Firmware / Web editor beta testing

[martin]

A new update after a short travel break. 3.0-a.8 is available on beta.

Changes:

@NewIgnis

It used to be a double tap in the previous versions and that works great! Use it all the time

The double tap is back. It resets control’s value to its default

@NewIgnis

The 4 controls of an envelope generator can’t be controlled anymore. Whatever you assign the control to, seems like only the Decay part is responding

The Envelope details are finished now. It is a bigger piece of work - as of now Electra can create a sub-pagew. That is now used for the Envelope details. The detail page consists of an envelope drawing and a set of visual knobs for each envelope parameter.

@martin

The behaviour will change a bit. The value will not be changed by touching the absolute position in the area of the control, but by the relative movement. I have done something like that with the lists already. swipe right gesture increases the index and swipe left decreases it.

The touch on faders does not set their absolute way, instead swiping left and right decreases/increases their value.

@jhh

Envelope controls (ADSR etc) are hard to select (they require quite a long press, and touching the pot does not select the control either); after selecting the envelope the popup shows, but then no information about which pots could control the different parameters (the circles below the envelope) is shown, and actually the pots cannot be used to change the envelope; touch appears to work somewhat)

I keep the long touch to display the detail. That still collides with setting value of the default envelope parameter. That will be fixed in coming days. But, the the knob-touch + buttons combos have been added. Thus touching (holding) the knob and

• clicking the top-left button displays the control detail page
• clicking the middle-left button switches to the next multi-value control handle (eg. you can switch between attack - decay - sustain - release)
• clicking the bottom-left buttom switches to the previous multi-value control handle.

@jhh

toggle button with a light (eg white “on” colour) should invert its text colour to a dark shade (eg black); now it doesn’t so that in the “on” state the button text is barely readable.

Pad buttons handle the inverted text better now.

[martin]

@NewIgnis

can you give a general idea of what should be solved in 3.0 or will be solved in 3.0 from the following list?

Version 3.0 is basically a bigger change to how Electra’s firmware is structured. It is basically a reflection of many feature requests and issues discussed on the forum. The changes I am making bring the features/fixes or at least make it possible to implement these later. In other words, not all will be fixed in 3.0. But it should be much easier to implement these things in later versions. Another reason for making 3.0 is to make the firmware fully opensource and let other people to work on that with me or use Electra for their own projects.

@NewIgnis

issue: running out of memory

3.0 will use memory in better way. It should resolve some of the issues.

@NewIgnis

coloring unused controls darker

There will be changes to the visuals. The current beta version is really work in progress. I put more focus on how things work, ignoring the visual styling for now. I suggest not to make any design decisions based on current beta version.

@NewIgnis

when changing pages, always move the focus to the upper part

That should be possible by setting the Default control set for the page.

@NewIgnis

ability to process longer received Sysex messages, so the patch parsing can be made to work

@NewIgnis

the ability to also control some global synth parameters such as the Vibrato LFO, but globals save doesn’t work yet as sysEx messages to send are limited to 256 bytes

For now the limits are the same, but 3.0 is ready for supporting much longer messages.

The other points, I reflect them during the work on 3.0. All valid and makes sense to do something about them.

[jhh]

Dear @martin thanks for the update. Looks good so far, at least for the Ableton integration perspective.

Once the UI has been fixed, and LUA and JSON changes/extensions have been documented, I will make the final adjustment to the remote script and push that to the public repository (assuming that by that time 3.0 is no longer beta).

[martin]

3.0-a.9 is available on beta.

Changes:

• clean up the visual style of faders, pads, groups (not final but looking better I’d say)
• dim groups when they are not part of the active control set
• add support for different types if active control set (none, dim, bar, background)
• add switch active control set with touch
• add support for “Touch switches control sets” and “Reset active control set” features
• fix colour of fader on the detail page

[NewIgnis]

I tried a new preset in development .

