Analogue-sequencer

Heya Colin,

Just wondering, did you plan to stop one day to add to/change the P3  
software?
Maybe I get stoned for this question (hi Paul), but someone I am  
longing for a finished version (except bugfixes of course :-))

Regards, Boele

Colin,

I think that what you have created is tremendous.  I love the features
that you have created for this guy - it has so many places for real
time interactions. 

 Although Paul's implimentation of one P3 controlling the other is
intriguing, I still envision my P3 being programmed from a midi master
keyboard.

Paul's setup utilizes a pattern one the master P3 to store "presets"
for the second unit - i.e., any particular position in a sequence can
send a specific CC number and value to manipulate the second P3's
controls.

In lieu of having ALL the cc's mapped to the keyboard, I would love if
the P3 had a midi note-actuated preset scheme (how about 12 presets),
that would store various FTS scale selections.

It would be great if one could program a few midi notes to
specifically call up the random features and the record features. 
(Like the lowest note on the keyboard being the trigger to inject a
random note).

In order to make room for these features, it would be necessary for
the transpose by keyboard feature now recently implimented to have a
selectable range (-12 to +7, etc).  This would restrict the number of
keys on the keyboard being used by XPos, freeing them up for other uses.

I can also see how having overlapping mapping on the keyboard could be
very useful as well.  (For instance, every time that you transpose up
a minor third, the P3 would select User Scale 5, etc).

This midi setup would make it possible use a drum pad with
programmable pad notes to switch and program the P3 - a huge asset to
those of use with failing eyesight, or even a need on a dim sound
stage to change parameters.

Perhaps I am showing my age, but ever since the DX7, I have been
discouraged by the arthroscopic programming gestault of modern
electronic music instruments.  I hope that perhaps you, too can see
how amazingly more powerful the P3 could be if one could simply attach
a portable midi keyboard to it and do ALL of it's programming from it,
instead of page changes and options.  I think that it would lay the
mysteries of the P3 completely open for use every time that you use it
- especially in the way that the P3 is a tremendous generator of ideas.

Of course, that's my opinion, I could be wrong....

Respectfully submitted,

Gary

> Just wondering, did you plan to stop one day to add to/change the P3  
> software?
> Maybe I get stoned for this question (hi Paul), but someone I am  
> longing for a finished version (except bugfixes of course :-))

Nothing wrong with getting stoned...
It's funny, I've heard some hardware sequencer owners complain about a
*lack* of updates... ;-)

There is no compulsion on anyone to update your P3 beyond the version that
you received it with.
Every build is 'finished', in as much as it gives you a complete instrument
with a defined feature set.

But bear in mind that a lot of the perceived 'best features' of P3 came
about as a result of user feedback.
If my approach had been to not act on that, you wouldn't have anything like
the refined sequencing instrument you have today.

I'm always careful to avoid adding anything that fundamentally changes the
way things work, considering that existing users may want to upgrade for one
of the rare bug-fixes, but don't want a given new feature.
My philosophy has always been that new features shouldn't get in your way
unless you want to use them.

As long as there is space left in the ROM, my inclination is to add
suggested new features, or tweak the operation to make it easier to use. It
would seem a shame to leave something unimproved just for the sake of
closure.
Having said that, the ROM is a finite size, and though complier updates and
optimisation of the code have stretched this much further than I though it
would go, the free space is certainly diminishing.
I can't see there being many more significant things to add, once the remote
control features are complete.
Plus there are other projects I want to do, so I need to knock it on the
head soon.

The current TBI list includes:
 * Completion of Remote Control features - bank and part select, FTS sync,
external sequence advance and accumulator over-ride
 * A shortcut way to tie multiple notes together and stretch the note value
across multiple steps
 * 'Silent' part select - to have P3 start running without playing anything
until a real part is selected
 * Sticky mute hold - or rather a way to make 'mute hold' the default
behaviour
 * Selectable Pre/Post-FTS PXPos

Once that lot is done, I don't have any more ideas down. Maybe Mr Nagle does
;-)
So, in summary, it'll be finished one day, but not until it's finished.
I'll be glad when it is, too.

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

Hi Colin,

Hopefully you did not misunderstood me. I will be the *last* (after  
Paul of course... :-))  to say you must stop developing the software!

Since the day I bought this magical thing, I think the possibilities  
have about doubled in dozens of updates, which is nice!

I was just wondering if the day is near for the finished software.  
Nothing more, nothing less.

You are one of the very rare and few hardware/software developers in  
synthesizerworld that listens 110% to your customers and I am very  
greatfull for that!

Boele

Colin f wrote:

>Once that lot is done, I don't have any more ideas down. Maybe Mr Nagle does
>;-)
>  
>
Maybe indeed! Actually my list is dwindling: some more aux events 
(mostly of a "conditional" nature) and the suddenly-very-desirable "send 
new MIDI start even whilst running" command to restart my manually 
stopped drum machines at the next Gbar start.

