jjonas

One additional note to 4.091 beta: When AStart is 'on', the first played note gets recorded correctly on the active track, but if there are notes in other tracks, the notes in the first steps of those other tracks won't be played.

This is the final section of the draft beginner's user manual: the appendices 1–4 on various topics. No issues came up, so I have no questions. Easy last lesson :-) However, with 4.091 coming out sometime soon, there's already a few details in the appendices that are not up to date for 4.091. I'll publish the text as it is, nevertheless, and update it later for the so-called "final" version. Looking back at the whole manual draft, there was nothing or very little on a number of functions. They can be divided into two groups: 1. Ones I could possibly write about at some point, and add it to the manual later. FX page (only scale mentioned this far) options (only partially covered) TRANSPOSE page (would be easy) MIDI section control metronome BPM (very little mentioned) GROOVE DIRECTION MANUAL MORPH 2. Ones that I'm unlikely to write anything about, now or later, because I don't have the hardware, or otherwise never use USB, DAW, etc. MIDI Ext. ctrl CV configuration ethernet (osc) USB and IIC ports ---------------------------8<-------------------------------------------------- Appendix 1. Customising some button functions --------------------------------------------- Function buttons F1–F4 ---------------------- In the root of the SD card there is a file named MBSEQ_HW.V4. This is the hardware setup file. Most of the settings there don't need changing, and are anyway beyond the scope of this manual. However, on the Wilba frontpanel there are four buttons labelled F1, F2, F3 and F4, which can be customised relatively easily (and are meant to be so). The default functions for the buttons are: F1: Quick access to the Bookmark page F2: Quick access to the Jam page F3: Quick access to Tap tempo F4: Save the complete session In the HW setup file they appear like this: # F1 is located at SR M3 Pin 3 # F2 is located at SR M2 Pin 2 # F3 is located at SR M2 Pin 3 # F4 is located at SR M1 Pin 2 # SR Pin <-- this line begins with a #, so it's "commented out" (not part of the settings) BUTTON_BOOKMARK M3 3 <-- this line defines button F1 as the bookmark page button BUTTON_RECORD M2 2 <-- this line defines button F2 as the Jam page button BUTTON_TAP_TEMPO M2 3 <-- etc. BUTTON_SAVE_ALL M1 2 If you want to change the default functions, all you need to do is keep the "BUTTON_" in the start of the line, add your preferred function after it, and leave the SR and Pin columns unchanged. The possible button functions are listed in HW setup file, and are of the form: # SR Pin BUTTON_STOP M3 5 BUTTON_PAUSE M2 4 BUTTON_PLAY M2 5 BUTTON_MUTE_ALL_TRACKS 0 0 BUTTON_MUTE_TRACK_LAYERS 0 0 BUTTON_MUTE_ALL_TRACKS_AND_LAYERS 0 0 BUTTON_UNMUTE_ALL_TRACKS 0 0 BUTTON_UNMUTE_TRACK_LAYERS 0 0 BUTTON_UNMUTE_ALL_TRACKS_AND_LAYERS 0 0 Lines that have a non-zero entry for the SR and Pin columns are already assigned somewhere (like stop, pause and play above), so there is no need to assign them to another button. However, entries with zeros in the SR and Pin columns (like "mute all tracks" and "unmute all tracks" above) are potential candidates for F1–F4 button functions. For example, if you want to to have a dedicated button for "mute all tracks", you should change one of the F1–F4 button entries to contain "BUTTON_MUTE_ALL_TRACKS". You could replace "BUTTON_BOOKMARK", for example, as bookmarks are easily available with MENU + SELECT as well. It is important to note that if you enable e.g. "mute all tracks" for one of the F1–F4 buttons, *you must "comment out"* the line where "mute all tracks" is set to SR 0 Pin 0. If the "zero address" setting is not "commented out" in the file, it will have the effect of disabling the setting. "Commenting out" is done by placing a # in front of the line, so that BUTTON_MUTE_ALL_TRACKS 0 0 becomes #BUTTON_MUTE_ALL_TRACKS 0 0 Button behaviour (momentary/toggle) ------------------------------------ In the HW setup file it is possible to change the behaviour of a number of buttons, so that they do their function while the button is pressed & held, or the button function is toggled 'on' and 'off' with a single press. For example, momentary pressing & holding the MENU button shows the MENU page only as long as the button is pressed & held, and you have to press another button while pressing & holding the MENU button in order to choose a menu page. If you've set the MENU button to toggle, you can just press MENU once and then press another button to choose a menu (or press MENU again to return to the current page). This allows you to make menu page selections with one hand. This is the relevant section of the HW setup file for configuring button behaviour: ################################################## # Button behaviour # 0: active mode as long as button pressed # 1: pressing button toggles the mode ################################################## BUTTON_BEH_FAST 1 BUTTON_BEH_FAST2 0 BUTTON_BEH_ALL 1 BUTTON_BEH_SOLO 1 BUTTON_BEH_METRONOME 1 BUTTON_BEH_LOOP 1 BUTTON_BEH_FOLLOW 1 BUTTON_BEH_SCRUB 0 BUTTON_BEH_MENU 1 BUTTON_BEH_BOOKMARK 1 BUTTON_BEH_STEP_VIEW 0 BUTTON_BEH_TRG_LAYER 1 BUTTON_BEH_PAR_LAYER 1 BUTTON_BEH_TRACK_SEL 0 BUTTON_BEH_TEMPO_PRESET 0 Appendix 2. Bookmarks --------------------- The Bookmarks menu is available in the main menu (press EXIT once or a few times, depending on where you are), or by pressing MENU + SELECT. Bookmarks allow you to store frequently used pages and settings to be recalled at the push of a button. There are two kinds of bookmarks: global and local (session dependent) bookmarks, eight each. In the Bookmarks menu the global bookmarks are available in the left LCD, and the local ones in the right LCD. Global bookmarks are available in all sessions, while local bookmarks are particular to each session. However, it is possible to copy local bookmarks across sessions in the Sessions Import/Export menu (UTILITY -> Disk -> Sessions Import). Choose the source session in the right LCD and turn GPK9 to select 'Bookmarks' as the imported type. Pressing 'IMPORT' will replace the current session's local bookmarks with the imported ones. A bookmark can be recalled by going to the Bookmark page and pressing a button to select the bookmark you want. A bookmark can be stored by going to the Bookmarks page and pressing & holding a GP button for 3 seconds. The page that was selected before entering the Bookmarks page is stored, along with a number of settings. (See the example below.) Bookmark names can be changed only by editing the global or local bookmark files, both called MBSEQ_BM.V4. The maximum length for a name is five characters. If you absolutely must have more than five characters for the name, you could save the same bookmark on two adjacent slots and edit their names in the bookmark file so that the one on the left in the pair has five characters and the one the the right has up to four characters. The global bookmarks file is at the root of the SD card, and the local ones are in the same folder as the session which the bookmarks belong to. Besides the bookmark name, it is possible to edit also the other bookmark parameters by hand in the bookmark files. The example below also lists the settings which are stored in a bookmark. #################### Slot 1 <- slot name, do not edit! Slots 1-8 = global bookmarks, 9-16 local bookmarks Name Def. <- replace "Def." for custom bookmark name (max. five characters) #################### +Page EDIT <- name of selected page +Group 1 <- selected group number, 1–4 +Tracks 1000000000000000 <- selected tracks, 1 = track selected, 0 = track not selected +Mutes 0000000000000000 <- selected mutes, 1 = track muted, 0 = track not muted +ParLayer A <- selected parameter layer, A-P +TrgLayer A <- selected trigger layer, A-G +Instrument 1 <- selected instrument (useful only for drum tracks)*** +StepView 1 <- Step View mode on or off +Step 1 <- selected step (cursor position) +EditView 0 <- Edit view mode, 0 = step view, 1 = layer view, 2 = trigger view, 3 = 303 view +Solo 0 <- solo button mode on or off +All 0 <- ALL button mode on or off +Fast 0 <- FAST button mode on or off +Metronome 0 <- metronome on or off +LoopMode 0 <- loop mode on of off +FollowMode 0 <- follow mode on or off The plus or minus sign in the beginning of each line can be used to prevent the setting from being overwritten by a bookmark, when you store it on the bookmark page. Plus allows overwriting, minus prevents it. For example, the line -Tracks 1111000000000000 would mean that if you save a bookmark in the same location, the track selection won't be stored, but it will always be what's written in the bookmark file – in this case, this bookmark will always select tracks 1–4, no matter what the track selection status happens to be at the moment you save the bookmark in this slot. Appendix 3. The MIDI Router --------------------------- You can access the MIDI Router page from the main menu, or with MENU + MIDI -> MIDI Router (GPB5–6). The MIDI Router allows you to route incoming MIDI messages from any of the input ports to any of the output ports. *It is independent from the other MIDI settings of the sequencer*, and in some instances you have to pay attention so as not to have parallel in/out settings – this can lead to e.g. notes getting forwarded twice. The router has a maximum 16 nodes, each of which governs the routing from *one input port to one output port*, with further optional channel limitations. All the nodes are in effect simultaneously. On the input side, GPK9 selects the node to be edited, GPK10 selects the physical input port on which the messages are coming in, and GPK11 selects the MIDI channel that is allowed through. The channel setting (GPK11) can be: a) 1 to 16, for allowing messages on single MIDI channel; b) 'All' for allowing messages on all channels; or c) '---', which effectively disables the node, as no MIDI channel is allowed through. On the output side, GPK12 selects the output port where the node's input port's MIDI messages are routed to. GPK13 selects the MIDI channel which the outgoing message is sent on. The outgoing channel doesn't have to be the same as the original incoming channel, so you can e.g. transform incoming channel 1 to outgoing channel 13. Channel options are: a) 1 to 16 for a single MIDI channel. All incoming MIDI messages, regardless of their original channel, are sent out on this channel; b) 'All' for sending the message on its original channel; or c) two special options: Track and Selected Track (Sel.Trk). If the output port/channel option is 'Track', the router will direct the incoming messages to the track whose *ordinal number* matches the incoming MIDI channel (provided that the input port/channel options allow the message through). For example, if you have a MIDI controller that's sending MIDI data on channel 7, 'Track' option will send the message out on the port and MIDI channel set on track 7's (G2T3) EVENT page. MIDI channel 10 will get sent out on track 10 (G3T2), etc. If the output channel option is 'Sel.Trk' (Selected Track), the router will direct the incoming messages to the sequencer track that is *currently active* (provided that the input port/channel options allow the message through). If you have several tracks selected, the MIDI message will go out on the channel with the lowest ordinal number (track 1 before track 2, track 5 before track 6 etc.) The final option on the MIDI Router page is DefaultPort. The tracks' EVENT page and a few other pages allow you to select 'Def.' as one of the Port options. If you select 'Def.' as the Port, it will refer to the Default Port setting on the MIDI Router page. Note that the router settings might overlap with the Jam page note live forwarding option ('Fwd'). If you have Fwd 'on', it will forward incoming MIDI messages on the 'Jam' bus (see section 4.1.1.) to the active track's output port, set on the track's EVENT page. This is done regardless of any MIDI Router settings. However, if Fwd is 'on', and at the same time you have a MIDI Router node routing MIDI messages to the same port and channel as Fwd is forwarding them, MIDI messages like notes will get triggered twice, almost simultaneously. This most likely alters how the note will sound, and perhaps causes hanging notes. If you are using the MIDI Router to forward MIDI messages from one or several MIDI controllers to output ports, you might want to make sure that Fwd on the Jam page is 'off'. On the other hand, note that the Live Patterns function depends on Fwd being on. (See section 4.1.5.) Example: If you have two MIDI keyboards, one in IN1 (a plain MIDI controller) and the other in IN2 (a keyboard synthesizer that's sending on, and listening to, channel 1), you could set them up so that one of them always plays the channel it is set to send on, and the other always plays the currently selected (active) sequencer track. Let's say you want to set your keyboard synth to play the active track (selectable on the group and track selection buttons on the sequencer), and the plain MIDI controller to play the channel you've selected on the controller. For this to work optimally, you need to turn the Jam page Fwd option 'off' to avoid forwarding messages twice. Also, you want to set your keyboard synthesizer's 'local' function off, so that the synth is triggered only via MIDI. On the MIDI Router page, set Node 1 like this for the plain MIDI controller: IN Chn./P OUT Chn./P Node 1 IN1 All OUT1 All This lets through all messages coming in at IN1 on all channels, and directs them to OUT1 on the same channel it came in on. In other words, if the incoming message at IN1 is on channel 11, it is forwarded to OUT1 on channel 11. This setup is very useful if you have a multitimbral synthesizer that can be played on several MIDI channels, or you have several synths connected to OUT1, either with MIDI Thru boxes or by daisy-chaining equipment with their MIDI Thru (soft or hard) ports. However, if you're using only one synth in each output port, you can make a dedicated node for each output port: IN Chn./P OUT Chn./P Node 2 IN1 All OUT1 All Node 3 IN1 All OUT2 All Node 4 IN1 All OUT3 All Node 5 IN1 All OUT4 All With these settings, everything coming in on IN1 will be routed simultaneously to output ports OUT1–4. This way you can control the synths at each output port with a single MIDI controller at IN1, just by changing the sending channel on the MIDI controller. Node 2, for the keyboard synthesizer, is set up like this: IN Chn./P OUT Chn./P Node 2 IN2 #1 Sel.Trk Node 2 contains the settings for the keyboard synthesizer, which is connected to IN1, and set to send on, and listen to, exclusively channel 1. This way you can use the keyboard synth to play itself via the sequencer (remember to turn the synth's 'local' setting 'off'), but also any other synth that you have connected to the sequencer, just by using the group and track selection buttons to select the right track on the sequencer. Appendix 4. MBSEQv4 CC implementation ------------------------------------- The following is a simplified list of what a track's configuration consists of. The full information can be found below. – FX settings – MODE settings – TRANSPOSE settings – DIRECTION settings – DIVIDER settings – Loop points – LENGTH – GROOVE styles – MORPH settings [list of MBSEQv4 CC implementation follows]

The LiveSend on/off option in the menu that's available on the MIXER page, by pressing SELECT, works only with the MIXER page settings. It doesn't work on the EDIT page (if that is what you mean). LiveSend 'on' means that the changes you make to the different parameters on the MIXER page get sent immediately to the Port and Channel that are set for that slot on mixer map pages 1 and 2 (there are 16 slots per page). If LiveSend is 'off', changing e.g. the program change or volume page value has no immediate effect (you have to 'Dump' the mixer map with the SELECT menu if you want them to have effect), but if LiveSend is 'on', the changes to the values on the MIXER page will be sent immediately.

