Analogue-sequencer

Hi Jez, 

>  > You can fine tune the tempo by holding FUNC and then 
> adjusting the DATA
>  > knob.

> Colin, this reminds me, this doesn't actually seem to work on 
> my P3, holding
> the FUNC key in whilst adjusting the tempo acts in exactly 
> the same way as
> when not holding it in.

The fine tempo tune is on the DATA knob, rather than the TEMPO knob.
If it was on the TEMPO knob, then once you had fine-tuned the tempo, the
TEMPO knob would be in the wrong position realtive to the current coarse
tempo, so you'd get an unpleasant jump if you then tried a small adjustment.

> Another strange glitch I've noticed is that the Midi Sync 
> output on my P3
> seems to send some kind of start or continue messages when 
> the P3 is not
> running, which keep re-starting my MAQ even when it wasn't 
> set to respond to
> external midi clocks. I swapped the MAQ to another midi out 
> and it is now
> fine.

That's a problem I identified a couple of days ago with the PIC used for the
DIN sync to midi sync conversion.
The clock-only midi out is generated from the standard P3 DIN sync out by a
PIC 12C508 running my midi to din/din to midi sync code.
This has always worked perfectly when connected externally to the sync
output of a P3, so I was scratching my head a bit when I found it was giving
odd behaviour just by being moved onto the mainboard. What is stranger is
that the PIC sends spurious START bytes, without sending a STOP byte, but
the code shouldn't allow this - the state must change from running to
stopped, back to running, so a START should always be followed by a STOP. It
seems this is some sort of instability in the PIC itself. The fix is to add
100n capacitors to the clock and run input pins on the PIC. You can do this
yourself, or you could ship it back to me and I'll fix it.
I'll document this in the construction notes when I update them.
 
> Also I really would like some way to select a track to edit (or set to
> record) that only requires one hand. Whilst improvising, the 
> current method
> stops me playing anything else whenever I want to perform any 
> kind of track
> based editing, which can be quite annoying. It would be great 
> if something
> like FUNC + Play/Edit could be used to set the P3 to await 
> track selection.

I'll have a think about sticky keys...
Alternatively, I could retrofit a footswitch socket, for PLAY/EDIT and FUNC
pedals.
 
> Another thing that would be useful if you have it would be 
> some idea how the
> FTS quantises notes to the selected scale i.e. whether notes 
> not in the
> scale go up or down or whatever.

If the current note is not in the forced scale, the routine looks at the
note one above to see if it is.
If it is, it sets the current note to that note.
If it isn't it looks at the note one below the current note, to see if it's
in the scale.
If it is, it sets the current note to that note.
If not, it will check 2 above, then 2 below, 3 above, then 3 below, and so
on, until it must eventually hit the root note.
Does that help ?

Cheers,
Colin f