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SEQ V4 Button Minimalism


Hawkeye
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Hi there,

just planning for a custom minimalistic (but usable) SEQ-V4 control surface.

Now, I would like to ask you existing MB-SEQ-users, which of the buttons do you consider essential? Which ones do you use seldom or not at all?

The control surface will surely contain two 40x2 character displays, 16 dual-led-backlit step buttons, 16 step rotary encoders, the datawheel and basic data entry buttons.

I also have an Akai MPD32 (with transport control buttons and a lot of "buttons") at my disposal, which can send MIDI messages to the SEQ, this is where I would like to offload the seldom-used button functionality. As far as I have understood this should be possible. Is it really possible for a SEQ-V4? (Ender´s thread below did not resolve this question).

The reason for this stripping-down madness is, that I want to build a very small SEQ CS in a breakoutbox, which should be put below a synth keyboard. But still, I am unsure if I will regret that move, as TK. surely had a reason to add all this bling ;-). Unfortunately I have no Mac at my disposal to test-drive a virtual SEQV4...

Thanks for your suggestions. It is also totally ok, if you tell me to "just build the full CS, as you will regret it if you don´t..." :-)

Bye,

Peter

Edited by Hawkeye
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Hi, I've been contemplating similar themes.

I've actually signed up for the group buys of full control surface hardware, but I think it will be a while before it all manifests into deliverable reality.

In the meantime I plan to play with a core and two 40x2 LCD's and access the user functions by midi events. I also reckon the BLM emulator (available on PC iirc) would help with the exploration as well.

I suspect its the kind of thing that you can only judge through experience!

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I suspect its the kind of thing that you can only judge through experience!

i agree with this !

but because you're asking, i'm using this SEQ since 3 month and personally,

i never use datawheel.

i also never use those switches : metronome, scrub, pause, rew and fwd.

my seq V4 is a standard one, with 44 buttons.

one buttons that i consider as a non essential one is : solo

but, i'm thinking of one which might be useful : tempo preset.

all the others buttons seems to me essential.

best regards

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  • 7 years later...

OLD IDEAS, but can you send me link to some one display, 8(4)+1 enc, and 16-32 buttons, or any simplified CS for SEQ4 ?

no i dont mean 808 style, realy, cause got 707,626 and these ate awesome CS,(like 626 is a lot of teach, how to program beats /more then others x0x features ,(Vel, MidiNote No, Midi Ch. for an each button)

long winter TINNY nights 

wishes Adict Pom

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Wow, proper old thread resurrection, could not even remember that one :-).

After seven years of use (i built a custom CS at first, after some thoughts, it turned out to be not soo minimal :-)), i can now assure you, that if you want to use the SEQv4 properly, you need quite a lot of buttons. Under these considerations, i can recommend to wait for Andy's new modular SEQ boards, with a bit of hacking you might get away with using only the two center boards, but i'd recommend to go for the full SEQ, because you will be missing a lot otherwise!

Many greets,
Peter

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Re pomics's idea: One display will not really work, because even if one plans using just 8 step sequences (and from that point of view one display would be enough), most menus will have selectable items in both displays, regardless of track length.

Buttons on the Wilba frontpanel that I use rarely or never: scrub, metronome, solo, forward (>>), back (<<), pause, up, down. Copy, paste and clear could be left out as they're available in the UTILITY menu. Trigger and parameter layer selection buttons could be cut down to just one each. Group/Track quick select buttons could be cut completely (tracks can be selected e.g. on the EDIT page with a GP knob).

However, given that both displays are necessary in practice, a minimised button setup is probably not that useful (just my opinion). My reasoning: if one display could be cut, then the minimal design would be very compact, but I'd say you really do need both displays. Memorising the "invisible" menu items by heart in several menus on the "missing display" is not a good option in my opinion. So the two displays set the minimum width of the front panel. If the intention is to make the front panel height smaller by getting rid of buttons, you'd need to eliminate a whole bottom row worth of buttons, and would gain a few centimeters by doing so, i.e. not that much (though sometimes a few cm can be crucial). If you're using separate DIN boards for your design, getting rid of a row of buttons saves 1-2 serial registers (+ wiring).

Edited by jjonas
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@tago

yes, it might work, if you would use two of Andys new center boards. You would then have two displays below which are a row of encoders, two rows of Matias switches and a third row of buttons. I'd say you can map some minimal functions to that and can use the SEQ quite productively (i.e. i never use the song mode and very seldom switch patterns, 16 tracks are enough ;-), but
a) it would require quite a lot of config file adjusting (and maybe even some code changes, e.g. mapping three functions to a single button with altering state)
b) you might want to have access to the full control surface at some point in time (the jogwheel pcb has those nice direct access mode buttons around it, as TK described in his last post in the "new SEQ frontpanel idea" thread).
c) don't underestimate the necessity of the jogwheel encoder itself - i use it all the time, e.g. for step selection. There might be workarounds, but they may not be pretty... :-)

Good luck and many greets!
Peter

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Yes that's the idea, having 2 identical frontpanel pcbs and 2 displays.

I asked for an overview of the button labeling in the "new SEQ frontpanel idea" thread to get a better idea of the new layout. The middle button row seems for selections (1..16) corresponding to the 8 buttons around the jog wheel. But is this the only purpose for that row? The top row works like the old one, i assume.

Rarely used functions could be reached via a shift button. But i've no idea if this is easily configurable in SEQ.

 

@jjonas

Thanks for your list of rarely used buttons. May i ask what the up/down buttons are for?

 

Edited by tago
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