MIDIbox SEQ V4 Release + Feedback

[TK.]

I like the "advance step" parameter, very nice idea!

Will be implemented soon!

Btw.: while the forum was almost empty I had some more time for making music! ;)

I noticed a bug in the "Save as.." function: under certain circumstances it can happen that after "Save as..." new patterns will be stored into the previous session, and not into the new session.

Since nobody reported this yet, it seems to be a minor issue - but it will be fixed of course!

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[TK.]

Beta34 is available - you will like it! :)

MIDIboxSEQ V4.0beta34

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


   o implemented various "Edit Views".

     Press SELECT button to select the view in EDIT screen.

     Following views are available:

     - Step View: you already know it

     - Trigger View: left page allows to select the step, Gate,

       Accent, Roll, Glide, Skip, Random Gate and Random Velocity.

       Right Page allows to edit up to 8 parameter layers.

     - Layer View: allows to select the step, Gate and up to 14

       parameter layer. Especially nice for custom chord editing.

     - 303 View: provides a 303ish interface to select the Step,

       Gate, Accent, Glide, Octave, Note, Velocity and up to 9

       additional parameter layers

     - Step Select: allows to select the steps which are modified

       by the ALL function


   o glide trigger now handled (much) more 303-like


   o added testmode for AOUT interface connections.

     Enter "testaoutpin" in MIOS terminal for further informations


   o step record function now allows to define the step incrementer (+0..16)

     in "Record Mode" item


   o BLM keyboard mode: each column plays now an assigned drum instrument


   o new BLM entry mode 303:

     - first row selects accent

     - second row selects glide

     - third and fourth row select octave (4 different selections)

     - remaining rows select key of octave and set/clear gate


   o new session now initialized correctly after "SaveAs..."


   o optional "Tap Tempo" button is working now


   o optional "Left" button is working now in all menu pages

[/code]


Please note: 303 Glide function will only work correctly if your synth supports "fingered portamento" (sometimes also called. "SusKey") and legato mode.


Best Regards, Thorsten.

[vcfool]

Nice, thanks again!

Been quick trying right now and I think there is a problem with the normal Step View Edit Mode:

The lower line of the LCDs is always displaying the Notes for Steps 1-16, no matter which steps are selected holding the "Step View" button. The upper line of the LCDs and the GP LEDs do show the actual values and edit seems to work, but the lower lines always show the Notes and Lengths of Steps 1-16.

Also Length Parameter Layer is showing the bars on non-gated steps: Clear the Track and all the steps will show a Length bar indicator. This didn't happen on previous versions.

Maybe I am just doing something wrong... :)

[Hawkeye]

Thanks, TK.!

Great work! My "left button" is now very happy :flowers:

Edit:

* The "Tap Tempo" button now also works, perfect!

* The new Trigger View Mode is very nice, especially with the "Left" and "Right" buttons for navigating between steps and "Up" and "Down" to change Notes. :clover:

* Also, great update on the recording mode, where it shows which notes are being "re-recorded".

* I can confirm vcfools observation - in a track with more than 16 steps, the notes are not updated in the lower line when moving the cursor to step 17+ or when "follow" mode is on.

Edited February 18, 2011 by Hawkeye

[TK.]

Thanks a lot for beta testing!!! :)

These bugs are now fixed in beta35:

MIDIboxSEQ V4.0beta35

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


   o bugfix: step view displays steps >= 17 correctly again


   o bugfix: step length displayed correctly again in "step view"


   o new feature for more comfortable editing of multi-note tracks:

     if assigned parameter layer is Note or Chord, and currently 0, re-start at C-3 resp. A/2

     when value is incremented

[/code]


Best Regards, Thorsten.

[Hawkeye]

fantastic support, as usual:

post, wait very short time, "svn up", "make", install, play :-)

everything fine on my side now ;-)

[Polykobol]

HI,

I know that Thorsten requested me that... So here it is...

Midibox sequencer gets famous. :D Polykobol and Kobol Modular as well. :frantics: :frantics:

Recoil is the Alan Wilder's project he started already during Depeche Mode.