Feedback on 4.091 beta. To the extent I tested, everything worked except one thing: I assigned JAM_LIVE and JAM_STEP to the F1–F4 buttons (and disabled the "zero-address" lines for the buttons from elsewhere in the HW setup file). JAM_LIVE has no visible effect, while JAM_STEP takes you to the Jam page, but the Step/Live mode is always what you have chosen manually on the Jam page earlier. In this sense BUTTON_JAM_STEP works like the old BUTTON_RECORD. The things that I tested and found working: I replaced the frontpanel Pause button+LED with Rec button+led: it works. I tested Fwd button by reassigning it temporarily to one of the F1–F4 buttons: it works. "Edit Recording Mode" works with mono and poly, in both "press a GP button" and "toggle with SELECT" Live Recording mode (mono/poly) + AStart works, records all played notes always in the first step, regardless of cursor position at the time of AStart trigger Using a dedicated Rec on/off button you can switch rec off while the seq is running, and jam on top of what you recorded, then switch rec back on to record over the track, wholly or in part: this works Step Recording mode (mono/poly) + AStart works, seq starts at first note, everything is recorded in current cursor position, regardless of running cursor position Key change with internal CCs, in CC layer (on Note track or CC track) works, I don't know why I didn't get it working with 4.090, but it doesn't matter, now I have it working and can document it If there's other areas that should be tested in 4.091 beta, I'm happy to take pointers. BTW at some point in the draft manual thread I suggested that the default F1–F4 button functions in the HW setup file should be updated. I'm sorry to flip-flop on this, but since I made that suggestion I found that the Bookmarks page is actually available rather easily with MENU + SELECT, and tap tempo is available similarly with MENU + PLAY. On the other hand, the Track Selection (TRACK_SEL) page is not available easily, so probably it should take the place of bookmarks or tap tempo in the F1–F4 button default options...?

Changing the HW file helped, now it seems to work normally. I'll write some test results tomorrow.

I moved the 4.091 firmware beta testing feedback to the MBSEQv4 release feedback thread.

I moved the firmware 4.091 beta testing feedback here from the draft user manual thread (firmware download link is there too). One thing that should be fixed before further testing is feasible is that GP buttons 15–16 behave strangely now, on the EDIT page they do something else than just switch on the gate, and when the seq is running, the LEDs behave strangely. The crucial problem is that on the EVENT page I'm not able to use GPB16 to initialise a track to test different track configurations (several note layers, chord layers etc). Another thing I noticed offhand was that on the EVENT page, using GPK9 to change from Layer A or C to Layer B lights up the BPM LED (it's lit when Layer B is selected).

I volunteer for beta testing.

Ok, now I got them working. I didn't realise before that the Misc. page settings only apply to the live play notes that are forwarded through the track, not the ones that are playing from the track. No objections from me, I haven't needed it. And anyway if pattern-wise scale change was sorely needed at some point, one track could be spared and made into a CC track that's sending CC#3 on a bus to change the scale setting on the FX/Scale page, right..? I tried to do that just now, with the previously mentioned two patterns, both of them now have a CC track that's sending on Bus1 (the only bus that allows you to send internal CCs) on channel 1 (I guess the channel doesn't matter because no single track is being controlled here)..? Control on the scale page is 'Global'. However, I'm only able to change the scale when I change the CC track value on the track (and the seq is playing), but not when the seq is playing and I change between patterns (but don't change the CC values manually). The first pattern sends CC#03 value 0 and the other sends value 2, or whatever two different values, but no matter what the values are, after pattern change the scale will always return to 0:Major.

A pattern contains four tracks. Tracks are the "real" data entity, you set the settings for each track separately, and then the sequencer handles them in bundles of four (and calls these bundles "patterns"). You can have up to 256 patterns per session. A group, however, is only a container that can be filled with track/pattern data, but it doesn't have data of its own. The sequencer always has four "drawers" like this, never more and never less, and each "drawer" holds one pattern at a time. (IIRC, the manual doesn't mention this yet, but patterns are saved into four banks, 64 in each bank, and by default, group 1 plays patterns from bank 1, though patterns from any bank can be played in any group. In the pattern's numerical name, e.g. 2:A6, the first number denotes the bank where the pattern is saved into, and the latter is the pattern save slot within that bank). Patterns can be saved in two ways: individually, or along with the whole session. Saving the whole session saves all the four active patterns (one in each group). Session save is in the main menu, along with Open, New, and Save As. Individual pattern save is available with MENU + SAVE. This allows you to save one of the active patterns and give it a descriptive name. I hope this clarified the issue somewhat.

This is in response to TK's suggestion as well. My idea was a button with which to switch the Jam page Rec setting on/off, with an LED to indicate the status. This would be to spare me from having to go back and forth between the Jam and the EDIT page just to change the Rec setting. In that sense my idea is simpler than monokinetic and TK's ideas I think. As to getting quickly to the Jam page, I have assigned one of the F1–F4 buttons to that function (the assignment in the HW setup file for quick-access to the Jam page button is BUTTON_RECORD, not obvious anymore because Jam page has replaced the Record page). If the first press of a Record button takes me to the Jam page and the second press switches the Rec mode on/off, I don't mind such a function, but it's not an improvement from my point of view as I already have a dedicated "go to Jam page from anywhere" button. A connected and perhaps crucial issue is that at least with latest official firmware (4.090), the EDIT RECORDING mode (toggled on/off on the EDIT page with the SELECT button) doesn't work correctly in polyphonic mode (only a single note gets recorded), whereas Live recording with Rec 'on', but sequencer stopped and AStart 'off' does work. If that is fixed, I can well live without a dedicated Record button. My primary intention was to ask whether it is possible to assign a Rec on/off function to a button already now.

I was asking it for the documentation. Trying my best :-) Fair enough, it's not necessary. I'll document it "don't use them simultaneously", and make sure the patch change time-lag note get into the text. Ok. I just wanted to know whether I should make a note to that place in the manual to remember to change it when the 4+ chords in parameter layer come out, but now that's not necessary. EDIT: To confirm: Does this mean that if you use a 4+ chord from a chord parameter layer as an arpeggiator source, only the first four notes will be used? If yes, I'll document it provisionally like this (and finally when the 4+ chord firmware comes out). If live mode means that the sequencer is running, I haven't managed to get them working. The FTS on the Misc. page can be 'on' while ForceScale on the MODE page is 'off' and vice versa, and Oct. on the 'Misc.' page can be +3 while octave transpose on the TRANSPOSE page is +0. In both cases it seems the MODE and TRANSPOSE page values are the ones that determine the actual value. I checked the restart with a 'New' session, it worked ok, perhaps it was my test session settings or something. Anyway it seems now there is no issue with restart after all. I haven't been able to change root and scale with a pattern. Here's what I've tried to do: I start a new session, where I'm using two patterns, 1:A1 and 1:A2. Both of them are 16 steps long, forced to scale, and have the same quarter notes: C – D – E – F. I select 1:A1, go on the scale page, set Control to 'Group 1', select 0:Major and save. Then I select 1:A2, go to the scale page, change scale to 1:Harmonic Minor, and save. If I now change the patterns on the scale page, the scale won't change. Instead the scale is always whatever I chose last on the scale page. It doesn't help if I save the patterns individually (instead of saving the whole session). What am I missing?

You could assign "SAVE_ALL" to one of the F1-F4 buttons in the HW setup file. This allows you could save all patterns (in fact the whole session) with one button, regardless of the page you happen to be on, and make a habit of pressing it every now and then for just in case :-) The HW setup file is in the root of SD card, it's called MBSEQ_HW.V4. (The section of the draft beginner's user manual that deals with changing the HW setup file is coming up next weekend :-)

There was a similar problem with an SD card on the forum recently. The solution was to try another SD card.

