31 replies to this topic

[archietech]

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awesome work mate!

[djn8]

Any chance you are going to release an updated version with the features you mentioned:
- settings screen to change MIDI channel, notes etc.
- save patterns
- another 4 channels would be good with velocities and another page of CC controllers
- MIDI over wifi

I actually just want the settings screen and save patterns option - been playing around with this thing for months and have yet to get it to trigger my hardware synths (bought a DSerial Edge to do the trick but haven't figured it all out yet - considering doing the brainage hack that you did).

1-0ne

[dcer10]

Does anyone know how to wire up the midi out

The link above is dead and I cant find any details anywhere

Thanks in advance

[ijed]

hey all thanks for the comments - and for the kick in the butt to make me get back into working on this.

Am working on a rewrite at the moment and will hope to have a new CC app done in the next few days with selectable midi and maybe some lfo's - still need to figure out the midi wifi thing but it will happen one day.

as for the DStep midi sequencer I really need to sit down and figure out the best way to implement the UI to show all the sequencer tracks on the top screen and the bottom screen to display 1-2 tracks at a time - also need to get the midi clock accurate.

djn8 - wondering what trouble you're having with triggering your harware.... it sends a rather short trigger pulse so maybe you need to crank up the release time on the envelope to get a bit out - or are you having trouble with the midi card?
I've got a DSerial Edge as well but I'm yet to try it out - may need to change the code a bit for it

dcer10 - the pic of the card I posted is pretty self-explanetory - the pin on the left goes to the midi pin on the right and vice-versa - there's also 2 points on the back of the card you can use as well - i'll take a photo when I get home

[dcer10]

I am thinking of buying a DSerial2 also, if you do make the program work with it I think it will seal the deal for me to buy it!

I couldnt see the photo above before, dont know why but it makes sense now.

I would personally love to see some LFO's controlling any midi controller/note/gate/vel that would be awesome.

I have yet to try it out (still waiting on an R4 card) but does it do:

-note/cc/vel/gate ramdomise
-realtime controls (cc's) per step or from a knob or something
-play direction change
-force scale
-recording cc changes like in the korg ds10
-song mode
-Kaoss pad for CC use
-Midi mixer sliders
-Track mutes

Thanks!!!

[no-fi]

heh, and I got a dserial edge coming too... looks like an awesome addition to the DS, for any sort of programming. so please feel free to mod your code to work with the dserial edge!

a DS sequencer isn't really useful to me, unless it can sync to other stuff.
:-)

[dcer10]

Hows the new version coming along?

A couple of questions...

I plugged the output into my Kenton Control freak to see what was being spat out, Is this primarily only a drum sequencer? There seems to be no obvious way to send various pitches. Seems it triggers notes on channel 10 only. Is there any way to configure the output channel?

In your demo were you playing the drums on this sequencer (audio out from the DS) and syncing your other external synt to it but not sending notes to the external synth from the DS ie the synth has its own sequencer?

Can you have more than one channel going at a time? Can you change the cc's numbers that get sent?

It is great that it puts out midi clock! Have you timed its accuracy?? (nofi, use the midi clock to sync it to external gear, it sends it by default)

Please add the Dserial edge compatibility Mine is on the way!!

[no-fi]

@ dcer10: "sync to" != "sync"
:-)

A device that can only be sync master is not that useful to me. I'm much more likely to want to use it synced to something else.

[dcer10]

You are right I should have read it properly, my bad!

[ijed]

hi,

sorry again for the delays but I want to do a complete rewrite of the sequencer to try and get the timing a bit more stable (dcer:  the midi clock isn't accurate to the bpm readout and the 16th's seem to be out sometimes but it does keep everything on the beat).

With the new version I'm thinking of the following - any input from sequencer heads or touch pad guru's would be great :

Drum Track page x8: - Drawable Note velocity's (default length - hold a button and draw to length quantized to 64th's)
                            - Step mutes
                            - space for something else
                            - D-pad for seq fwd/back & track mute/solos, random
                            - X/Y/A/B select track....

Note Track page x4:  - Step Velocities (default - draw gates - hold button to draw in 16th steps)
                            - Piano Roll to select pitch (buttons scroll up/down)

Pattern Page x16:    - Edit all 8 Drum Tracks and 4 Note Tracks at once (hold key and touch track to enter Track Page)

Sequence Matrix:      - Shows all 16 patterns (can extend to more later) to mix and match parts from different patterns.
                            - Hold key and draw to loop through selected patterns?

Global page: Set bpm, drum ch/notes, note ch's load/save etc.

If I can implement CC's with this as well and not effect the midi timings that would be great but otherwise I am thinking of doing a seperate app for that.

[dcer10]

Looks fantastic.

I build hardware sequencers and have been involved in the design of a couple too so Ill try to give as much feedback as possible! I left a bunch of feature requests on an earlier post which I think would be great. All my comments are obviously just my personal opinion and are meant to be constructive!!

One thing I wanted to add on a conceptual level is that there are many sequencers out there, my advice is not to just build any old sequencer. Dont try to just emulate features on other sequencers. What makes the DS special is the touch element and dual screens so it would be great to see a sequencer that was making the best use of this. Things like:

- Being able to draw your own LFO's and then have that LFO sync to the clock (or not) and output to a midi controller
- Having a KAOSS pad that allows realtime tweaking of many controls as layers inc note/gate/vel/cc's etc and to have the motions record into the sequencer as layers
- Using the dual screens more by perhaps showing the midi output as scrolling text in the top panel?
- A synth editor page where you could "make" your own editing surface with knobs/sliders and add names/cc's to each and have them send on a particular channel, this could be saved on a per pattern per channel basis for deeper sound editing capability on external gear.

Anything allowing a touch interface to manipulate midi is fantastic.

Other features that would be nice:

-A midi mixer
-A song recording mode that recorded your movements between patterns/controls etc outside the actual pattern structure
-An arpeggiator which recorded into patterns and generated notes from the touch screen (some DS touch screen not input I have seen is very dull in that it simply repeats the note you have touched last, having a memory of 4 or 8 notes would make this more interesting).
-A way to export saved songs to midi files that can be archived on a PC

I was surprised that there is a drum tone generator in the earlier release, I imagine this takes some effort to make as a programmer. I would assume that most people using the DS as a midi controller and or sequencer dont need it to generate sounds at all but simply to generate midi events (speaking for myself). The unit doesnt have to produce any sounds in my opinion. Perhaps this would allow you to focus more on the midi aspect? If the machine was to generate sounds, it would be nicer to have a tone editor or browser to import wave files etc.

Are you going to include midi/wifi and Dserial cards into the new release?

Hope some of these comments are useful!!

Thanks again.

[no-fi]

I have a request - not sure if you implemented it already as I'm still waiting for my dserial edge card so haven't tried your first release yet - but a really useful thing for a step sequencer to do is have patterns longer than 1 bar pattern length.

have you ever played with an electribe? they do up to 4 bar patterns, with the current bar you're editing selected with a simple pair of arrow keys.... simple and effective, IMO.

the drawing an LFO thing sounds kinda cool.... maybe also something as simple as having a mode where the touchscreen becomes an xy pad... yeah I think there's something that does this already for basic MIDI ccs.. but what if you could route that xy pad to other things in the sequencer?

oh, and +1 for being able to export sequences to  (and from??) standard MIDI files!
:-)