Still need to work on the patch save and I’m reluctant to implement the MultiMode stuff at this point unless there’s a large hue and cry for it.
A huge thanks to Nick McCabe’s (@NickMcC ) initial cut and to user @Red_Hector who did a whirlwind beta test over the weekend and provided much valuable feedback.
Note that I do not own a microWave and do not plan to buy one. I had thought the work done on the XT might be something I could leverage and I was kind of mostly correct.
I know there’s some differences between the original 1.0 OS, 1.2x, and 2.0, so if/when users test and play with this, feedback will be appreciated. Not having the hw in house is one reason I need to be careful about saving and such since I do not want to cause patch corruption and/or loss.
This preset is amazing, been using it every day. But there is one lingering bug that I really hope can be quashed:
The mixer levels for Wave 1, Wave 2, and Noise are broken.
Only levels 7 and 0 are interpreted correctly. 1-6 will give a zero on the Microwave.
OK - (I assume you were testing with version 0.92?)
If you were testing with o.92 and it was broken, try the current 0.93 and let me know what you see versus what the microWave is doing.
If you were testing with something earlier than 0.92, likely 0.93 will look the same.
NOTE - on the config/Save page is the alternate way to do it (according to the docs).
Let me know if either way works better (completely untested - just putting it out there)
In theory - pressing sync connects to the microWave and tries to get the global data. If that is successful then you can use the standard patch select control to get a patch for editing. Eventually, I need to get the Version string first to determine if the OS is 1.00, 1.25, or 2.x. That dictates what I can request and changes some controls and some ranges.
After that initial (behind the scenes) exchange, I would like to grab all the patches and parse out their names so that the user can scroll through patch names instead of A01, A02, … B32
The Mixer level controls are weird in that the microWave displays levels of 0 to 7 but the sysex documentation seems to indicate the MIDI range is 0 to 112 with every 16 MIDI values translating into another step.
My initial cut at the control was to simply send 0 to 112 to the microWave and display math.floor(value / 16) to the user.
Sending 0 to 112 is what the original microwave preset did (I think - have to look at the sysex for the controls again later tonight) so I’m confused why it wouldn’t be working now.
Again - doing a preset without having the actual device on hand is orders of magnitude more difficult and more time consuming because I can never test anything directly, so I’m doing the best I can with what I have.
Sending 0 to 112 is what the original microwave preset did (I think - have to look at the sysex for the controls again later tonight) so I’m confused why it wouldn’t be working now.
The original MW preset does not work either, tested again just now.
However, I has discovered what the problem is:
The 0-7 MW mix values are selected using 0, 16, 32, 48, 64, 80, 96, 112.
Any other value will give zero. Moving the encoder, it almost never stops exactly on those values, so either side of them it gives a zero on the MW.
Something new to play with – grab version 0.96, load up a patch, then go to Page 10 (no button yet).
The Wave envelope and loop stuff is now duplicated on Page 10, but with a different UI.
You can use the controls on the bottom or use the touch area to grab and move the envelope stages around.
Note that in the microWave (versus XT and others) many stages have time and level 0, so you may not be able to grab all of them at first since they all overlap.
Also, I tried to indicate clearly when you have an envelope in the Sustain section or in the Release section.
Play around, let me know what you think.
Note that this only works with the Mk II version of the Electra One.
It’s brilliant. Now I can actually see what the wave envelope is doing! A vast improvement. It all works very well, although I prefer using controls to dragging the points. But that may change.
You can use the controls along the bottom for the fine adjustments for sure.
I do like being able to see the shape and the loop area. The touch/drag thing is a nice bonus but not required. But it can be a fast way to ‘get it close’
For the XT, it’s even more critical since there’s a key on loop and a key off loop available.
Great preset, thanks a lot for sharing it! (Electra One MKII, Microwave OS 2.0). One thing I’ve noticed is that the snapshot function of the Electra One does not work in this preset, is this normal?
Thanks for your reply, I don’t think your preset could edit the Waldorf plug-in, because the plug-in is supposed to be controlled with host automation. BTW, I’m demoing the plug-in and it’s remarkable how close it sound compared to the hardware, but I didn’t even tried to use your preset to control it
I have tried to save E1 MW patches with the snapshot feature, but recall fails to load anything. I have never managed to get snapshots to recall saved patches with any preset, so now treat it as a dead feature.
The best way to control the MW1 plugin with Bitwig (and probably Reaper) is to use the Driven By Moss E1 preset, together with DrivenByMoss Bitwig extension, then map to controls using DAW mapping. I don’t think the MW1 plugin responds to sysex.
That should control E1->MW1_Plugin->Hardware_MW1
However, It is still nicer to use this E1 MW1 template to directly control the hardware MW1.
The plugin does sound amazing, but, it is not quite as good as the real hardware, IMO.
Note that I caved and ended up buying a rev A MW, so when I get back I should have the hw waiting for me, so doing things like implementing multimode and other things will be easier.