I decided to make a few more entries in section 4, on Live Patterns and Misc. settings on the Jam page, so that the whole Jam affair is complete. After these sections there's section 6 ('Some advanced features'), and the table of contents for it is: 6. Some advanced features 6.1. Using a bus to control a track 6.1.1. The MODE page 6.1.2. Setting up sending and receiving tracks 6.1.3. Receiving track mode: Transposer 6.1.4. Receiving track mode: Arpeggiator 6.1.5. Using a MIDI controller to control track transpose or arpeggio 6.1.6. Sending CCs over a bus to control track settings 6.2. Force to Scale 6.3. Random generator 6.4. Euclidean rhythm generator 6.4.1. Euclidean rhythm generator for Drum type tracks 6.4.2. Euclidean rhythm generator for Note type tracks 6.5. Mixer maps Questions/issues: Possible bug on Live Patterns subpage on the Jam page: if the Ptn. page is selected on the left LCD, but you change certain settings on the two LCDs and then press SELECT again to edit live patterns (Ptn. is still selected), the edit mode won't go on, but instead the page selection will change away from Ptn. to another page (on the left LCD). This happens if you have Ptn. page selected, change one the following settings, and then press SELECT to edit: If you pressed Length (GPK14), changes to MIDI page, if you pressed Fwd, changes to Step page, if you pressed Rec, changes to Step page. I think as long as Ptn. is selected, pressing & holding SELECT should always go to edit live patterns mode. Also, as a separate(?) phenomenon, if you press & release the SELECT button four times in a row, the fourth press changes away from the Ptn. page and to the MIDI page. Possible bug on Misc. settings subpage on the Jam page: misc page octave transpose, FX and FTS on/off states have no effect In section 6.1. on arpeggiator tracks: Up to four-note chords are supported, but what about the new chord parameter layer chords (the firmware is not ready yet) that have more than four notes in them? MODE page 'Restart' option: there seems to be some false triggering going on with restart (one key press results in one or more triggerings), as well as short delays in re-starting the track sometimes I don't really understand how the FX -> Scale page settings 'Control'. On the one hand, the official manual says of Control: "the scale and root note can either be controlled globally or pattern based", but on the other hand it says "Only one group can control the scale and root note". The first would seem to say that either you have one scale to rule them all ('Global'), or alternatively each group can have its own scale. But the second seems to say that only one group can determine the scale. I'm not quite sure how 'Root' works either. Is it so, that if I set 'Root' to 'E', and scale is 'Natural minor', all notes will be forced into the E natural minor scale? If 'Root' is set to 'Keyb' and scale is 'Natural minor', and I press C# on the keyboard, all force-to-scale tracks are forced to C# natural minor scale? Mixer maps: are the freely assignable CCs the standard MIDI CCs? ------------------------------8<------------------------- 4.1.5. Live Patterns The Live Patterns function allows you to effect rhythm patterns that have either been prepared earlier, or ones that are created or edited live. Live patterns play "on top of" the track, without overwriting anything, but the patterns can also be recorded on the track if needed. Each session has its own set of live patters, and they cannot be imported to other sessions. Live patterns are useful especially for spicing up Drum type tracks, though they can be used for other track types as well. The patterns can be activated with MIDI controller keys, and their playback velocity can be controlled with aftertouch (note that many MIDI controllers don't support aftertouch). The Live Patterns page 'Ptn.' can be found on the Jam page (GPB6), and the Live Patterns menu is available on the right LCD. The sequencer has to be running and the Jam page function Fwd has to be set to 'on' for Live Patterns to work. Note that having Fwd 'on' might conflict with your MIDI Router settings. (For details, see Appendix 3.) 4.1.5.1. Live Patterns for Drum type tracks As a Drum type track is probably the most likely candidate for Live Patterns use, the functions will be covered in detail with drum tracks, and only the few differences explained in the next section with regard to other track types. For a Drum type track, the Live Patterns page allows you to effect one of 16 different live patterns for any of the available drum instruments. Select the drum instrument that you want with GPK9. 'Ptn.' setting turns the live patterns function 'on' and 'off' for the selected drum instrument. If 'Ptn.' is 'off' for a drum instrument, pressing the appropriate key on your MIDI controller for e.g. a bass drum sound (the key which each drum sound is associated with is set on the drum track's EVENT page) will both play the drum instrument in question as well as select it for pattern assigning. If 'Ptn.' is 'on', pressing & holding the appropriate key for e.g. a bass drum sound will not play a bass drum sound, but instead will keep effecting the chosen live pattern as long as the key is held. The live pattern will be played with the velocity with which you hit the key on your MIDI controller. If your MIDI controller sends aftertouch messages, the velocity of the pattern can be controlled with aftertouch. If you want maximum control over the velocity of the live pattern, press the controller key very softly, and then use only aftertouch to control the playback velocity. If you hit the key hard, that will determine the initial velocity of the pattern, but after applying aftertouch, it is the aftertouch amount that will keep determining the playback velocity of the live pattern. Note that if Rec on the Jam page is 'on', your key presses will be recorded on the track. If Rec is 'on' while also Ptn. is 'on' (GPB10), recording on the track will take place only for those steps where the current live pattern is triggered. If you just want to effect the live patterns when you press a key, but don't want to record anything on the track, make sure Rec is 'off'. Live patterns will be played "on top of" the "normal" track. For example, if you have a bass drum playing quarter notes on the track and you effect a live pattern on any drum instrument, the "normal" track will keep playing in the backgroud normally (it won't get muted, overwritten etc.), and the live pattern is played in addition to it, fill-style. There are 16 live patterns per session, and each pattern is always 16 steps long. Example: You could select one live pattern for each drum instrument, set 'Ptn.' to 'on' for each drum instrument, and then use the MIDI controller keys to effect the selected patterns for each individual drum instrument. The live patterns can be edited live while you're on the Live Patterns page. Press & hold SELECT to enter the edit mode ("EDIT" will appear in the right upper corner of the right LCD). While SELECT is pressed & held, you can use the GP buttons to turn each of the 16 steps of the current live pattern 'on' and 'off'. Accent can be effected for each step by pressing a GP button for turned-on step another time, in which case that live pattern step will be played at maximum velocity, regardless of aftertouch value. A diamond-shaped symbol denotes normal velocity (controlled by aftertouch), and a "?" denotes accent velocity (no aftertouch sensitivity). While on the Live Patterns page, you can copy the current live pattern either with GPB15 ('Cpy') or with the dedicated COPY button on the frontpanel. Likewise, while on the Live Patterns page, you can paste the copied live pattern with GPB16 ('Paste') or with the dedicated PASTE button on the frontpanel. This means that the COPY and PASTE buttons won't copy or paste the *track contents* as they normally do. Also the CLEAR button on the frontpanel has a specialised function while you're on the Live Patterns page: it clears the current live pattern instead of the track. The Length setting (for note length) has no effect on a Drum type track. 4.1.5.2. Live Patterns for other tracks types If the track is a Note, Chord or CC type track, the basic operation principles are the same as on a Drum type track. Compared among themselves, Note, Chord and CC type tracks work almost identically, though Note tracks are probably the most useful of the three. Only Note tracks will be dealt with here. Compared to Drum type tracks, there are two differences. First, Length (GPK14) adjusts the note length of each step (up to 98%). Second, the Mode option (GPK9) changes from drum instrument selection to Mono/Poly selection. This is a recording setting, the same as on the Jam page's Step and Live recording pages. Mono allows you to record single notes, and Poly allows you to record multiple notes. Like normally with recording, you cannot record multiple notes unless you have enough note layers. If Rec is 'on' while the Ptn. is 'on' (GPB10), recording on the track will take place only for those steps where the current live pattern is triggered. If you just want to use the live patterns when you press a key, but don't want to record anything on the track, make sure Rec is 'off'. ***if the Ptn. page is selected on the left LCD, but you change certain settings on the two LCDs and then press SELECT again to edit live patterns (Ptn. is still selected), the edit mode won't go on, but instead the page selection will change away from Ptn. to another page (on the left LCD). This happens if you have Ptn. page selected, change the following settings, and then press SELECT to edit: Length (GPK14, changes to MIDI page), Fwd (changes to Step page), Rec (changes to Step page). I think as long as Ptn. is selected, pressing & holding SELECT should always go to edit live patterns mode. Also, as a separate(?) phenomenon, if you press & release the SELECT button four times in a row, the fourth press changes away from the Ptn. page and to the MIDI page. 4.1.6. Miscellaneous settings The Misc. page has only a few pertinent settings to spare you the trouble of running around in other menus. Oct. effects an octave transpose (normally done on the TRANSPOSE page); FX enables/disables Humanizer, LFO, Limiter and Echo effects (normally done on the FX page); and FTS enables/disables Force To Scale for the active track (normally done on the MODE page). ***misc page octave transpose, FX and FTS on/off states have no effect! ------------------8<------------------------- -------------------------- 6. Some advanced features -------------------------- 6.1. Using a bus to control a track ----------------------------------- The MBSEQv4 has four buses that can be used to send MIDI data to other tracks. A track sending on a bus can be used to control the behaviour of another track over the bus for effecting arpeggios and transposing notes. The controlling track is called *the sending track* (because it sends data on a bus), and the controlled track the *receiving track* (because it listens to a bus for data). First, it is possible to use the sending track's *note data* to transpose the notes of the receiving track. A receiving track in Transposer mode accepts only one note as input. You can send chord data as well – either as multiple notes or as chord parameter layer entry – but only the last note layer or chord note will be accepted. ***there's a wishlist item to make this the first note layer. Transpose is relative. This means that if the sending track is controlling two tracks over the same bus, and the first receiving track has one note in it, C-3, and the second receiving track has one note in it, E-3, changing the sending track's note from C-2 to C#2 will transpose the receiving tracks' notes half a step upwards – from C-# to C#3 on the first track, and from E-3 to D-3 on the second track. Second, it is possible to use the *chord data* of the sending track to control the arpeggios on a receiving track. The chord data can be either chord parameter layer data, or it can be data from multiple simultaneous note layers. In either case, chords of up to four notes are supported. For example, if the sending track's chord sequence is C-Am-F-G, played each quarter note (either as chord track or note track data), the arpeggio pattern on the receiving track's arpeggio patterns will always include only the notes that the current chord on the sending track contains. In other words, the arpeggio patterns are determined by the receiving track (the arpeggiator track), but the notes in the patterns are determined by the chords the sending track plays. ***what about the new chord parameter layer chords that have more than four notes in them? In all cases (transpose notes, transpose CCs***, or control arpeggios), instead of sending *track data* over a bus to control another track, you can use your *MIDI controller* over a bus to control a track in a similar manner, so that e.g. the chord you play on the keyboard will determine what the receiving track or tracks play. For this, see section 6.1.5. for details. 6.1.1. The MODE page The central settings on the MODE page of each track pertain to tracks that are to be controlled by another track (or a MIDI controller) over a bus. These are: Mode (off, Normal, Transpose, Arpeggiator), Bus (1–4), Hold, and Sort. If the track mode is Transpose or Arpeggiator, and Hold is set to 'on', the sequencer will hold the last note(s) received on a 'T&A' bus *from a MIDI controller* (see section 4.1.1. for details). In other words, Hold will have no effect if the controlling data is coming in from a track. If Hold is set to 'off' and no keys are held on the MIDI controller, the track will play nothing. (However, if the Sustain setting is 'on', it *will* hold the previously played note(s) until something else is played.) Hold works in Transpose and Arpeggiator modes, but has no effect if track mode is 'Normal'. If the track mode is Arpeggiator, and Sort is set to 'on', it will sort the played notes into ***what? ascending, descending?. The setting works only in Arpeggiator mode. If Sort is set to 'off' in Arpeggiator mode, the Arpeggiator will use the notes in the order they were played, without sorting them.*** If Sustain is set 'on', it will sustain the latest note or a chord played on the track until another one is played or the sequencer is stopped. This is useful for tracks that play long notes or chords, so that you don't have to set each note's length individually. Sustain will have effect only on tracks that are sending to a physical output port (set on the EVENT page). In other words, it will have no effect on tracks sending on a bus. If Restart is 'on', it will restart the track every time something new is played on it. This is mostly useful for tracks controlled with a MIDI controller over a T&A bus (see section 4.1.1.). In principle it works for normal tracks too, but the effect gained is better implemented with adjusting track LENGTH. ***there seems to be some false triggering going on with restart (one key press results in one or more triggerings), as well as short delays in re-starting the track On Force To Scale, see section 6.2. for details. 6.1.2. Setting up sending and receiving tracks In order to enable one track's control over another track via a bus, both the sending (controlling) track and the receiving (controlled) track need to be set up. The sending track is set up in the same way, whether it's controlling the transpose or arpeggiator pattern of another track. To set up the sending track, press MENU + EVENT. On the EVENT page, the Port option (BPK6) controls which port the track is sending its data out on. Bus1–4 are among the selectable ports. The function of each of the four buses is set on the Jam page's MIDI settings. There are two options: 'Jam' and 'T&A' (Transpose & Arpeggiator). (For details, see section 4.1.1.) If, on the controlling track's EVENT page, you choose one of the buses as the port, the track will now be sending its data to that bus instead of a physical port (such as OUT1). Note that the moment you switch the port setting to a bus on a track's EVENT page, the track will stop playing any synths directly, and can now do so only indirectly by controlling other tracks that have *their* port setting pointing to a physical port. If you want to audition what you've entered into the sending track before you have set up a receiving track, you have to adjust Port (and perhaps Chn.) settings accordingly. The receiving track has to be set to listen to a bus. This is done on the MODE page (MENU + MODE). By default each track is listening to Bus1. A track can have three modes: Normal (default), Transpose, and Arpeggiator (also, it can be set to 'off'). The mode is selected with GP buttons 2–5, and the selected mode is surrounded with >angle brackets<. The bus which this track is listening to is set with GPK8. The bus setting has no effect in Normal mode. Transpose and Arpeggiator modes work differently, so each of them will have to be dealt with in turn. 6.1.3. Receiving track mode: Transposer The sending track should send only a single note via a bus to the receiving track in Transpose mode. The receiving track's notes will gets transposed relative to the received note. This means that if the sending track is controlling two tracks over the same bus, and the first receiving track has one note in it, C-3, and the second receiving track has one note in it, E-3, changing the sending track's note from C-2 to C#2 will transpose the receiving tracks' notes half a step upwards, from C-# to C#3 on the first track, and from E-3 to D-3 on the second track. The receiving transpose track must be set to listen to the sending track's bus, and it has to have its mode changed to 'Transpose'. The track's mode is changed on the MODE page (MENU + MODE). In addition, the MIDI configuration page (available e.g. on the Jam page, GPB7) must have the bus in question set to the mode 'T&A'; naturally the other settings on the MIDI configuration page must allow the incoming messages through (for details see section 4.1.1.). If there's no data on the sending track, the receiving Transpose track will simply play its contents as they are. If there are (subsequent, not simultaneous) notes on the sending track, they will control the receiving track's transpose. If the sending track's notes are erased after some playback, the receiving track will remember the note it received last, and will be controlled by the last played note until a new note is played. In a case like this you can revert back to the receiving track's own data on the Jam page's MIDI configuration settings: press 'Reset Stacks' to reset all note stacks. See also the MODE page option Hold in section 6.1.1. 6.1.4. Receiving track mode: Arpeggiator Unlike transposer tracks, an arpeggiator track accepts chord data, though also single notes will work in principle. Chords of up to four notes can be sent, either as chord parameter layer data or as simulatenous note layer data. ***what about the new 4+ chord parameter layer entries? The receiving arpeggiator track must be set to listen to the sending track's bus, and it has to have its mode changed to 'Arpeggiator'. The track's mode is changed on the MODE page (MENU + MODE). In addition, the MIDI configuration page (available e.g. on the Jam page, GPB7) must have the bus in question set to the mode 'T&A'; naturally the other settings on the MIDI configuration page must allow the incoming messages through (for details see section 4.1.1.). Selecting the Arpeggiator mode changes the EDIT page layout. Each note layer now follows a notation of two numbers with a minus or plus between them. The first number refers to the ordinal*** number of the notes of the sending track's chords, and the second number refers to the octave the note is to be played in. The minus or plus in between denotes whether the given number of octaves that much is up or down. For example, if the controlling track is currently playing the chord Am with the notes A-2, C-3 and E-3 in it, occupying first, second and third note layers, and if the note entry for a step in the (receiving) Arpeggiator track is "2+1", it means this step will play the note in the *second* note layer of the sending track's currently playing chord – C-3 – transposed up by one octave, so the final note played by the Arpeggiator track for this step is C-4. You can have as many simultaneous notes (chords) on the controlling track, but in practice only four simultaneous notes is useful, because the arpeggiator track will allow you to refer to only the first four note layers. In addition to multiple simultaneous note layers to play chords on the sending track, you can also use a chord parameter layer to send note data to the receiving track. See also the options Hold and Sort in section 6.1.1. 6.1.5. Using a MIDI controller to control track transpose or arpeggio In addition to controlling a track's transpose or arpeggio over a bus with another track, you can control a track's transpose or arpeggio with a MIDI controller over a bus. On the MIDI configuration page (see section 4.1.1.), you need to set up a T&A bus to let through the messages you send on your MIDI controller, and then set the receiving track to listen to the bus your MIDI controller is sending data on. Make sure that no track is sending data on the same bus (check the port setting on each track's EVENT page). It will work in principle, but will likely lead to confusion. For a transpose or arpeggiator track, you can use the Hold option on the MODE page to control whether the track will remember the last note you played on the MIDI controller (set Hold 'on'), or whether the track will only play something when you press a key (set Hold to 'off'). The Hold setting has no effect except in Transpose and Arpeggiator modes. For an arpeggiator track, you can use the Sort option on the MODE page to sort the notes you play into ***what. The Sort option has no effect except in Arpeggiator mode. 6.1.6. Sending CCs over a bus to control track settings It is possible to send CC data over a bus to change a track's settings. There's three settings you need to make on the sending track. First, on the sending track's EVENT page, select a CC parameter layer. Second, set the track's Port to send over a bus. You can select any bus, Jam or T&A, it makes no difference. Once the Port setting is set to a bus, the CC layer options on the right LCD change to loopback CC control options. For example, CC049 now allows you to control another track's octave transpose. The final setting you need to make is use the *sending track's* Chn. setting (on the EVENT page) to determine which track you want to control with the CCs. (Normally the Chn. setting has no effect if Port is set to a bus.) However, in this case the Chn. setting doesn't denote MIDI channel, but *track number*. For example, if you want to control track G1T1, which is playing a synthesizer on MIDI channel 5, you set Chn. to '1' (not '5') on the sending track's EVENT page. It is important to note that sending CCs over a bus to control another track *doesn't require any setup on the receiving track*. All the settings are done on the sending track's EVENT page. The full list of MBSEQv4 CC implementation is available in Appendix 4. 6.2. Force To Scale ------------------- By default the sequencer plays a 12-notes-per-octave chromatic scale. If you want that all the notes in a track are in a certain key, you can force them to a chosen scale. This is useful e.g. in combination with randomly generated notes (see section 6.3.), which would be all over the place without Force To Scale. Force To Scale has relevant settings on two pages: FX (MENU + FX) and Mode (MENU + MODE). Each individual track has the option of being Forced To Scale. The setting for this is on each track's MODE page. Force to Scale can be either 'off' (default) or 'on'. Force To Scale can be turned 'on' and 'off' also on the Jam page's 'Misc' settings section, where it's abbreviated as FTS. ***the misc page setting has no effect! The scale that each track can individually be forced to is set on the FX page (MENU + FX -> GPB10 for 'Scale'). On the Scale page GPK4–8 can be used to choose one of the 166 predefined scales; the notes in the scale are displayed in the right LCD. ***i dont' really understand the 'Control' and 'Root' settings! 6.3. Random generator --------------------- Random generator allows you to randomise the data of parameter or trigger layers (and for drum tracks, drum instrument layers). The randomiser menu is found in the main menu, with UTILITY + GPB7 (Rand), or with EDIT + GP13–14. On the randomiser page you can use GPK9 to scroll through the available layers in the active track. LayA, LayB etc. denote parameter layers, and TrgA, Trg B etc. denote trigger layers. If the active track is a Drum type track, drum instrument names are available instead. Because the layers are called just LayA, TrgB etc., you have to remember yourself which functions you have assigned for each layer. If you have more than four parameter layers available (depends on track initialisation), you can check the layer assignments quickly by pressing parameter layer selection button C. Likewise, trigger layer assignments can be checked by pressing trigger layer selection button C. Parameter layers are randomised by setting the intensity of the randomisation. Randomisation starts from value 64, and the randomisation setting allows you to determine how much the random values will deviate from 64. For example, if you enter an intensity value of 5, the randomised value will be 64 +/- 5, in other words, a randomly picked value between 59 and 69. A value of "--" will mean the randomiser will not change the values in that parameter layer. For trigger layers, the randomiser value denotes the likelihood of the trigger getting turned 'on'; the higher the number, the more likely it is that the trigger in each step will be 'on'. For example, if you choose TrgA (Gate by default) for randomisation, a value of 1 will result in only a few steps having their gates turned 'on', while a value of 14 will result in almost all steps having their gates switched 'on'. By selecting 'All' you can have the randomisation occur for all steps. A value of "---" means randomiser will not change the values in that trigger layer. Randomising drum instrument layers works the same way as randomising trigger layers. You can randomise any number of a track's parameter and trigger layers simultaneously by assigning values to all the layers you want to randomise. When you have selected the ones you want to randomise, press GP2–3 to effect the randomisation. If you are unhappy with the result, you can undo it with GPB8 ('Undo'). GPB7 ('Util') takes you back to the UTILITY page, and GPB6 ('Clr.') will clear the whole track (which can be undone as well with 'Undo'). Note, Velocity and CC parameter layers, and Gate, Accent and Roll trigger layers are obvious targets for randomisation, but in principle randomiser will work with any type of layer that's available. The Force To Scale option on the MODE page is particularly useful for randomised note layers. For details on Force To Scale, see section 6.2. ***request: is it possible to have Step Selection settings affect the randomiser, so that the randomiser will change only those layers that have been selected with the Step Selection function? This way you could set e.g. TrgA (Gate) randomisation to 'All', and still have only e.g. each quarter note randomised. 6.4. Euclidean rhythm generator ------------------------------- The Euclidean rhythm generator (ERG) allows you to create rhythms very easily, and change them afterwards with normal track editing. Changing the settings on the ERG page changes the contents of the track immediately, so be careful not to lose anything you want to keep. The ERG works best for Drum type tracks, but in principle it can be used for Note type tracks as well. It can be found in the main menu, or with EDIT + GPB13–14. 6.4.1. Euclidean rhythm generator for Drum type tracks On the ERG page, track length can be changed within the maximum length (this is the same setting as on the LENGTH page, and the value will be copied between pages). On the right LCD, there's another length setting, which sets the length of the *loop* (GPK9). Along with the loop length setting, there's 'Pulses', which will place the set number of pulses (or gates) over the length of the loop (repeating the pattern over the whole track). For example, if the loop length is 16 steps and the number of pulses is 4, a pulse will be placed each four steps. In principle, any number of pulses will be divided over the given loop length, though in practice a large number of pulses will quickly become impossible to place, if the loop is too short. Normally each series of pulses starts in the first step of the track, but this can be changed with 'Offset' (GPK11). 'Offset' setting simply inserts that many empty steps in the beginning of the track before the first pulse. If the loop is shorter than the set track length, the loop will be written onto the track as many times the track length allows. For example, if track length is 16 steps and loop length 13 steps, the loop's 13 steps fit once into the 16 steps of the track; then 3 more steps fit, but then the track length runs out. The resulting pattern of 16 steps will be written on the track *over it's whole lenght*, not just the set length. Thus, a track of 16/64 will be written four times with the same 13+3 pattern. If the loop is longer than the set track length, only what fits into the track length will get repeated. For example if track length is 16 steps and loop length is 20 steps, only the first 16 steps of the loop will be repeated. If the track is 16/64, this truncated 16-step pattern will be written on the track four times. Offhand it might not make sense to use loops longer than the set track length. However, because the pulses are divided as evenly as possible over the loop length, whether it's longer or shorter than the set track length, you can effect rhythm patterns with loops longer than the track that are not possible is the loop is shorter than, or equally long as, the track. Note that when you change 'Len', 'Pulses' or 'Offset' settings, the ERG will immediately write the loop repeatedly *over the whole track*, not just over the set length of it, overwriting anything that was there previously. On the left LCD, you can change the drum instrument layer to be edited by ERG with GPK4. Also the note that the instrument layer is playing can be changed. With GPK6–7 you can change the Normal (VelN) and Accent (VelA) velocities. (The mentioned settings are the same as on the EVENT page, and the values will be copied between pages.) The velocity values for each pulse can be randomised with GPK8. Turning GPK8 will simultaneously set the likelihood of a pulse getting an accent, as well as effect the randomisation. 6.4.2. Euclidean rhythm generator for Note type tracks It is possible to use the ERG with a Note type track as well. However, even with the Note type tracks, the ERG is still essentially a rhythm creating aid. The ERG will leave the Note layer values untouched, but will switch the gates 'on' and 'off' based on the loop length, pulse and offset settings you make. For track length, normal/accent velocity settings and their randomisation (VelN, VelA and RndA), loop length, pulses and offset settings, see section 6.4.1. for the details. The main difference to Drum type tracks is that you can change the Note type track's parameter layer values. The exception is that the the first parameter layer contents cannot be edited (the entry says 'Orig'), whether it is a note layer or something else. Also it is important to note that changing the content of a parameter layer on the ERG page *affects all the pulsed steps*. Thus, changing the velocity value will change the velocity values of all those steps which are "pulsed", i.e. where the ERG has set the gate 'on'. One useful way to use the ERG with Note type tracks is creating a rhythmic pattern on the ERG, then leaving the page and changing the notes to something more tonal than what the ERG is capable of. 6.5. Mixer maps --------------- The mixer maps on the MIXER page (MENU + MIXER) allow you to send Program Change and Control Change messages to your MIDI equipment. Each session has a maximum of 127 mixer maps, which can be named and customised, and each mixer map has 12 pages, one page for each kind of setting. The pages can be changed with the datawheel, or the up and down buttons on the frontpanel. The ALL and FAST buttons work on the MIXER page. (For details, see section 4.2.3.) Each mixer map page has 16 different slots for customised commands that can be sent simultaneously. The first two pages of a mixer map define, first, the *output port* on which the message for each of the 16 slots is sent, and second, the *MIDI channel* on which the message for each slot is sent. The default value for Port is 'Def.', i.e. the setting is taken from the MIDI Router page (see section 2.1.2. or Appendix 3). The default MIDI channel is '# 1' for the first slot, '# 2' for the second, and so on. The Port and MIDI channel are the foundational settings for each mixer map slot, without which the messages won't be sent to the right place; the don't send any command by themselves, they just set the conduit for the commands from the other pages. For example, if you've set track G1T1 to play a synthesizer connected to OUTPUT1 on MIDI channel 5 (settings made on the track's EVENT page), you should set one of the slots on the mixer map page to that port and that MIDI channel to send a message from the mixer map to that synthesizer. While you're on the MIXER page, the port and channel for the slot in the current cursor position will always be visible in the upper right corner of the right LCD. Port and MIDI channel are the foundational settings of a mixer map, without which none of the actual messages will get delivered to the right address. Port is set on mixer page 1, and MIDI channel on mixer page 2. Once Port and MIDI channel are in order, the actual messages that you can send are: Page 3: Program Change Page 4: Volume Page 5: Panorama ("Pan") Page 6: Reverb Page 7: Chorus Page 8: Modulation wheel Page 9: Freely assignable CC (CC1) Page 10: Freely assignable CC (CC2) Page 11: Freely assignable CC (CC3) Page 12: Freely assignable CC (CC4) ***image here ***are the freely assignable CCs the standard MIDI CCs? While on the MIXER place, pressing & holding SELECT brings up a utility menu. GPB2 and GPB4 ('Copy', 'Clr') copy and clear the current mixer map, and GPB3 ('Paste') pastes a previously copied mixer map into the current one. GPB7 saves the current mixer map, and and GPB6 allows you to load a previously saved map. GPK1 switches between the 127 possible mixer maps in the session. Switching away from the current map will erase any unsaved changes. GPB16 allows you to name the current mixer map. There are four ways to send mixer map commands to their destinations. The easiest way is to press a GPB button under an entry that has some value other than '---' in it. Pressing the GP button will simply send the command in the slot once. This is useful e.g. for sending one-off commands like Program Change. The second option is available in the utility menu: 'Dump' (GPB8) will send all the commands in the 16 slots of all 10 command pages to the ports and MIDI channels set for each slot. The third option can be enabled in the mixer utility menu (press & hold SELECT): LiveSend can be set 'on' or 'off'. If LiveSend is 'on', the values in the slots of all pages in the current mixer map will be active all the time, and all changes will be updated immediately. For example, mixer page 4 (Volume) could be used as a centralised volume control for all your MIDI equipment. The fourth way to send mixer map values is on the SONG page, as a song position action ('Mixer -> Map #').

