Analogue-sequencer

guys-  I've been having a naughty little holiday from my p3's, mainly
because my band has been (gasp!) /writing/ stuff.... which is what led
to all that correspondence a while back about polyphonic recording &
note-order (I wanted the root/lowest note of a chord to be the primary
& the other notes to automatically go to the auxes).

so I've been using an emu command station, shoot me.
but first I need to tell you all how pants the emu is for live
sequencing, especially looping short patterns.
it may just be the version I'm running on it, but there are some
things it does that one can only describe as unforgiveable bugs, &
that had me marvelling all the more at the service we get from colin.

an example, if I may: 
in "pattern" mode on the emu, you have 16 tracks, normally but not
always assigned to the 16 midi channels. (each can actually contain
data for any single channel of the 32 the emu will drive, or there's a
multi-mode which addresses either of the two groups of 16 all at once).
a simple operation like transposing one of the tracks up an octave
requires entering "pattern edit" mode & finding the right page. easy
enough so far. you then select the amount of transpose & the machine
asks you to choose which tracks to alter. here's the first problem-
this means pushing the track buttons to /deselect/ the ones you don't
want to affect, & when you do this, you mute them. oh, for goodness'
sake... so but you might be able to live with this if you choose the
right time to do it, though it's unlikely that the track that needs
transposing will always be suitable for solo'ing during a live
performance.
anyway, having done that, you press "enter" & the machine stops!
proudly announcing that it's transposed the part, but sitting there
doing nowt. 
so it's no good for on-the-fly adjustments or being a master clock.
this latter is unfortunate in that the thing is very poor at starting
in the right place (i.e. 1.1.0.) when under external clocking.
also, the tracks in any given pattern have to be the same number of
bars long. so I can't have a 32 bar chord sequence with a 2 bar
bassline looping around. this is a pity because I can't easily edit an
8 or 16 note line while chords play over it; I'de have to edit all 16
iterations of the bassline as they played past. shame, because the
grid editor isn't bad. it's designed for drum programming (for those
who don't know it, the emu command station series is a proteus 2000
chassis with a sequencer & a 1-octave keyboard made of baby drum-pads)
s the grid editor expects you to select a note & then enter instances
of it in a grid pattern. this isn't ideal for melody or bass lines.

before I really start ranting, I'm going to stop this... the point was
to remind us all that the p3 is addressing a great many of the
shortcomings of the other stuff that is/was out there, especially for
live performance.

duncan/r.m.i.