within Battery 3
in order to have the new file paths saved to your computer's memory
for all subsequent loads.

Also, you must be using an official version of Battery 3. Other
versions will not work.



Appendix B:
CONTROLLING BATTERY 3

There is no need for the Virtual Brain when using Mandalas as MIDI
controllers for other programs. A Control Burst setup is saved in your
pad until you either burst it again or start the Virtual Brain, which
will reconfigure the pad for its own needs.

The concept of Control Burst is to configure your pads just once and
then use Battery to determine the number of zones and their sizes.

Here's how that is the case...

Control Burst (NOT Control Burst EXP) will configure up to 16 pads to
be 7 zones (C3,C#3,D3,D#3,E3,F3,F#3 from center to edge) with each pad
on its own MIDI channel (1-16). Your pads are then fixed as 7 zones,
BUT, by setting the 'Key Range' accordingly in each Battery cell you
want to use you can split the surface into a different perceived
layout for every Battery preset you make.

Here's a 2 zone example:
Make one cell's key range C3-D3 and another cell's key range D#3-F#3
and then you have a 2 zone pad with each zone equally sized.

Here's a 3 zone example:
Make one cell's key range C3-C#3, another cell D3-F3 and another cell
F#3. Then you have a 3 zone setup made of two equally sized zones with
a 3rd slim zone going around the outside.

Doing it this way keeps you from having to change any Mandala settings
and leaves all the control in Battery as you load your different
kits(presets).

Our Mandala Battery Presets download offers 50 Battery 3 presets which
require the Mandala in the Control Burst configuration (not Control
Burst EXP). The Control Burst app is included in the download. These
presets can help familiarize you with controlling Battery 3 using a
Mandala.

[Braeden]

Thanks for your help Vince, I'll give this a shot right away

> Mandala Battery Presets download athttp://synesthesiacorp.com/support.html)