• The preset, as made with a 2.X version so far , does not want to change from page 1 to another page.
• In fact none of the 6 buttons are responding. EDIT : after rebooting the left buttons started reacting, as well as the lower right. But only for a limited time…
• The visuals are looking better indeed.
• Touch switches control sets still suffers: it 's very difficult not to touch a control without inadvertently changing its value (I’m desperately not trying to swipe )
• I can’t get a good representation of the text overlay for a control with a negative minimum display value. Go check both controls ‘SEMITONE’ on page 1. They have been given 2 different text overlay lists, but none is well represented, i.e. show “-4 octaves” at MIDI value = 0 and “CENTER” at MIDI value 48. Electra One App
• Is it intended behaviour that the texts of overlay’s are now no longer capitalized, but the control and group names still are?
• After changing the configuration to “Dim” mode for non active control set. The preset frooze after tapping the screen 3 times. Could not replicate this.
• When tapping a pad on a dimmed control set, the pad changes its value and the control set is moved. That is not desired. What I would suggest is that when you type a pad in a non active control set, you can configure any of two options (and maybe current behaviour as a third…)
  • or the active control set is changed without pad value change
  • or the pad value change is triggered without changing the active control set

Keep up the good work @martin

[martin]

@NewIgnis

Touch switches control sets still suffers: it 's very difficult not to touch a control without inadvertently changing its value (I’m desperately not trying to swipe )

The idea is to move away from the long touch. Note that the detail can be recalled by holding the knob and pressing the top-left button. That opens the detail window. The middle-left and bottom-left can be used to switch the active segment of the multi value controls.

@NewIgnis

When tapping a pad on a dimmed control set, the pad changes its value and the control set is moved. That is not desired. What I would suggest is that when you type a pad in a non active control set, you can configure any of two options (and maybe current behaviour as a third…)

• or the active control set is changed without pad value change
• or the pad value change is triggered without changing the active control set

Such configuration option is (basically) available already. Check the UI features of the config - “Touch switches control sets”

I will review / retest other stuff you reported.

[martin]

3.0-a.10 is available on beta.

This is a big one. We are getting close to having all features of 2.2 on 3.0 branch.

Changes:

• midi routing supported in the same way as on 2.2
• changing presets added
• USB host ports configuration added
• MIDI learn enabled
• external MIDI control added

Now, not saying it is final version, but there is a change in switching pages / presets / banks / usb host ports. What I am trying to reach is that all these “windows” will be accessible via the bottom-button. As there is a change in the way the firmware handles buttons, this makes it possible to allow users (in the future) to configure functions of other five buttons. It is a very frequently asked feature.

so, currently it works as follows:

1. pressing and holding the bottom-right button will display the Page selection window. The pages can be switched with knob touch or the LCD touch. Once the button is released, the window disappears.

2. if the middle-right button is pressed while the page selection window is shown (thus while the bottom-right is still pressed), the preset selection is displayed.

3. The same applies to the USB host ports config. if the top-right button is pressed while the page selection window is shown (thus while the bottom-right is still pressed), the preset selection is displayed.

4. Once you switch to preset or USB host selection. The buttons do not need to be held pressed any more. The windows stay on the screen. They can be closed by pressing their button again.

I must admit I like that this way, I can use my right hand to navigate the windows and the left hand to pick the pages, presets, banks.

Any feedback and suggestions are welcomed.

The last bit I am going to work on now is adding the Snapshots and the brightness control. Once these are in, I will focus on testing everything. When it proves to be stable, I will add a few first new features and will make it an official public release, along with fully updated docs for all parts of the system.

[Abbes]

That’s great ! . I always loved the “hold” (or sometimes named “gate”) behiavior of a pad/button .I love that on the push 2 when you are on note mode and want to launch a clip . Just press session with your right hand then push the clip pad with your left and release your right hand . I was looking for this function on the stream deck . IMHO It is a faster/ more convinient way to make breafly appear and select new options .

[jhh]

@jhh

Slider value not shown in rare cases.

When sending the MIDI CC message &40 &00 to a control with value range -120 to 120 (i.e. the exact middle value) the slider does not show a value; in all other cases it does.

Example preset (it concerns the controls Mid Gain and Gain) and corresponding LUA formatter attached; see picture (apologies for the poor quality: screen is very reflective - there should be a way to make screenshots on the E1

function formatdB (valueObject, value)
  return (string.format("%.1f dB",value/10))
end

ChannelEq.epr (5.1 KB)

@martin I still see this behaviour on the latest beta 3.0-a10

[jhh]

@martin

@NewIgnis

Touch switches control sets still suffers: it 's very difficult not to touch a control without inadvertently changing its value (I’m desperately not trying to swipe )

The idea is to move away from the long touch. Note that the detail can be recalled by holding the knob and pressing the top-left button. That opens the detail window. The middle-left and bottom-left can be used to switch the active segment of the multi value controls.