On the guide track and non-default divider settings, I'm not sure if this is the way it should work, but anyway, this is how it does work. I now tested the guide track function with two tracks (G1T1 & G1T2) in song mode with only one pattern. Song structure: Pos A1: Play pattern 1:A1 once Pos A2: Jump to Pos. A1 Tracks: G1T1, length: 8 steps. |------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------| G1T2, length: 16 steps. |------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------||------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------| (Guide Track) If divider values for both tracks are 16 (the default value) and G1T2 is the guide track, everything works ok. G1T2 plays once, while G1T1 plays twice. However, if I change G1T2's divider value to 32 (twice as slow as before) and it's still the guide track, my intuition says G1T1 should now play four times while G1T2 plays once. In phrase mode this is indeed what happens. But in song mode its different. Instead G1T1 plays twice, while G1T2 plays only half of its length before switching to the next song position.

I decided to give the MIDI Configuration settings their own section. -------8<------- 4.1.1. MIDI configuration The MIDI Configuration page is available from the main menu, or with MENU + MIDI -> GPB1–2 ('Transposer and Arp.'). However, you can access it also on the Jam page by pressing GPB7 ('MIDI'). On the MIDI configuration page, GPK9 allows you to select one of the four buses for editing. A bus is a virtual port, which allows you to route data inside the sequencer, instead of routing it directly to a physical output port. *One bus has to be set to 'Jam' (GPB14) for recording and note forwarding to work!* In a new session, Bus1 is set as the 'Jam' bus by default, and it is set to accept incoming data from all input ports, on all MIDI channels and across the whole keyboard. The bus that is set to the 'Jam' function will receive all incoming data and forward it to the active track's output port and MIDI channel, regardless of the track's bus settings (on the MODE page); in other words, the 'Jam' function doesn't require that the active track is set to listen to the 'Jam' bus. There are two qualifications: the MIDI Configuration page's Port, Chn. and Upper/Lower settings for the 'Jam' bus must allow the incoming data through, and if they do, note forwarding on the 'Jam' page must be set to 'on'. (On note forwarding, see the next section, 4.1.2.) It is likely that you want to be able to play and record on every MIDI channel and via every physical input port. To effect this, set Port and Chn. to 'All' on the MIDI Configuration page. In addition, set the Lower/Upper settings to "---" and "G-8", respectively. This permits data from all input ports and MIDI channels across the whole keyboard to go through to the active track, and from there, if Fwd is 'on' on the Jam page, on to the active track's output port and MIDI channel. If Fwd is 'off', the active track will receive the data, e.g. for recording purposes, but Fwd needs to be 'on' if you want to hear what you play (whether you're recording or not). ***a block chart on the whole affair Example: If your MIDI controller is connected to MIDI IN1 and sending data on channel 1, if the MIDI Configuration page's Port, Chn. and Lower/Upper settings allow this data through, and if Fwd is 'on', it doesn't matter which MIDI channel the active track is forwarding the data out on. If your controller is sending on channel 1, but the active track's MIDI output channel is 6 (set on the EVENT page), effectively you're playing your controller on channel 1 to control a synth that is listening to MIDI channel 6. Of course, the Port, Chn. and Lower/Upper settings on the MIDI Configuration page allow you to limit these options, if you find it convenient. If you set the Chn. setting of a bus to "---", nothing will ever be sent on that bus, and in practice the bus is disabled. Also, even if you enable data to pass through on each channel and each port, you can limit the accepted keyboard range with the Lower/Upper settings (GPK12–13). These limitations apply to recording and note forwarding as well as the transposer and arpeggiator functions. The alternative bus function to 'Jam' is 'T&A', which means 'Transpose & Arpeggiator'. See section 6.1. for details on how to use buses 2–4 for Transposer and Arpeggiator functions. The final option on the MIDI Configuration page is 'Reset Stacks'. This is useful only for special situations, where e.g. a MIDI controller has become detached from the MBSEQv4 while some notes were still active (for example, you might have tripped over your own cables while perfoming live!); because of the sudden detachment, the sequencer might never receive a Note off event, and as a result some notes might be left hanging. 'Reset stacks' clears all note stacks.

@EsotericLabs Thanks for testing & feedback! I'll write something about it and put it in section 4.1. Notes/questions for TK concerning parameter layer PrgCh (Program Change): The PrgCh layer is not listed/documented in the official manual's parameter layer list (Track Event Configuration) Does it send a PC message in every step? Is there a risk of conflict if Track Instrument page sends a PC command at the start of the track, and the PrgCh layer sends another PC command at the first step? Should this be documented, "don't use them simultaneously", or is there a programmed hierarchy, "if A is set, B has no effect" or something like that?