The movies are not from me.

Berlin 3

PK

Edited February 18, 2011 by Polykobol

[Echopraxia]

Step record +0-+16 works great! Now I can realize chords and melodies with a keyboard much faster since I am not classically trained :( Back to skool for me.

just thought of something. More for the MBSEQ but could benefit MBFM and MBSID possibly too. I am thinking ,if its possible at all, to have a page that contains "your" favorite views or parameters. Example on sequencer would be to hold or toggle on/off one of the func1-4 buttons and it could show you on one step and use that encoder for example the delay amount, another encoder could do the lfo amp, another could be morph value, one encoder could select between directions or divders, groove amount, even the tracks mute so you don't have to make unwanted changes in between live tricks until your ready to unmute etc. You could have 16 of your favorite parameters always one button press away and if you could toggle the view of this page on or off it could free up both hands to start knob twiddling of your favorite parameters live! I am thinking of a page that any user can edit to have his/her favorites.

Thanks again for all the great updates.

[TK.]

MBSID has already such a page, for MBSEQ it will be very difficult as some parameters can't be displayed in a single 5 character item.

It would be too difficult to provide a generic configuration page :-/

However, I'm glad that you like the new features - I like them too! :)

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[Echopraxia]

for MBSEQ it will be very difficult as some parameters can't be displayed in a single 5 character item.

Abbreviations would work right?

It would be too difficult to provide a generic configuration page :-/

understandable. What if you hold the scub key and twist the encoder that you want to change the parameter for? Then hold or toggle on/off func key to actually control. That way you could have at least one page of 16 parameters. I was thinking originally of having multiple pages but now I am rambling. Maybe still usable for MBFM which I love :sweat: Mod matrix works great already so it would be a request way down the list.

Oooorrrr maybe just let us put in our favorites from the txt file.

Still checking out the updates.

Edited February 20, 2011 by Echopraxia

[Echopraxia]

Maybe could create different variations (in the code) of what 16 parameters could be on the page and then people can choose which one they want to assign to what Func button by adding it to the appropriate txt file. Could that work?

If you feel that this may be possible you could give me a format you would like them in and I could make a few variations of all the goodies.

if not no worries. You already do quite enough for us.

Edited February 20, 2011 by Echopraxia

[Echopraxia]

I decided that I wanted to change a tracks event type from : 256 steps/4 parameter layers to 128 steps/8 parameter layers but I was having issues with the track sounding different. This is after I copied the notes before initializing the track ( so I could paste the notes back in). When I pasted the notes into the track after initializing, I was hearing more notes and looked under the parameter layer C view to find that I had 4 additional note slots and roll data and length data that all seemed maxed out to their highest values. One of the extra note slots showed B notes when the main normal note parameter layer was all in E ( like I had previously in the track). When I tried to kill the b notes in the other note layer it would also cut out the notes from the main note layer.

So something weird is going on right?

[Hawkeye]

Some more praise - the seq v4 really rocks, thanks for everything ;-)

Just one more feature idea, which was borrowed from the elektron machines and which is extremely helpful...

It is called "note cycle". When pressing "cycle left" or "cycle right" (probably bound to a key plus left/right or up/down), the notes are cycled through the track.

E.g., if we have a note on Step 1 and one one Step 4 and we press "cycle right", the notes, velocities and so on will be shifted to Step 2 and Step 5 respectively.

When a note goes over the track boundary, it will appear on the other end (e.g. Step 16->Step 1).

It is very nice for quickly changing the "beat" in drum patterns (can be used when playing live to shift instruments off-beat and in-beat again) or shifting melodic parts to other regions or correcting live-recording "timing" errors.

Edited February 20, 2011 by Hawkeye

[vcfool]

[...]

Just one more feature idea, which was borrowed from the elektron machines and which is extremely helpful...

It is called "note cycle". When pressing "cycle left" or "cycle right" (probably bound to a key plus left/right or up/down), the notes are cycled through the track.

