Analogue-sequencer

> my idea came from the mpc 2000, where you can shift the timing + and -
> wouldnt it be possible to play notes earlier ?

In something like an MPC, patterns are stored as a MIDI event list, with
timestamps on the events.
So moving an event forward or backward in time is just a case of adding or
subtracting a certain value from the timestamp before you get to the time
that event occurs.

P3's pattern data structure is a fixed array of 16 steps by the number of
row values - note, velocity, delay, length, status bits and auxes.
The start time of each step is hardcoded to a certain division of the master
clock, and because things like aux events can modify pattern values
dynamically, P3 doesn't necessarily know what the next step is going to be
until the tick before it gets there.
By which time, if you have a negative delay on that step, you're too late.

Possibly I could just treat the maximum negative delay as zero delay, where
all notes are delayed by a default amount anyway.
But that could potentially add a lot of complexity in the handling of
pattern timing, and cause subtle changes in the way events interact that
would either seem wrong and be complex to fix, or would do strange and un
predicatble things to existing patterns.
In short, it could take a huge amount of effort to see if I could add it,
without any guarantee of success.
While I'm happy to continue adding features to P3, there's a limit to the
amount of effort I can put in.

You can be sure, if I ever get the next generation sequencer into
production, negative delay will be in there...

Best regards,
Colin Fraser
Sequentix Music Systems Ltd
http://www.sequentix.com