The next part. The relevant section of the table of contents: 5. Working with patterns and songs 5.1. Saving a pattern 5.2. Phrase Mode and Song Mode 5.2.1. PATTERN page 5.2.2. Chaining patterns into a song 5.3. Copying Patterns 5.4. Measure 5.4.1. Sync to Measure in phrase mode 5.4.2. Sync to Measure in song mode 5.5. Guide Track 5.6. Track selection, Solo and Mute Notes/questions: This section has some pretty complex stuff in it, like measure, sync to measure and guide track settings, so there might be a few boo-boos there. Let the reader beware :-) In this part of the manual I've decided to separate the concepts of groups and (pattern) banks; earlier I just talked about groups and didn't mention banks at all. The difference is not big, but it's there and I think I'll revise the earlier parts as well for this terminology, and write some more on banks in the basic concepts section of the first part. There's a song position command from the official manual: "Stop. Stops the sequencer". However, there is no such option in the sequencer. In it's place there is "End", which loops the previous song position that played patterns, until the sequencer is stopped manually. A 'stop' comman that would stop the sequencer would be handy as well. I write: "In sheet music, a measure (or bar) is a delimited sequence with a defined length in beats." If someone has a better definition, I'm happy to hear it :-) Sync'ing mutes/unmutes to measure (in the options menu): In song mode with Guide Track active, the measure countdown on the mute page for sync'd mutes/unmutes doesn't show the "right" numbers: if the guiding track is 16 steps long, and measure is set to e.g. 6 steps, the measure countdown will keep counting multiples of 6 until the guide track ends. This is not useful information, but probably in song mode it doesn't matter, because the idea of the song mode is to program most things predictably anyway, so it doesn't matter what the coundown shows. Just thought I'll mention this, I'm not suggesting anything should be done about it. (I've documented it as it is now.) On the MUTE page and the special function of the ALL button: is there a difference between "muting a track" and "muting a track's layers"? There is an option "mute all tracks and all layers", is it different from just "muting all tracks"? An idea for the metronome: now the metronome sounds only when the sequencer is running. However, it would be handy if the metronome could be used for recording count-in, to prepare for the tempo of the recorded track. At the moment the metronome is bound to measure, I don't know but from a humble Arduino-programmer Froschperspektive ;-) an easy way to implement the count-in could be to have a fixed count-in of one measure (or perhaps a multiple of the set measure) if certain conditions are met; e.g. if (metronome == on) && (count-in == on) -> pressing PLAY (or the 5th tap tempo press) will start one measure (or user-set multiple of measure) count-in, and the seq proper starts only after that. Count-in on/off option could perhaps go on the Jam page Live recording settings, after Quantize, and any possible multiple-measure-count-in setting on metronome page (it probably doesn't need changing that often). Setting the count-in 'on' could also just automatically set the metronome 'on' as well. Any thoughts..? is there a button & LED for the Jam page Rec on/off? If not, could there be? -----------------------------8<------------------------------------- ---------------------------------- 5. Working with patterns and songs ---------------------------------- 5.1. Saving a pattern --------------------- When working with several patterns and in song mode, it is important to save often so as not to lose by accident the changes you've made to the parameter and trigger layers and other settings of the four tracks in a pattern. MBSEQv4 will not save anything automatically (every five minutes or whatever), but instead you have to *choose* to save the changes yourself. The primary way in which you'll lose your changes is bound up with *switching patterns*. Switching from an active pattern without saving it first will mean losing the changes you made to it since the last save. When you switch to another pattern *within a group* – from 1:A1 to 1:A2, for example – you will lose the changes made to the track you are switching from – e.g. 1:A1 – unless you explicitly save them first. The unsaved changes in the active patterns of the *other groups* won't be affected (they're not being switched, after all). However, starting the sequencer in song mode – either by pressing PLAY or automatically with the Jam page function AStart – will erase the unsaved changes in the active patterns of *all* groups. But once the sequencer is running in song mode, you can make changes to a pattern and not lose them, on the condition that the pattern in question doesn't get switched to another one during the song. If it does get switched, that is the moment you'll lose your changes. You can choose to save only one pattern, or to save all active patterns. A single pattern can be saved with MENU + SAVE (GPB14). The source pattern to be saved is always one of the four active patterns (each group has one active pattern). With GPK1–4 you can choose the source group, the active pattern of which you want to save, and with GPK6 you can choose the target bank to save the pattern into. Finally, with GPK7 you can choose which location within the selected bank the pattern is to be saved into. There are 64 locations per bank to choose from (from A1–A8 to H1–H8). In the right LCD you can see which locations are free and which ones already have saved content in them. If the location is free, the entry for the location is "----- <empty>". If something has already been saved in the location, even if you haven't given the previously saved pattern a name (like with the 'Save All' function, see below), the entry for the location is "----- Unnamed". When saving individual patterns with MENU + SAVE, you get a chance to give the pattern a category and a label. The label could be named for the pattern's function in the song structure ("Intro", "Bridge", "VerseVariat-3" etc.) and the category could be e.g. the synth you're playing the pattern with, or the synth patch, or whatever helps you memorise the function of the pattern. If you want to save all active patterns patterns at once, press EXIT until you arrive on the main page, and then press GPB10 for 'Save'. This saves all the active patterns (and in fact the whole session). This way you won't get to give any categories or labels to the patterns, but instead they will be saved as "----- Unnamed", or under the name you have given them when saving them individually earlier. You can also assign one of the F1–F4 buttons (right side of the frontpanel) to for a quick 'Save All' function (see Appendix 1). 5.2. Phrase Mode and Song Mode ------------------------------ In phrase mode you can build up to four active patterns (one in each group) and keep editing and testing them, alternating between manually starting and stopping the sequencer until you're happy with the result. In phrase mode the sequencer will keep playing the four active patterns over and over, and any pattern switch must be done manually on the PATTERN page. This also means that unless you actively, on your own initiative, switch to another pattern, starting the sequencer in phrase mode will *not* erase the changes you've made since the last save. The phrase mode is suitable for a complete performance as well. If you have your patterns ready and saved, you can start the sequencer in phrase mode with four initial patterns, and then change the patterns live on the PATTERN page or the SONG page (even though you're not in song mode). Pattern changes like this can be instantaneous or timed, so that pattern change will be considered only at those times when the set number of steps has been played (e.g. every 8th step, or every 16th step). This is controlled with the Option page (UTILITY -> Opt.) settings #2 and #3 ('Pattern Change Synchronisation'). Option #2 sets the number of steps that have to play before a pattern change is considered, and option #3 enables/disables option #2. Example: You have pattern 1:A1 whose tracks are 16 steps long, and you set option #2 to 8 steps. If you press PLAY (in phrase mode) and don't do anything, the pattern will play 16 steps over and over (because that's the length of the tracks). If you turn a knob on the PATTERN page or SONG page to switch to pattern 1:A2 when the sequencer is running at step 3, the sequencer will play 5 more steps before it switches to 1:A2, because 3 + 5 = 8, and you've set the sequencer to allow pattern change only after every 8 steps. If you switch to 1:A2 when the sequencer is running at step 12, the sequencer will play four more steps before switching to 1:A2. If you set the number high (e.g. to 64), you can give yourself plenty of time to scroll through the patterns you have available before the switch actually takes place. In song mode you can chain the patterns you've made into a predetermined sequence of four parallel patterns. In addition to just putting the bundles of four patterns one after the other, you can also use song position operations to effect loops, mutes, tempo changes etc. (For details see section 5.2.2.) In song mode you must remember to save the pattern(s) before starting the sequencer, if you don't want to risk losing the changes you've made, because in song mode starting the sequencer *will* erase the changes made since the last save. You can check whether you're in Song or Phrase mode by pressing SONG. On the right LCD (top row) you can see either "Phrase Mode" or "Song Mode". The mode can be changed with GPK13–14. You can also press & hold the SONG button, which will bring up the song page utility menu. While you keep pressing the SONG button, you can alternate between song and phrase modes by pressing GPB9–10. In addition to the information of the LCD, the LED above the SONG button indicates the mode, no matter which page you're in: if it's lit, it's song mode, and if it's unlit, it's phrase mode. When you're on the SONG page, the LED above the SONG button will flicker if you're in Phrase mode, and it will be solid when you're in Song mode. 5.2.1. PATTERN page Patterns can be selected on the PATTERN page, e.g. for editing and playing in phrase mode. On the page you can see the four groups, each of which has one active pattern in it, and a small velocity bar for each track. The pattern categories and labels will also be displayed on this page, whether you've explicitly named them or not (in which case you'll see "NoCat" and "Unnamed"). The first thing to pay attention to is what has already been mentioned several times: don't change patterns unless you have saved the active one in the group where you're about to switch to another pattern, unless you don't mind that the changes in the active pattern since the last save are lost! There's two ways to select a pattern when you're on the PATTERN page. If you want to change the pattern bank, in all cases you have to use the GP knobs 3, 7, 11, and 15 to do it. For selecting individual patterns in the banks, there are two ways. Either you can use the GP knobs 4, 8, 12, and 16 to select a pattern within the selected bank, or you can use the GP buttons 1–8 to choose the pattern section A–H and finally the GP buttons 9–16 to choose the actual pattern 1–8 within the sections A–H. Also, on the PATTERN page the group and track selection buttons (on the upper left of the frontpanel) have a special function: you can use them so select the group where you want to change a pattern. Group/track selection button 1 selects the first group, button 2 the second group etc. For a fully equipped frontpanel, this is probably not necessary though, because you can just turn a GP knob to select a pattern within any group, without need to use the group/track selection buttons to select a group for switching first. 5.2.2. Chaining patterns into a song Patterns can be chained into songs on the SONG page. One session can have a maximum of 256 patterns (64 patterns per bank), which can be combined into a maximum of 64 songs. Four patterns are playing in parallel. If you don't want to play anything in one or more groups, have them play an empty pattern (like H8 or other "far-away" pattern), or use a song operation to mute them. Patterns are organised into a song by means of song positions. There is a maximum of 128 song positions (A1-P8) per song. They can be selected with either just GPK2, or, if your song is very long and/or has many song operations, you can quick-select the letter A-P with the GP buttons and only the number with GPK2. Each song position is either a command to play a pattern or perform an operation. A very simple song could be: Pos Actn G1 G2 G3 G4 A1 Mutes o*** oooo oooo oooo A2 x2 1:A1 -:-- -:-- 4:A1 A3 Mutes ooo* oooo oooo oooo A4 x1 1:A2 -:-- -:-- -:-- A5 x1 1:A3 -:-- 3:A1 4:A2 A6 Jump -> Pos. A1 This song starts by muting G1's tracks 2–4. (o=play, *=mute) in song position A1. Then the actual music begins in position A2 by playing patterns 1:A1 and 4:A1, and they will play twice (because Action is set to x2). When a group has -:--, it means "repeat here whatever was done in the previous song position". However, even though the previous position for G2 and G3 set muting to "play all tracks", there hasn't been a pattern playing in this group previously, so muting or unmuting has no practical effect, hence nothing will be played in groups 2 and 3. After the patterns in position A2 have played for the second time, the song will proceed to the next song position, A3, where there is an operation: some more tracks from G1 are unmuted. In the next position, A4, it's back to playing patterns again: the pattern in G1 is switched to 1:A2. Group 4 now has -:--, but because the previous song position was "play all tracks in this group" and there is a previous song position where 4:A1 was played, 4:A1 will get played here too. Action for position A4 is set to x1 ("play once"), so after the patterns finish, the song proceeds to the next song position. In position A5 group 1 switches to a new pattern (1:A3), as does group 4 (4:A2). Also, now group 3 starts playing a pattern, 3:A1. After they have played once, the song proceeds to the next song position, A6. There is an operation there, which causes the song to jump immediately to song position A1, i.e. the beginning of the song. Everything will go as before, but this time group 3 will be playing 3:A1 all the way from the beginning. This is because now there is a "previous song position" for the -:-- in G3 in song position A1, namely position A5 from the first iteration, where G3 was playing 3:A1. Besides commands to play patterns, possible song operations are: – End. Loops the previously played song position with patterns in it until the sequencer is stopped manually. – Stop. Stops the sequencer.***there is no such option, even though it's mentioned in the official manual. would be handy though – x1–x16. plays the current song position 1–16 times before proceeding to the next song position. – Jump Pos. Jump to the specified song position. – Jump Song. Jump to the beginning of the specified song. – Mixer. Dump the specified mixer map. (For details on mixer maps, see section 6.5.) – Tempo. Change to the specified tempo (BPM), and make it gradually during the given time (Ramp). Ramp of zero seconds means immediate change to the new tempo. – Mutes. Mute/unmute the specified tracks (scroll for all the possible combinations). o signifies an unmuted track, * signifies a muted track. – G.T. Set a track as Guide Track (for details of Guide Track, see section 5.5.). – UnMte. Unmute all tracks and layers. On the SONG page you can see just the numerical names of the patterns, and when your song has several patterns, it can be difficult to remember which pattern is which; was 1:A5 my second verse variation pattern, or was it 1:A8? Here it's helpful to use the PATTERN page to build the song positions. On the PATTERN page you can select the four patterns that you need and see their names while you do the selection. (Naturally this requires that you've given your patterns a category and a label when you've saved them individually earlier.) After selecting the desired pattern for each group, you can press & hold SONG to select 'Take Over Patterns' with GPB13–14. This will copy the four selected patterns into the current song position on the SONG page, *overwriting what was previously in that position*. 'Save & Take over Patterns' does the same, but saves the patterns as well. Note once again that changing patterns on the PATTERN page will erase any unsaved changes! Pressing & holding the SONG button on the SONG page shows a utility menu in the left LCD with commands to edit song positions: you can copy, paste, clear, and delete a position, or insert a new one *before* the current position. If you're in Song mode, pressing & holding the SONG button shows an extra entry on the right display: Guide Track. (See section 5.5.) Example: Let's choose group 1 and pattern A2 (1:A2) to be edited. (For the purposes of this tutorial you can ignore groups 2–4 and their patterns.) Example: Make the same settings for tracks G1T1 and G1T2 as with pattern 1:A1, i.e. set G1T1 length to 16 and G1T2 to 8 steps, and define Port and MIDI channel(s) accordingly. (Or you can save pattern 1:A1 to 1:A2 with MENU + SAVE.) Use the GP buttons to punch in some notes and adjust them with the GP knobs below so that the resulting pattern is clearly distinguishable from that of 1:A1. Then save it, and give it a category and label (how about "Lead" and "Second"). Now the two saved patterns are ready to be chained into a song. Press SONG and turn GPK9–10 to switch from Pattern Mode to Song Mode. In the left LCD you can select a song position from A1–A8 to P1–P8 with GPK2. You can have 64 songs stored within one session, selectable with GPK1, but for our modest purposes Song 1 will do just fine, and what we're really interested in is GPK3. With GPK3 you can assign the actions performed within the song you're selected with GPK1. What we want to do is play the pattern 1:A1 first two times, and then play 1:A2 once, and then start from the beginning. To achieve this, select song position A1. By default the action (Actn on the display) is "End". Turn the knob to change that to "x2" (for "play two times") and edit the resulting group table so that under the entry G1 (for Group 1) we have 1:A1; the rest of the groups can stay -:--, which means "no change from the previous song position" (so if the previous song position was playing pattern 1:A1, and the current song position has -:--, it will play 1:A1 there as well). Then select song position A2, which again by default says "End", select "x1" as the action (for "play once"), and finally for song position A3, select "Jump -> Pos. A1" (for "after the end of the previous pattern, jump to song position A1, i.e. the beginning"). You can change the position number to be jumped to with GPK5. 5.3. Copying Patterns --------------------- When working with multiple patterns and possibly complex song structures, it's often useful to to be able to copy a pattern into another pattern slot for tweaking, either slightly or by changing one or two tracks in the pattern completely. You can do it the way that was already described in section 4.2.1., but there's another way. Press UTILITY -> Disk to enter the import/export page, and then press GPK1–2 to select either 'Import' or 'Export' under the 'Sessions' title. On the Session import or export page you can copy patterns, songs, mixer maps, grooves, track configurations and bookmarks from one session to another, or within the same session. (Scroll through the 'Type' options with GPK9–10.) Exporting means copying something *from the current session* to somewhere else, and importing means copying something *to the current session* from somewhere else. However, if you just want to copy something *within the same session* (such as patterns), it's irrelevant whether you use exporting or importing to do it; the one end of either is the current session, and if you set the other end (source or destination session) to be the current session as well, they will lead to the same outcome. In other words, if you want to use import or export to copy a pattern *within the same session*, you always select the current session on the left LCD. Use the knobs below the left LCD to scroll through the saved sessions and the GP buttons to choose the source/destination session. If you don't know your current session, press EXIT until you reach the main page. The current session's name is displayed in the right LCD, top row. In addition to session selection, you need to determine the source pattern in the source session and destination pattern in the target session, whether the source/target session is the current session or not. First make sure that the Type to be copied is 'Patterns', then use GPK11 to select the first pattern to be copied, and GPK12 to select the last one to be copied ­­– this means you can copy several subsequent patterns in one go. Then turn GPK13–14 to select where you want to copy the selected patterns to. If you selected several patterns to be copied, the destination setting changes automatically to cover equal number of pattern slots. Confirm your selection with GPB15 (IMPORT or EXPORT). If you have an idea for a song which has a recurring pattern structure and settings, you can copy the first "seed pattern" with the right settings into several other pattern slots (which otherwise would have the sequencer's default settings) like this: first, copy x:A1–x:A1 to x:A2–x:A2. Then copy x:A1-x:A2 to x:A3–x:A4, then x:A1–x:A4 to x:A5–x:A8, and so on. 5.4. Measure ----------- In sheet music, a measure (or bar) is a delimited sequence with a defined length in beats.***is this an ok definition?? A common measure is 4/4, which means its length is four quarter notes (which is as long as eight 8th notes, or sixteen 16th notes). On MBSEQv4 the length of measure is set in the Options menu (UTILITY -> Opt., Option #1, 'Steps per Measure'). The length of measure is 16 by default. Measure length is given in 16th notes, so the default length is sixteen 16th notes (i.e. the same as four quarter notes etc.), and that is probably what you want most of the time for no-nonsense rhythm music. Measure is relative to the tempo (BPM), and they are always in sync, no matter what the divider settings etc. of individual tracks are. The bind between measure length and tempo is reflected in the pulse of the LED above the datawheel. With measure set to 16, the LED flashes every quarter note, but if you set measure to 17, the LED will flash every quarter note *and* every time the measure starts a new countdown from 1. The measure setting affects three things: 1. How the metronome sounds. (Metronome can be found in the main page menu.) The metronome settings allow you to set a distinctive sound for the first beat of each measure as opposed to the the other beats; 2. The song position displayed on the SONG page (left LCD, top row). However, this is overridden by the Guide Track function in song mode (see sections 5.4.2. and 5.5.); and, most importantly, 3. The Sync to Measure function, which can be set on or off for each track on the DIVIDER page (default: off). Whether or not any track is sync'd to measure, every time you start the sequencer, the seq will start keeping track of the measure count. If the length of measure is set to 16 steps (UTILITY -> Opt., Option #1), the sequencer will start counting from 1 to 16, and after reaching the end of the 16th step, it will be *reset*, i.e. started from 1 again. It's like you yourself might be counting quarter notes: one two three four, one two three four, etc. in a steady rhythm, with the difference that measure is counting 16th notes. This recurring count continues until the sequencer is stopped. Sync'ing a track to measure means that the track's restarting will be bound to the restarting of the measure count: when the measure has counted its last step, it will be reset to the beginning, and any track that is sync'd to measure, will be reset as well, i.e. started from the beginning. 5.4.1. Sync to Measure in phrase mode By default the tracks are not sync'd to measure, so the setting has to be enabled separately for each track on the DIVIDER page (GPK5–7 for 'yes' or 'no'). If no track is sync'd to measure, they all will run independently of each other, and are relative only to the tempo setting. Fiddling with the divider/timebase settings on the DIVIDER page can bring the independent tracks completely out of sync with each other. Sometimes that's just what you want, but if you have a number of tracks that are out of sync and you want them sync'd, this can be done with setting 'Sync to Measure' to 'yes' on the DIVIDER page. If measure length is 16 steps, every track that is sync'd to measure will be reset and started from the beginning at the time when the measure count resets back to the beginning, no matter how long the tracks are and where their relative cursor position is. Tracks that are shorter than measure length will repeat on their own until the measure count is reset, and the shorter-than-measure tracks will reset at that point, just like any other track that is sync'd to measure. Example: Measure lenght is 16 steps, a track's length is 6 steps, and the track is sync'd to measure. This track will repeat twice on its own, quite independent of the measure, because two times 6 is 12 steps, i.e. shorter than 16 steps, which is the length of the measure. However, during the third iteration of the track, the measure is reset before the track can reach its end; the track is reset together with the measure count. Thus, this shorter-than-measure track will play two times and four steps before it is reset (6 + 6 + 4 = 16). A track that is longer than measure will be cut short, if it is Sync'd to Measure. Naturally sync'ing to measure doesn't guarantee that the sync'd tracks will be in sync *all the time*, only that they will be simultaneously *started* from the beginning every time Measure starts from the beginning. In other words, each track is sync'd to the *measure*, not to each other. Each sync'd track will hear the reset command at the same time, but after the reset they will go they own separate ways again, according to their individual length and divider settings, until measure reset forces them to start from the beginning again. This allows you to effect repeating patterns of asynchronous play. ***some image here It's also possible to sync tracks to measure manually on the MENU + MANUAL page. Pressing SELECT on this page will sync the selected tracks to measure. Tracks can be selected either with the group and track selection buttons (top left of the frontpanel) or on the Track Selection page (for details, see section 5.6.). 5.4.2 Sync to Measure in song mode The 'Sync to Measure' setting is not the recommended way to sync tracks in song mode. Instead, in song mode the recommended way to determine the change to the next song position (or to the next loop within the same song position) is the Guide Track function (see section 5.5.). In song mode, Guide Track is on by default (set to G1T1), and will override any sync to measure settings on the tracks' DIVIDER pages. It is possible to disable the Guide Track function by setting it to "---". However, as by default no track is sync'd to measure, this will result in behaviour that is unlikely to be as useful as the more predictable ways that are available ('Guide Track' in song mode, 'Sync to Measure' in phrase mode). Try at your own risk! 5.5. Guide Track ---------------- Press & hold the SONG button to bring up a menu where you can alternate between the song mode and phrase mode (GPB9). In song mode the Guide Track setting is on the right display, and it can be used to choose a single track which the sequencer will follow as a master track, as far as length and changing to another pattern are concerned. (You can change the Guide Track setting in mid-song as well, it's one of possible song position operations on the SONG page; see section 5.2.2.) The Guide Track function is only available in song mode, and won't even be visible or selectable in phrase mode. In phrase mode, all tracks are running independently of each other, and share only the tempo. For song mode, this will not do. The point of the song mode is to chain several patterns together and switch them in an automated way, and you have to determine when to switch to another pattern, even if the tracks have different lengths and end at different times. Guide Track will allow you to determine which track (G1T1–G4T4) triggers the change to the next song position (or to the next loop within the same song position). By default, Guide Track is on, and set to G1T1. If the Guide Track function is active (i.e. has some other value than "---"), it will make pattern change dependent on the track set as the guide track. The track selected as the guiding track will allow pattern change only when *it* reaches its end. Shorter tracks will loop back to their beginning and keep playing over and over until the guiding track reaches is end, and if that happens before the other tracks have finished, they will be terminated mid-way. Tracks longer than the guide track will be terminated mid-way as well. So, the selected guide track will run to its end, and when it reaches the end, the sequencer switches to the next song position, regardless of where the other, non-guide tracks are at. All the tracks of the next pattern to be played are started from the beginning. ***image here The Guide Track function overrides any sync to measure settings (made on the DIVIDER page for each track), and will also override the SONG page song position counter (right LCD, top row). Instead of following Measure (UTILITY -> Opt., Option #1), the counter will follow the length of the track selected as guide track. If the Guide Track function is disabled (i.e. set to "---"), the sequencer will fall back to measure. However, as no tracks are sync'd to measure by default, disabling Guide Track will result in behaviour that is unlikely to be as useful as the more predictable ways that are available ('Guide Track' in song mode, 'Sync to Measure' in phrase mode). Try at your own risk! 5.6. Track selection, Solo and Mute ------------------ Track selection is possible by two means. First, you can select several tracks *within the same group* by pressing the track selection buttons (on the upper left of the frontpanel). If you press & hold one track selection button, you can select and unselect other tracks within the selected group as long as you keep pressing & holding one button (it doesn't have to be the first you pressed). It is not possible to select tracks in several groups with the group and track selection buttons. If you need to select tracks in several groups, you have to use the Track Selection page. The page is available only as a customised F1–F4 button (see Appendix 1) or as a bookmark (see Appendix 2). On the track selection page you can press & hold a GP button, and while you keep pressing it, you can select or unselect any combination of tracks. The selected tracks are indicated with > < angle brackets. ***in 4.090 you must have at least one track selected in the 1st group or the selection will reset! The solo mode is activated by pressing the SOLO button. When solo mode is active, only the selected track(s) will be played, and all the others muted. It is possible to select one or more tracks either with the track selection buttons, or by using the track selection page. The mute page can be accessed by pressing the MUTE button. You can press the GP buttons to toggle mutes for each track in any combination you like. The mutes and umutes set on this page can also be sync'd to measure in UTILITY -> Opt. -> Options #6 (sync mutes) and #7 (sync unmutes). If sync mutes/unmutes to measure is activated, muting a channel shows a measure countdown to when the next muting or unmuting is going to happen. Note that if your tracks are not sync'd to measure, but the mutes/unmutes are, the mutes/unmutes might not happen predictably. Note also that in song mode with Guide Track active, the mute/unmute countdowns don't indicate anything meaningful unless your guiding track's length is always the same as the set measure. ***in song mode with guide track active, the measure countdown doesn't show the "right" numbers: if the guiding track is 16 steps long, and measure is set to 6 steps, the measure countdown will keep counting multiples of 6 until the guide track ends. this is not useful information, but probably in song mode it doesn't matter, because the idea of the song mode is to program everything quite predictably anyway, so it doesn't matter what the coundown shows. Mutes from sources *other than the MUTE page* (from bookmarks, with CCs etc.) are not affected by options #6 and #7, but happen instantaneously. Sync'ing mutes to measure works along the same principles as sync'ing a track to measure. See section 5.4. on Measure for more information. It is not possible to mute individual parameter layers for Note, Chord or CC type tracks. However, if the track is a Drum track, you can mute individual drum instrument layers by pressing & holding the MUTE button and then selecting tracks for mute or unmute. While on the MUTE page, the ALL and FAST buttons have special functions. First, you can activate the ALL function to bring up a menu for quick muting and unmuting options (which happen instantly). The options are: 1. Mute all tracks, 2. mute the active track's layers, 3. mute all tracks and all layers, 4. unmute all tracks, 5. unmute the active track's layers, 6. unmute all tracks and all layers. Second, if you have sync'd mutes/unmutes to measure with Options #6 and/or #7, activating the FAST function allows you to bypass this temporarily. While the FAST function is active, mutes and unmutes happen instantaneously, regardless of mute/unmute sync settings. ***is there a difference between "muting a track" and "muting a track's layers"? A quick muting and unmuting of all tracks (instantly) is also available on the UTILITY page (GPB15 and GPB16).*** Finally, the bookmark page (see Appendix 2) can be used to effect customised mutes/unmutes of any combination of tracks with one button. Mutes and unmutes from bookmarks happen instantaneously.