Hm… from UI perspective that seems to be sub-optimal; especially because for ADSR style controls as an ordinary user I wouldn’t expect that touching it would change anything (as it is completely unclear WHAT would be changed when touching it in the first place)

[jhh]

When sending the LUA command “local group = groups.get(4)# group:setLabel(“4 Audio”)” to the E1 with The Abelton Mixer patch shown using

ElectraOne/lib/sendmidi dev "Electra Controller Electra Port 1" syx 0, 33, 69, 8, 13, 108, 111, 99, 97, 108, 32, 103, 114, 111, 117, 112, 32, 61, 32, 103, 114, 111, 117, 112, 115, 46, 103, 101, 116, 40, 52, 41, 10, 32, 103, 114, 111, 117, 112, 58, 115, 101, 116, 76, 97, 98, 101, 108, 40, 34, 52, 32, 65, 117, 100, 105, 111, 34, 41

then the string ‘4 Audio’ is written over the original string ‘TRACK X+3’ resulting in the following garbled output.

However, switching away to another page and then switching back, the new label is correctly shown like this

[NewIgnis]

This behaviour was already there before , i think, at least with with set name (i’m not sure about set label)

[martin]

@jhh

Hm… from UI perspective that seems to be sub-optimal; especially because for ADSR style controls as an ordinary user I wouldn’t expect that touching it would change anything (as it is completely unclear WHAT would be changed when touching it in the first place)

Valid point. I will disable changing of the control value with the touch for the time being. @NewIgnis came with similar feedback. And I will keep looking for way how to do it better. I must admit I like the ease of using it for changing values of the faders quickly. Any suggestions are welcomed.

[jhh]

@jhh

Yes, looks good without MIDI Pipe so far. A few glitches (although some may be intentional, and none are showstoppers)

• Bummer: LOG messages only sent on CTRL port

• Selecting a slot sends two ACKs

• The preset changed message
  0xF0, 0x00, 0x21, 0x45, 0x7E, 0x02, 0x05, 0x00, 0xF7
  in response to a select slot
  0xF0, 0x00, 0x21, 0x45, 0x09, 0x08, 0x05, 0x00, 0xF7
  is sent over CTRL (not the port over which the select slot was received)

@Martin version 3,0-a10 still sends the response to a preset changed message ONLY out over CTRL (not the port over which the select slot was received). Let me know if that is intended behaviour; then I’ll update the remote script

[jhh]

@NewIgnis

This behaviour was already there before , i think, at least with with set name (i’m not sure about set label)

I don’t think I noticed it in 3.0a9.

[jhh]

@martin

@jhh

Hm… from UI perspective that seems to be sub-optimal; especially because for ADSR style controls as an ordinary user I wouldn’t expect that touching it would change anything (as it is completely unclear WHAT would be changed when touching it in the first place)

Valid point. I will disable changing of the control value with the touch for the time being. @NewIgnis came with similar feedback. And I will keep looking for way how to do it better. I must admit I like the ease of using it for changing values of the faders quickly. Any suggestions are welcomed.

For faders it makes sense to have this, but not for ADSRs

[martin]

@jhh, not intended. It will be fixed. All Electra messages that are sent as responses to sysex commands must be sent back on the same port as the original command was received.

I am finishing my work on the snapshots. When done, I will go through the list of reported issues again, to clean it up…

[martin]

@jhh

For faders it makes sense to have this, but not for ADSRs

yup, but then there is kind of inconsistence between behaviour of different types of the controls.

[NewIgnis]

I was referring to following similar bug reports but on setName:

Utilizing control:setName makes control appear on random pages

Steps to reproduce: create a Pad of any type on page 1 in slot 1 create a second Pad on page 2 in slot 2 (slot 1 on page 2 needs to be empty) follow the Lua tutorial to parse the patch name from a device’s Sysex respsonse initiate a Patch Response Observed behavior: when page 1 is active, the Pad’s name is updated correctly with the received Patch Name when page 2 is active, the Pad from page 1 is appearing on page 2 (or any other active page), once the Patch Name is received Workaround: …

group:setLabel for group on different page overwrites group label at same slot in visible page

Suppose a preset has 2 pages, page 1 visible. When changing the name of a group on page 2 by sending a LUA function like ‘local group = groups.get(21)# group:setLabel(“B-Return”)"’, this ALSO overwrites the group name shown on page 1 at the same visible location. But only temporarily: when switching to page 2 and then back to page 1 the true group name is shown again.

[jhh]

@NewIgnis

I was referring to following similar bug reports but on setName:

Utilizing control:setName makes control appear on random pages

group:setLabel for group on different page overwrites group label at same slot in visible page

Yeah, but those have been fixed (as far as I can tell); this new bug concerns overwriting the new name without first clearing the space where the old name was.