You'll be amazed to know that I am approaching contentment. I can't 
promise it will last or that I won't ask for stuff "just because it 
might be cool" though...

But dude, I'm stunned with how much you've managed to cram in yet still 
retain a very fast, logical interface. As someone else said recently, 
there really isn't anything to touch this baby. And I think of new 
applications for it all the time.

Thanks again!

Paul

-- 
---
Paul Nagle / Soft Room Music / Bogus Focus Records / Binar / Headshock / The Joint Intelligence Committee
        www.softroom.co.uk / www.BogusFocus.com / www.JointIntelligenceCommittee.com

> CCs have the advantage of being able to select from a range of values,
> whereas unless you have very precise control of your keyboard playing,
> velocity has to be pretty much ignored.

Many keyboards don't put out the full range of velocity values in any
case.

> So keys can only be used for things like track mutes, and so on.
> With 4 octaves turned over to PXPos, that doesn't leave much room on the
> typical master keyboard.

I suppose you could implement a shift-key mechanism - the bottom C
shifts in an octave of control switches. (Didn't the old Cheetah
keyboards do this?) I can see all sorts of stuck-note issues rearing
their ugly little heads, though.

	-- N.

-- 

  nick rothwell -- composition, systems, performance -- http://www.cassiel.com

>  Although Paul's implimentation of one P3 controlling the other is
> intriguing, I still envision my P3 being programmed from a midi master
> keyboard.

> In lieu of having ALL the cc's mapped to the keyboard, I would love if
> the P3 had a midi note-actuated preset scheme (how about 12 presets),
> that would store various FTS scale selections.

I haven't ruled out implementing some more things with keyboard control
rather than controllers.
CCs have the advantage of being able to select from a range of values,
whereas unless you have very precise control of your keyboard playing,
velocity has to be pretty much ignored.
So keys can only be used for things like track mutes, and so on.
With 4 octaves turned over to PXPos, that doesn't leave much room on the
typical master keyboard.
At least I'm assuming most people only have maybe 6 octaves at the most...
 
> It would be great if one could program a few midi notes to
> specifically call up the random features and the record features. 
> (Like the lowest note on the keyboard being the trigger to inject a
> random note).

The difficulty with allowing all sorts of assignable remote facilities is
that I'd need to put in the UI for it all, which makes the exercise a lot
less efficient. Unless the configuration is only accesible by sysex.
It'll need some more thought...

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

> > It would be great if one could program a few midi notes to
> > specifically call up the random features and the record features. 
> > (Like the lowest note on the keyboard being the trigger to inject a
> > random note).
> 
> The difficulty with allowing all sorts of assignable remote facilities 
> is that I'd need to put in the UI for it all, which makes the exercise 
> a lot less efficient. Unless the configuration is only accesible by 
> sysex. It'll need some more thought...

for calling up the random feature, and a lot of others too of course,
the only thing you'd really need is external control of the "Mask
Aux[x], Kn>n" events, where the Kn is replaced by a cc.
Personally I think it'd be cool to be able to control the knobs
externally, possibly with a note/controller combination or something,
where note[x] = knob[y] & the CC is the knob's value. That'd be a way
to control any function assignable to a knob... 
realisticly i think it's pretty much right up there in the "wouldn't
it be cool if my car could fly.." category though.
i'm still on the 3.1005 build at the moment, so i have no doubts that
the later updates will be able to keep my thirst for
sequence-combination-amazement quenched for a while though. :-)

grtz Chiel

Colin f wrote:

>
>
>I haven't ruled out implementing some more things with keyboard control
>rather than controllers.
>CCs have the advantage of being able to select from a range of values,
>whereas unless you have very precise control of your keyboard playing,
>velocity has to be pretty much ignored.
>  
>
I guess you could have a "two velocity" switch - thinking of doing stuff 
like setting transpose and the FTS root at the same time - you could 
transpose using velocity 1-60 and transpose AND SET ROOT with anything 
over 60 (or any other arbitrary limit). Most keyboard should be 
sensitive enough to switch between two settings?

Paul (in sunny Arizona)

---
Paul Nagle / Soft Room Music / Bogus Focus Records / Binar / Headshock / The Joint Intelligence Committee
        www.softroom.co.uk / www.BogusFocus.com / www.JointIntelligenceCommittee.com

> for calling up the random feature, and a lot of others too of course,
> the only thing you'd really need is external control of the "Mask
> Aux[x], Kn>n" events, where the Kn is replaced by a cc.

Nice idea, and easy to do.
Where's my notepad...

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

Colin,

I am presently using an M-Audio Oxygen midi controller to control the
P3.  It has two octaves of keys, and 8 knobs for cc's.  I also have
two Roland portable 4 octave midi keyboards that are usb powered.

