Re: [analogue-sequencer] top speed - interface questions
2006-02-11 by darkstr1746@comcast.net
So it's come to this. I feel sooooo pathetic. A man so totaly stoned out of his gourd that he makes the Cheshire cat seem omnipotent, can whiz around the P3 with the ease of a brilliant mathematician doing basic addition while I, totally straight, not being able to handle anything more than hard water, and concentrating with all my might. . can't even get the P3 to play back anything unless it's by total accident. LMAO!!! where did i go wrong?? This is all a joke of course and Paul knows what i'm talking about. But it's just hysterical to me, and forces me to take a long hard look at my ability to learn anything anymore. I think that once a video tutorial makes it's way to the surface i might be inclined to take another swipe at getting aP3 to work for me. Until then, i decided to sell mine. Mine is the simplistic approach. It has to be. I lost all my brain cells to psychedelics many decades ago. Wish i had had a P3 to get lost in back then. As it was, the most interesting thing to do was to watch grains of sand travel across a windless beach all by themselves and marvel at the intelligence of the universe. LMAO!!! Hi Paul!!! : ) john duval
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-------------- Original message --------------
From: Paul Nagle <softroom@btinternet.com>
circuitsea wrote:
>How does the P3 with all its many parameters and capabilities rate in
>this category? Do people find they get really fast moving around in
>it or is it always a very conscious step by step process to add and
>adjust tracks.
>
>
It's a good question and my answer may be slightly biased because the P3
has opened up avenues for me live that were previously closed. I
therefore bathe in a warm glow of appreciation each time I use it.
As for conscious - I work on mine, mostly, stoned so it has to be
something I can use without thinking. This is the only reason I sold my
DSI Evolver and Waldorf Pulse - couldn't program them when wasted. The
P3 I could play if rendered into a pile of drool in the corner of the
stage...
So yes, the P3 *has* an initial learning curve. This is mostly because
it packs in a hell of a lot of features, many of which have evolved over
time. So at first you do get confused over simple stuff like how to edit
a pattern or how to string two patterns together to make something
that's 32 steps long etc. The panel doesn't have too many labels and
those it has have arcane names like "Func"... no avoiding some learning
to get started, sorry.
But after a while, when you are able to find your way around the menus,
it does sort of click. I've had an Xpander too and a Microwave XT - so I
know what you mean. In fact I found the Microwave 2 more logical and
faster than the XT despite its lack of knob real-estate. And here is
where I find the P3 very fast - having a small keypad and those
great-quality trigger buttons and knobs gives an interface that, when
learned, your fingers can fly over way, way faster than you can
physically travel over a far larger, knobby surface (especially if your
eyes need to keep zipping back to the display). I have therefore become
pretty fast with the P3 - so much so that I would eagerly improvise an
entire set from a blank P3 live and in front of an audience. And I mean
not just banging in notes looper-style but adding auxilliary events,
randomisation, cool variations. I'm not saying this ability will come
over night - I play my P3s every day - even more than I play my
keyboards - and I still encounter some things that slow me down
slightly, such as the order of some menus. But I don't even have to
think anymore, I can just do it.
So I don't want to paint an impossibly glowy picture - I've seen first
time users and know they don't always get the way it all hangs together.
I think the updated manual, tutorial video and help from this forum will
make all the difference - but this is the deepest sequencer I know of
(and it'll get deeper and more powerful yet!) and I believe we have a
good compromise with user interface and functionality. If the P3 does
well (and any magazine actually reviews it) I think Colin can totally
rewrite the concept of the step sequencer...
OK, enough gushing from me, check out some of our (JIC) live tracks to
hear what can be done in a spontaneous P3 improvisation. There's a
couple I'd recommend: "Greg The Moose" and "A Wreck No Phobia" from the
JIC site.
Hope this helps,
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
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