[...]

Sorry if I am misunderstanding your idea, but are you aware of the "Scroll" function?

I'm not sure that I do understand the differences between the already implemented "Scroll" and your "Cycle" idea. :)

[Hawkeye]

whew, you are totally right! *bows down* :)

one never stops to learn about existing features - great! :-)

[Echopraxia]

I can't find the resync key-combo feature. The one where your playing two different midi sync devices and can resync mbseq when doing out of sync things? I remember seeing a video a while back somewhere... :poke:

[stuartm]

I can't find the resync key-combo feature. The one where your playing two different midi sync devices and can resync mbseq when doing out of sync things? I remember seeing a video a while back somewhere... :poke:

That was probably my "Sync and Flow" Video on Vimeo ? (

)

a) Look for "External Restart" in the BPM page

b) try MENU + METRONOME

c) assign a dedicated button in the MBSEQ_HW.V4 (Like I did on my old MBSeqV3, as you see in that video)

On another note: DANG ! :frantics:

I just took my MBSeq apart to do a complete overhaul with a new Schaeffer frontpanel, finished new button boards last weekend and did the first JB Weld job yesterday - now I'm all jumpy to get things done to test those exiting new functions.

Edited February 21, 2011 by stuartm

[Echopraxia]

That's where it was. Thank you. Great showcase of features!

I may just have to assign a dedicated button for that.

[julienvoirin]

how to configure ethernet ??

i can't find the menu

mios terminal says :

 [201139.905] [UIP_TASK] DHCP Client requests the IP settings...

thanks & best regards

[philetaylor]

Hi Julien

Instructions are on page 12 of this thread, look at post

Cheers

Phil

[TK.]

The menu page should be easy to find.

If there is no DHCP server in your network, you have to disable this function and set the IP manually

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[julienvoirin]

thanks guys

I resolve this issue with the EXIT button :thumbsup:

[stuartm]

Finished the SeqV4 overhaul yesterday (except for the case), now there's a shiny "new" machine sitting on my desktop !

So I'm finally back on the beta-testing train.

I really like the step incrementer function and the new step views - especially the layer view! Very handy for chords.

One thing I came across during reconfiguring/customisation: the GP LEDs can only assigned in terms of shift register in the MBSEQ_HW.V4, but not regarding their individual pins.

(I had soldered one line the other way 'round and thought I could change it in the MBSEQ_HW.V4 to fix it - but you can't. But re-soldering did it quickly, anyway.)

Edited March 1, 2011 by stuartm

[TK.]

Finished the SeqV4 overhaul yesterday (except for the case), now there's a shiny "new" machine sitting on my desktop !

:)

One thing I came across during reconfiguring/customisation: the GP LEDs can only assigned in terms of shift register in the MBSEQ_HW.V4, but not regarding their individual pins.

(I had soldered one line the other way 'round and thought I could change it in the MBSEQ_HW.V4 to fix it - but you can't. But re-soldering did it quickly, anyway.)

Mapping bits is resource hungry, it consumes RAM and CPU time - therefore it's better to fix the hardware, especially since it can be done so quickly. :)

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[Echopraxia]

Just a thought.

I have a couple somewhat responsive buttons from the CS bulk order and one happens to be the menu button. If i'm in the pattern menu, and want to save a pattern, I would hold menu and then hit the save GP button. The only problem is that when you have a menu button that only works when you hit the right side of it you can easily change the pattern instead of saving it therefore losing your changes.

So my thought beside getting new buttons was if we could have some kind of buffer in case these kinds of accidents happen? Its probably too much to ask for as no one else has this problem yetand the fact that you can save all patterns now with session saving. There are sometimes though when I only want to save one pattern and not all of them.

I want to talk with Wilba about using different buttons that are the same size and type to avoid this issue as its more than a couple that have it. Some times I like to use the Manual trigger mode but two buttons don't fire all the time and it throws me off.

Anyone else had this problem with these buttons where hitting it from one side works and hitting it from the other side or center doesn't?