The official manual does mention banksticks, saving to a bankstick etc. in several places, I would guess that it's a leftover from earlier MBSEQ models. The manual's name for the "x" in pattern names such as x:A1, x:A2 etc. is a Bank. "x" is 1, 2, 3 or 4, so you have four banks of 64 patterns each. Even though by default Group 1 plays patterns from Bank 1, Group 2 from Bank 2 etc., there's nothing stopping you from playing, say, 3:A1 (=pattern A1 from bank 3) in any of the four groups. To my knowledge the bank selection cannot be disabled.

Of course, no rush! _b Length, Divider, FX etc. setting are reset to default values, but 'Complete Track' doesn't clear anything on the Track Event and Track Instrument pages (Program/Bank change commands, Track name etc.). The user manual says: "Complete Track: the whole track configuration will be cleared/pasted. Only exception: MIDI channel and MIDI port will never be overwritten." To me this implies that everything else – apart from the MIDI channel and Port, which are singled out – even on the EVENT page (short of initialising the whole track) will be reset to default values (this is on 4.090). I asked earlier about the definition of configurations, and you referred me to the CC implementation chart. From that I understood that "configurations" mentioned in the manual and in the sequencer's menu pages (importing presets) are everything that's in the chart except MIDI channel and Port. However, if I save a track as a preset and then import it with only Cfg = yes, Program/Bank change commands saved in the preset are imported, but not cleared with 'Complete Track' set in Option #8. Is this consistent? I'm not holding any inquisition here, I'm just trying to understand the logic <:-) Fair enough, and as I said it works ok as it is. I'll document it the way it is now.