Even with the physical limits of 2 and 4 octaves, all three of the
keyboards have dedicated octave transposed switches that allow one to
play any of the 88 notes from the keyboard.  Wouldn't it be great to
hit the transpose-down button twice and two octaves of P3 parameter
select buttons become accessed on keys, and the 8 knobs (found on the
Oxygen) can control stuff like the base and range for random note and
upper features;  I would love to see the "FTS" edit function to be
keyboard programmable (hold down the notes on a particular octave). 
Once programmed, then hit the keyboard transpose-up button back tho
middle c, where the keys will transpose the  sequencer...

With regards to the additional overhead needed to create a user
programmable keyboard map, I would settle for whatever keys that you
choose to map to, Colin.  Vienna Symphony Library patchses have fixed
midi keys that switch between patches in gigstudio.  Once the note
numbers are established, Drum pads and other larger devices can be
patched in, making selection on the fly more physically convenient.

--- In analogue-sequencer@yahoogroups.com, ch.³l <oozi@o...> wrote:
.
> 
> for calling up the random feature, and a lot of others too of course,
> the only thing you'd really need is external control of the "Mask
> Aux[x], Kn>n" events, where the Kn is replaced by a cc.
> Personally I think it'd be cool to be able to control the knobs
> externally, possibly with a note/controller combination or something,
> where note[x] = knob[y] & the CC is the knob's value. That'd be a way
> to control any function assignable to a knob... 

The coolest aspect of Paul's P3 controlling another P3 is that the
master P3 holds precise settings of cc's in each location of a
pattern.  In some instances, such as base and range, you have a 0-127
parameter range, but, after a bit of experimentation, I find myself
coming up with really specific ranges that I would love to come back
to in real time, without all of the slop of tuning the data knob.

  Another case where this is a factor is in the FTS scale selection -
it would be nice to jump to exactly the scale that you desire rather
than  sweep through all of the variations on your way to your target,
like tuning in a radio station.

Keyboard mapping would allow one to, with just a few keyboard strokes, 
select an FTS scale, fill the pattern with random notes, and edit the
FTS scale, with having to back in and out of all of the pages, and,
after doing other things, when one comes back to the P3, there would
be no necessity figure out what page you left it in - you could simply
 go to the parameter you want and select it....


> realisticly i think it's pretty much right up there in the "wouldn't
> it be cool if my car could fly.." category though.

I know that what I am asking to add in features to the P3 is like
turning it into a Hammond organ - making a lot of stuff physically
reacheable at once, so that you can attack it while it plays and
manipulate the crap out of it.

The funny thing about this stuff for me is that most who do what I do
 (compose film music) think that I am nuts to be using analog synths -
they say that it takes too much time to program.  But I love this
stuff - so, in order to use it efficently, I need to set up very
similarly to a live performer.  

Think of how easy it will be to teach someone how to use the P3 with a
midi keyboard attached - many complex tasks can then be simply
expressed in notes (melodies!)

gc

Gary

> I am presently using an M-Audio Oxygen midi controller to control the
> P3.  It has two octaves of keys, and 8 knobs for cc's.  I also have
> two Roland portable 4 octave midi keyboards that are usb powered.

I am presently without *any* MIDI controller keyboard, other than my
Groove-retrofitted JP8, which has no local-off or velocity...
My previous 4 octave controller is in the process of being rebuilt into a
synth, so I'll be sure to add a wide range transpose control.
Until I get that working, I can't really test any keyboard remote control
development easily.
(the synth in question is here if you're interested... 
http://www.colinfraser.com/spectrum/spectrum.htm )
 
> I would love to see the "FTS" edit function to be
> keyboard programmable (hold down the notes on a particular octave). 
> Once programmed, then hit the keyboard transpose-up button back tho
> middle c, where the keys will transpose the  sequencer...

This has been discussed among the alpha test users (i.e. me and Nagle)
My first idea was to allow a high-velocity note-on to add a note to the
current FTS scale, and a low-velocity to remove it.
But do you use the notes relative to C to edit the scale, or relative to the
current FTS root ?
And if you use the current root, would you lose track of what you had done
when you changed the root ?
My feeling is that fixed relative to C would be easiest, since that's how I
imagine the step keys in the normal FTS edit.
That would need two octaves - one for root selection, one for scale edit.

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

colin,

I agree with your conclusions about FTS - that 2 octaves would work -
one to toggle the pitches and the other to set the base pitch....

so, with 2 octaves for FTS and 4 octaves for transpose, that still
leaves 2 octaves (24 keys) left to feature asignments....

gary

"Colin f" <colin@c...> wrote:
>  

> But do you use the notes relative to C to edit the scale, or
relative to the
> current FTS root ?

using notes relative to c would work.


> And if you use the current root, would you lose track of what you
had done
> when you changed the root ?

not if, when one touches keys in that octave, the P3 jumps to the FTS
edit display, illuminating the buttons that have been previously
sselected...

I personally don't think that programming scales relative to c is any
more esoteric than seriallly selecting the pitches 1-12...

gary