The fourth chapter of the draft manual. The relevant section of the table of contents is: 4. Entering notes 4.1. The Jam page 4.1.1. Rec and Fwd 4.1.2. Step recording 4.1.3. Live recording 4.1.4. Edit recording mode 4.2. Working on the EDIT page 4.2.1. Copy, paste, duplicate, quick-export 4.2.2. Clear, move, scroll, undo 4.2.3. Using FAST and ALL buttons This chapter includes recording, which was a complicated topic to get straight. I appreciate if someone has the time to test the step and live recording settings to see if they really hold water 100%. But if not, I'm sure there will be a feedback thread later on where everything fishy will float to the surface when people try to cut their teeth on friendly but mistaken advice :-) Notes for TK and others: In the newest official firmware at the moment of writing this (4.090) the Step/Live recording setting 'AStart' is not functioning correctly, and the draft manual has only some ideal description of how I have imagined it should work. The section will be updated in the final version. I write: "303 View shows a variety of settings". Does "303" refer to TB-303 bassline synth, MC-303 groovebox or something else? I write: "It is not possible to copy and paste individual parameter or trigger layers." Is this so? I write: "Multiple tracks within a single group can be selected with the track selection buttons, or any combination of tracks on the Track Selection page." Where is the track selection page? Can it be selected only with a F1–F4 buttons set for that in the HW setup file, or by setting it as a bookmark? I couldn't find it in the main menu. A possible bug: The Track Selection page demands that one track in Group 1 is always selected. If at any point all the tracks in Group 1 become unselected, it has the effect that all tracks in all groups get unselected, and track 1 gets selected. Option #8 says that it affects the paste and clear functions, but what does clear 'Complete Track' do that clear 'Only steps' doesn't do? In other words, how does Option #8 affect the clear function? Thoughts on the ALL button (press & hold ALL button = change all steps into the same value with just one knob): If ALL mode is 'on', pressing & holding switches it 'off', and pressing & holding works only if you start pressing & holding when the mode is 'off'. In other words, if the mode is 'on', you have to switch it 'off' before you can press & hold it for "all jump to the same value" adjustment. Question: Would it be possible/handy to effect a press & release threshold time for switching from 'on' state to 'off' state? E.g. so that by default pressing & holding the ALL button, while the mode is 'on', enables the ""all jump to same value" mode, and when you release, the ALL mode will stay 'on'; but if you release the button in 200ms (or whatever, i'm not sure what a good value would be) after pressing it down, it will switch to 'off' mode instead? Or maybe there are other ways that I didn't come to think of. It works ok as it is (and I can document it as it is), but it could perhaps be polished a bit :-) ----------------------------8<--------------------------------- ------------------- 4. Entering notes ------------------- There's a few ways to enter notes on the sequencer when you're on the EDIT page. The most simple option is to press a GP button to trigger Gate 'on' or 'off', and turn the knob below the step to adjust the note value. Default note is C-3, default velocity is 100, and default length 75%. This method is good only for single notes, because pressing a GP button only toggles the gate 'on' or 'off', and thus just "enables" the note value (and any other parameters) that happens to be stored in that step. By default there is one C-3 note in a single note layer in each step of a newly initialised note type track, but if you have recorded multiple notes in the step previously, then switching the gate 'on' will enable these multiple notes (and other events you have recorded in the step). For a drum track's instrument layers this method works best. However, this is not really "recording notes", rather it's just pushing a button to toggle the gate 'on' or 'off' for a step. The actual recording options and settings are available on the Jam page. 4.1 The Jam page ---------------- You can enter the Jam page by pressing UTILITY + GPB10 (Jam). However, as the Jam page is likely to be used quite often, it might be useful to set one of the four function buttons (F1­-F4, on the right hand side of the frontpanel) to take you directly to the Jam page to make transitioning between EDIT and Jam pages as easy as possible. (For this you need to edit the HW setup file, see Appendix 1.) The Jam page consists of two stand-alone settings (Rec and Fwd) and five groups of settings: Step, Live, Pattern, MIDI, and Miscellaneous. The groups can be selected with GP buttons, the editable settings of the selected group appearing on the right LCD. In addition to Rec and Fwd, this manual deals with only Step and Live settings. 4.1.1. Rec and Fwd Rec (GPB2) sets recording mode 'on' or 'off'. Recording mode needs to be 'on' if you want to record notes with just pressing keys on your MIDI controller, i.e. without need to touch the sequencer's buttons or knobs. You can record notes also by two other ways when Rec is set 'off' (see section 4.1.4. for Edit recording mode), but in all cases recording notes takes its settings from the Jam page. Rec stays 'on' even if you leave the Jam page, and you can record notes regardless of which page you are on. However, you won't see what you record unless you're on the EDIT page or the Jam page. If you start recording while on the Jam page, the display will switch to the EDIT page (where 'STEP RECORDING' will flash on the left LCD) as long as you keep recording notes, but after a few seconds of inactivity you will be returned to the Jam page. A more convenient way is perhaps setting Rec 'on' and then going to the EDIT page (by pressing the EDIT button), where you can now take your time to record the notes you like, and scroll back and forth if needed, without having to worry about getting automatically returned to the Jam page. Recording works regardless of whether the sequencer is running or stopped. Most of the time recording makes practical sense only in Phrase mode, where patterns are not changing (for Phrase and Song mode, see section 5.2.). Fwd (GPB3) sets note forwarding 'on' or 'off'. If Fwd is 'on', it means that while recording notes, the notes are forwarded immediately to the Port and MIDI channel of the track (set in the EVENT page). If it's 'off', you won't hear the notes when you record them. Whether or not to keep Fwd on depends on your equipment and setup. Some MIDI Router settings (MENU + MIDI -> MIDI Router) can cause notes to become triggered twice per key press while recording. For a simple setup, however, setting Fwd 'on' is probably a good idea. 4.1.2. Step recording On the Jam page, press GPB4 to choose Step recording settings for editing. They appear in the right LCD. Mode can be set to either Poly or Mono. Mono allows you to record only one note at a time, and always in the first note layer, overwriting any notes that already were there, while Poly allows you to record as many notes simultaneously as you have note layers on the track you're recording on. (The number of available note layers depends on how you have set up the track; see section 2.1.1.) Both modes overwrite whatever was in the note, velocity and length layers for each recorded step. If a step had several note layers with notes in them (i.e. a chord) and you record a single note in that step (which always goes in the first note layer), all the other note layers are erased as well. In Mono mode you will have access to 'Inc' (increment) setting, which allows you to effect an automatic step increment after recording a note in a step. For example, Inc setting +2 means that after recording the first note (e.g. in step 1), the cursor will jump forward two steps (e.g. into step 3). This way you can spare yourself the trouble of adjusting the cursor position by hand, if you know that you want to record notes in a steady rhythm. Inc setting is not available for Poly mode, which means you have to adjust the cursor by hand. AStart controls whether or not to start the sequencer automatically when you press a key on your MIDI controller to record the first note. If the sequencer is already running, AStart setting makes no difference. Note that if the sequencer is not running and AStart is 'off', recording will always be step recording (and will use step recording settings from the Jam page), even if Live recording is selected on the Jam page. Step recording with AStart or the sequencer already running is not affected by the tempo, but only by the increment setting. ***currently AStart is not functioning correctly. Step setting indicates the cursor position on the EDIT page. The position can be changed on the EDIT page with the datawheel, and the cursor position is copied to the Jam page, but with Step (GPK11) you can change the cursor position while on the Jam page as well. Turning the knob takes you briefly to the EDIT page, and after a few seconds of inactivity you will be returned to the Jam page. Note that if you have AStart 'on', the first note will always be recorded in step 1, regardless of the cursor position, and all subsequent notes will be recorded at the running cursor position. You can step record CC messages the same way you can record notes. There are two alternative conditions: either the incoming CC message number has to have a dedicated CC parameter layer already, or there is a CC layer that is currently 'off'. For example, an incoming CC#001 will be recorded to the first CC layer where there already are CC#001 messages, or if there is no such layer, the CC#001 message will recorded into the first free CC layer. If there are no available CC layers, the incoming messages won't be recorded anywhere. Example: To try recording in practice you need a new pattern. Save what you have, then press PATTERN and choose 1:A3 for the pattern to be edited. Select G1T1, clear it, and use the LENGTH page to set its length to 16 steps. Check on the DIVIDER page that the Timebase is 16 (divider value 16). Also, make sure you are in Phrase mode. Go to the SONG page to check the setting, and if needed, change it so Phrase mode with GPK9***. (For Phrase and Song mode, see section 5.2.) Go to the Jam page and press GPB4 to choose Step Recording settings to be edited. Set Rec 'on', Mode to Mono, AStart 'off', Step to 1 and Inc. to +2. Then use your MIDI controller to enter whatever 8 notes come to mind. Or if you have a hard time making a choice, you can just press GPB16 (Toggle Gate), eight times and the sequencer will use the step recording settings to simply switch the gates of the proper steps to on, enabling the note, velocity and length data that was already there. You can perform this operation from the Jam page, which will show the EDIT page briefly while you're entering notes and switch back to the Jam page after a few seconds of inactivity. Or you can switch to the EDIT page manually, enter the notes there, and then come back to the Jam page manually. 4.1.3. Live recording On the Jam page, press GPB5 to choose Live recording settings for editing. They appear in the right LCD. Mode can be set to either Poly or Mono. Mono allows you to record only one note at a time, and always in the first note layer, overwriting any notes that already were there, while Poly allows you to record as many notes simultaneously as you have note layers on the track you're recording on. (The number of available note layers depends on how you have set up the track; see section 2.1.1.) Both modes overwrite whatever was in the note, velocity and length layers for each recorded step. If a step had several note layers with notes in them (i.e. a chord) and you record a single note in that step (which always goes in the first note layer), all the other note layers are erased as well. AStart controls whether or not to start the sequencer automatically when you press a key on your MIDI controller to record the first note. If the sequencer is already running, AStart setting makes no difference. Note that if the sequencer is not running and AStart is 'off', recording will always be step recording (and will use step recording settings from the Jam page), even if Live recording is selected on the Jam page. ***currently AStart is not functioning correctly. Note that if you have AStart 'on', the first note will always be recorded in step 1, regardless of the cursor position, and all subsequent notes will be recorded at the running cursor position. Quantize can be set from 0% to 99%, and it controls the tolerance with which "early" off-beat notes will be recorded in the *following* step, instead of in the step where they technically were played. The higher the value, the more likely it is that an "early" note will be recorded into the next step. ***image here Note that when note forwarding (Fwd) on the Jam page is 'on' and an "early" note is moved by the quantize function to the next step, the note will be triggered twice. When you press a key on your MIDI controller, the note is immediately forwarded to the port and MIDI channel for that track (because Fwd is 'on'), and sounds for the first time. Because it was a a bit early, it is moved "into the future", i.e. the next step, but the sequencer won't be there for another 0.2 seconds or so. However, when the sequencer does reach the next step, it will play the note that was moved there, the note that had sounded already a fraction of a second before. You can record CC messages live the same way you can record notes. There are two alternative conditions: either the incoming CC message number has to have a dedicated CC parameter layer already, or there is a CC layer that is currently 'off'. For example, an incoming CC#001 will be recorded to the first CC layer where there already are CC#001 messages, or if there is no such layer, the CC#001 message will be recorded into the first free CC layer. If there are no available CC layers, the incoming messages won't be recorded anywhere. Example: Let's say you want to record live a sequence where the notes come down on steps 1, 5, 9 and 13. If Quantize is set to 0% and during live recording you press the keys for the second and third notes just a bit too early, the sequencer shows no mercy and the notes will be recorded in steps 1, 4, 8 and 13, instead of step 1, 5, 9 and 13 like you wanted. (The first note will always be on time if you start live recording with the first key press.) Quantize allows you to "cheat" a bit, and by increasing the setting you can have these "a bit too early" notes recorded into the next step instead. The percentage controls the definition of "a bit too early". Select track G1T2 and press GPB5 to select live recording settings. Set Rec 'on', Mode to Mono, AStart 'off', and Quantize to whatever you prefer (e.g. 20%). Start the sequencer by pressing PLAY. If you now press a MIDI controller key at any time, the display will switch to EDIT view for a few seconds and show what you recorded and where. The sequencer will stay on the EDIT page if you keep pressing keys to record notes, but if you don't, the display will come back to Jam page. Another way to start live recording is switching AStart to 'on'. This way you don't have to press PLAY to start the sequencer, but instead the sequencer will be started automatically when you hit the first key you want to record (naturally Rec has to be 'on' as well). This way the first note will always be recorded into the first step. If you want to take your time, you may first want to set the live recording settings to your liking, switch to the EDIT page manually, and then hit the first key you want to record. This way the sequencer will stay on the EDIT page, which allows you to e.g. use the GP buttons to delete badly timed notes etc. (Naturally Rec and AStart have to be 'on'.) 4.1.4. Edit recording mode Besides Live and Step recording, there is one more way to enter notes while on the EDIT page: the Edit Recording mode. Edit Recording mode can be used in two ways. While on the EDIT page, you can press & hold a GP button, and the > < angle brackets will turn into { } curly brackets, the display will flash 'EDIT RECORDING', and you can enter a note or notes into the step while pressing & holding the GP button. Note that Edit Recording mode takes its settings (notably Mode and AStart) from the Jam page, so e.g. unless you have Poly mode enabled there, you won't be able to record multiple notes simultaneously; if the mode is Mono and you press several keys, they will all be forwared if Fwd is 'on', but only one of them will be recorded. Note also that Rec doesn't have to be 'on' for Edit Recording mode to work; if Rec is on and you're on the EDIT page, you don't need Edit Recording mode to record notes. Alternatively you can press SELECT while on the EDIT page to *toggle* Edit Recording mode 'on' or 'off'. This allows you to play e.g. two-handed chords, as you don't have to use one hand to hold down a GP button. 4.2. Working on the EDIT page ----------------------------- Of all the pages of the MBSEQv4, you will probably spend most your time on the EDIT page. The default view is the Step View, where you can see 16 steps at a time, but only two layers: one parameter layer and one trigger layer. The active parameter layer is displayed in the LCDs, the values can be changed with the GP knobs, and the name of the layer is displayed in the left LCD's top row (e.g. PB: Vel. for "Parameter layer B: Velocity"). The active trigger layer name is displayed in the left LCD's top row (e.g. TB: Roll for "Trigger layer B: Roll"), and the trigger can be switched 'on' or 'off' for each step with the GP buttons. The LEDs below each step will indicate whether the trigger is 'on' or 'off' for each step. If the LED is lit, the active trigger layer for that step is 'on', and if it's unlit, the trigger is 'off'. Pressing & holding EDIT brings up a menu where you can select alternative views. 1. Step View (the default) shows 16 steps at a time, but only one parameter layer (in the LCDs) and one trigger layer (in the states of the LEDs below the LCDs). 2. Trigger View shows only one step at a time, but seven trigger layers and up to 8 parameter layers for the selected step. 3. Layer View shows only one step at a time: the gate trigger layer and up to 14 parameter layers for the selected step. 4. 303 View shows a variety of settings, mimicing the Roland TB-303 bassline synthesizer / Roland MC-303 groovebox / something else??.*** 4.2.1. Copy, paste, duplicate, quick-export Besides just entering/recording notes and other data in a track, you can also copy, paste and duplicate the data in each track. Copy and paste have their dedicated buttons on the frontpanel, while the rest of the editing options can be found by pressing UTILITY. Quick-export uses the MENU + COPY button combination. It is not possible to copy and paste individual parameter or trigger layers.***is this so? Pressing COPY copies the active track into the buffer, and they can then be pasted onto another track; you can change sessions in between copying and pasting if you like. Note that COPY copies the *set length* (from the LENGTH page) of the track. For example, if the set length is 16/128, pressing COPY will copy only the first 16 steps into the buffer. Multiple tracks cannot be copied at once. If several tracks are selected, only the one visible in the LCDs is copied. **possible bug: if track length is 8/xx and you have nothing in steps 1–8, but notes in steps 9+, COPY will copy these notes (including possible empty steps from step 9 onwards), and PASTE will paste them in the beginning of the target track. But if there is even one note in steps 1–8, the notes in steps 9+ won't be copied/pasted. However, if you *press & hold* COPY, you can copy a selected *section* of the active track. GP knobs select the start and end position of the section (indicated by > < angle brackets). A knob at the starting position (or to the left of it) selects the start of the section (">"), and a knob to the right of the starting position selects the end of the section ("<"). The top row of the left LCD shows the steps to be copied (e.g. "COPY S1-12" for copying steps 1–12). Releasing the COPY button copies the selected section into the buffer. Pressing PASTE once pastes the copied track from the buffer into the beginning of the track, overwriting whatever was there. If the copied track was 16/128 steps long and you paste it into a track that is 32/128 steps long, only the first 16 steps will be overwritten. However, if you *press & hold* PASTE, you can offset the beginning point of the operation with the GP knobs. The > < angle brackets indicate the location. If the pasted section is too short to cover all the content in the target track, e.g. pasting a 16 step section into a 24 step track, 8 steps of the target track will not be overwritten. (Which 8 steps won't be overwritten depends on your paste operation's starting point.) In UTILITY -> Opt. (Option #8) you can change whether the paste function pastes the whole track (Complete Track), or just the trigger layer and parameter layer values in the steps (Only Steps). (The same option controls the behaviour the the clear function as well.) 'Only steps' is probably the better setting for normal use. Complete Track copies all steps and all track settings, i.e. MIDI channel, port, length, etc. If the target track is of the same type (Note, Chord, CC, Drum) as the source track, pasting a complete track won't initialise the target track to change its combination of maximum length or the number of parameter and trigger layers. But if the target track is of a different type than the source track, the target track's type will change, and it will become an exact copy of the source track. For example, pasting a 16/128 Note track into a 64/64 CC track will turn the latter into a 16/128 Note track. It is possible to duplicate a track by pressing & holding COPY and then pressing PASTE. If your track is 16/128 steps long, this operation will copy the first 16 steps of the track and paste them immediately after it, starting from step 17. The track length is changed automatically to match the new duplicated length (e.g. from 16/128 to 32/128). The cursor position will jump to the beginning of the newly duplicated sequence (e.g. step 17). You won't be able to duplicate a track that is too long to be duplicated (e.g. a track with a length of 64/128 can be duplicated once, but a track with a length of 128/128 cannot be duplicated.) One or several tracks can also be quick-exported and imported. Multiple tracks within a single group can be selected with the track selection buttons, or any combination of tracks on the Track Selection page***where is it?, and then exported with MENU + COPY. This will copy all data in the track(s), including settings, into the PRESETS folder, i.e. they're not session dependent. This means that you can have a maximum of sixteen tracks exported this way at any given time for all your sessions. The file names are of the form COPYx(.V4T), where x is the relative number of the quick-exported track (1–16). Relative means that if, for example, you have selected tracks G2T2, G2T3 and G2T4 and then quick-export them with MENU + COPY, they will be called COPY1, COPY2 and COPY3, even though their "absolute" track numbers are 6, 7 and 8. ***track selection page demands that one track in group 1 is always selected. if at any point all the tracks in group 1 become unselected, it has the effect that all tracks in all groups get unselected, and track 1 gets selected. One, some or all of the copied tracks can be pasted with MENU + PASTE, which will paste only so many tracks as have been selected with the track selection buttons. The pasting follows the same relative pattern as the copying, so that COPY1 will be pasted to the first selected track, regardless of its "absolute" track number. Note that if you first copy four tracks this way, and later copy two tracks, the first two of the older tracks (COPY1 and COPY2) will be overwritten, but the latter two of the older tracks (COPY3 and COPY4) will remain. If you then paste four tracks, you will get two "new" tracks and two "old" tracks. Tracks exported with MENU + COPY can also be imported one by one from the EVENT page's PRESETS menu (GPB14-15). Currently there is no way to delete files in the presets folder in the sequencer; you have to do delete them manually from the SD card on your computer. 4.2.2. Clear, move, scroll, undo Clear has a dedicated button on the frontpanel, while move, scroll and undo can be found by pressing UTILITY. CLEAR clears all layers of all steps in the selected track, even if they're beyond the track's set length. Thus, if your track is 16/128 steps long, CLEAR will clear also the steps 17–128. In UTILITY -> Opt. (Option #8) you can change whether the clear function clears all track settings (Complete Track) or just the steps (Only steps). 'Only steps' is probably the better setting for normal use.***what does 'clear complete track' do that clear 'only steps' doesn't do? It is not possible to clear individual parameter or trigger layers.***is this so? Move allows you to move *individual steps* to another position with the GP knobs. When you press & hold 'Move', the screen switches to the EDIT page, and you can grab an individual step by turning the knob below it, and then move it to another location if you keep turning the knob. Releasing the GP button will write the moved step into the new location, overwriting whatever was there previously. Scroll allows you to move *sections of steps* with the knobs. When you press & hold 'Scroll', the screen switches to the EDIT page, and you can use a GP knob to grab a section of steps so that the steps to the right of the knob (including the one above the knob) will be moved together, while the ones to the left will stay where they are. Releasing the GP button writes the moved steps into the new location, overwriting whatever was there previously. Undo cancels the latest paste, clear, move and scroll operation. Note that if your MBSEQv4 is using an LPC1769 core, the undo function is disabled since firmware 4.089 because of memory issues! In other words, the undo function works only with STM32F4 based MBSEQv4. 4.2.3. Using FAST and ALL buttons Using the FAST button (left side, bottom row on the frontpanel) allows you to change a value with the knobs faster. The normal setting is useful for narrow value ranges and/or detailed changes, while FAST is useful for fast changes on a wide value range. The LED above the FAST button indicates whether the fast mode is 'on' or 'off'. Note that in some contexts, e.g. when editing velocity values, the FAST function is activated automatically. However, you can always switch it 'on' and 'off', according to your preference. The LED above the ALL button (left side, bottom row on the frontpanel) indicates whether the ALL mode is 'on' or 'off'. Using the ALL button allows you to edit multiple values with just one knob in three ways. First, with the ALL function 'on', turning the knob in the *present cursor position* will cause the values for all steps to change at the same time, so that each step will be adjusted *relative to its original value*. For example, the original velocity value 50 in one step will advance to 70, while the original velocity value 100 in another step will advance to 120. It's irrelevant with knob you turn, as long as it's at the present cursor position. Second, if you move any knob *other than the one in the current cursor position*, the sequencer will generate a descending or ascending *ramp* between the present cursor position and the knob you turn. This way you can generate e.g. velocity ramps easily. ***image on ramp here Third, when you *press & hold* the ALL button and turn the knob in the *present cursor position*, the values for all steps will *jump to the same value* as the step below which you're turning the knob. As you keep turning, the values for all steps will change at the same time, to the same value. Note that this works only if you've set the normal mode of the ALL button to toggle (instead of momentary) in the HW setup file. On how to change the HW setup file, see Appendix 1. By default the ALL function affects all steps, but this can be changed with the GP buttons when the ALL mode is on. When the ALL mode is on, the step LEDs start blinking to indicate a special function in the ALL mode. A blinking LED below a step means that the step will be affected by the ALL function; by pressing a GP button under a step you can turn the ALL mode of for that step, which is indicated by an unlit LED. These changes can be made on the Step Select page as well: press & hold the EDIT button and press GPB8 to enter the page. "*" indicates that the step will be affected by the ALL function, "o" indicates that it will not be affected. Example: If you have recorded a steady rhythm with Step Recording mode and increment setting +2 (i.e. 8th notes, every second step), you can first adjust the length of all the steps with the ALL function on for all steps, then turn half of the steps off for the ALL function so that they're not affected, and then turn a knob to adjust the length of only the "empty" steps so that the notes will not glide into each other. ***function request on pressing ALL button. if ALL mode is 'on', pressing & holding switches it 'off', and pressing & holding works only if you start pressing & holding when the mode is 'off'. in other words, if the mode is 'on', you have to switch it 'off' before you can press & hold it for "all jump to same value" adjustment. would it be possible/handy to effect a press & release threshold time for switching from 'on' state to 'off' state? e.g. so that by default pressing & holding the ALL button, while the mode is 'on', effects ""all jump to same value" mode, and when you release, the ALL mode will stay 'on'; but if you release the button in 200ms or whatever (i'm not sure what a good value would be) after pressing it down, it will switch to 'off' mode instead?

The original thread is here:

I just finished changing the display and all the leds in my MB6582, and I thought I'll share the experience here, because this is by far the best MB6582 building tutorial I know of, and probably more people will benefit if the following info is here rather than in its own thread. So I had a display where the backlight couldn't be dimmed – either it was broken or it didn't have the ability; anyway there was no problem with the base PCB end, so I got another display, this time red with a negative backlight. Originally I had built the control surface with JB Welded hex spacers and flat top leds. Already when I was first putting it together I found that the flat top leds were not a good idea, or at least not practical: the holes in the frontpanel were quite tight, and it was a major PITA to get all the buttons and leds aligned with the fronpanel holes without any of the leds bending. Anyway, I managed it more or less. One MOD matrix led died in the process, but I didn't feel like opening the panel just for that, so it stayed like it was. However, now that I had decided to change the display, I decided to change the leds as well, and make it more practical this time. However, as I separated the frontpanel from the CS PCB, I found that before I could get down to changing the leds and the display, I needed to solve another problem: almost all of the JB Welded hex spacers were shaky, like teeth that were about to come loose. Only a few seemed firm, so I just picked all of them off and dremeled the inner surface clean of JB Weld. I realised quickly that hot-glue won't work because you need to press the frontpanel to the hex spacers attached to the CS board, but hot-glue will solidify much too quickly, even if you tried to fasten only one hex spacers at a time. In the end I decided to leave the hex spacers out completely and just use the four aligned corner holes in the CS PCB and the frontpanel. My solution is four black countersunk 16mm M3 screws coming through the frontpanel corners, on the inside there's an M3 nut and a 3mm plastic spacer. The Pactec enclosure fastener metal piece is there too (under the nut), even though I have drilled out the threads. (I haven't filed out the "fangs" of the metal piece though.) CS PCB goes on top of this, and the buttons protrude above the surface quite comfortably. I bought four 16mm screws, and it seems like it's the absolute minimum; probably 20mm would have been better, even though 16mm was just about manageable. In addition to the corner screws, the frontpanel is attached to the CS PCB only by having a washer and a nut in the sustain/phase encoder (on the top side of the frontpanel). In my opinion the push-button feel is fine, the PCB doesn't give too much way anywhere, even though the hex spacers are gone. The previous image also shows the countersunk corner screw. Originally the frontpanel didn't have countersunk corner holes, but I used a drill bit and a press drill to make them so. Then I used black marker to colour the bare aluminium for a more uniform black appearance. Then the leds. I desoldered all the flat top leds and used a mechanical suction pump to clear the holes for new ones. Fortunately I didn't lose any pads in the process. I bought "normal" 3mm tinted red leds and put them in place, but this time I soldered them a bit lower than usual so that their "thick parts" don't really go into the holes. This way the frontpanel can be removed much more easily, and in practice you only have to worry about aligning the push buttons with the holes. It would look more cool if they did come out a bit, but from a repair point of view I find this solution far superior to the flat top leds or protruding "normal" leds. I soldered the new leds the same way as Hawkeye in his tutorial: put the leds in place, join the CS PCB to the frontpanel, cover the led holes in the frontpanel from the top with masking tape, and guide the leds into their holes. The tape prevents them from getting too high, and holds them in place to some extent as well. When they are placed in their holes, pick a led group, solder one leg of each led, remove the tape, and if it looks fine, solder the other legs too. One final word on the red negative backlight display: I was surprised that the viewing angle of the display was clearly worse than for the "normal" display I had earlier. The negative backlight LCD is ok from a "sideways" angle (a shallow angle from "left" or "right" side of the display) but sitting straight in front the of the display, a shallow angle either "above" or "below" the display shows very quickly just the red backlight and obscures the text. Fortunately with the placement of MB6582 in my setup this is not an issue, but it could easily have been.