Oh yeah and everytime a mod slot source is adjusted to either Minimum or Maximum, E1 freezes completely.
Would be really nice if the LCD on the XT would correspond to the currently tweaked parameter. If that’s possible without making it go crazy with modulations etc
Same here. Some synths drown in possibilities, and it might often be better to have a preset with less parameters to speed up sound shaping. For one, I love to add a toggle pad that reduces 6 or 8 stage envelopes into plain old ADSR types, and I always add a ‘performance’ page which is similar between all presets. With the E1 mark 2 however we could develop side by side presets for the same synth: One extended, and one simplified. But that would mean they mutually influence each other while retaining bidirectional control with the synth.
Maybe an idea to renew interest in excellent but hard to tame synths?
Anyone ever tried to sync 2 presets simultaneously with each other and one single MIDI device?
Sorry for the long post - the coffee really kicked in.
First, thank you for actually spending some time to use the preset. I get so little feedback from what I’ve posted that I sometimes wonder if anyone actually uses these things.
Second - some of the bugs/issues you noticed are directly due to me developing the preset using an XT with the 30 voice expansion and latest OS.
That is why I wanted people to send me their configurations - eventually it should support all versions. If you look through the list of parameters on pages 110 and following, you’ll see some are marked with “!!” and in some other tables you will see “!!!”. The double means feature added/changed for OS 2.01 to 2.09 and the triple means it was added/changed for OS 2.09 to 2.16. My OS is 2.33, so there may be changes/features in 2.33 that are not in 2.16 or earlier.
MIDI – there’s 2 different MIDI things that need attention. The first is the Electra One MIDI channel and Port. Some synthesizers/effects need the correct MIDI channel set even if they are “talking” with sysex. In addition the Electra Port must be correctly chosen since there are 2 MIDI DIN ports available. The second MIDI configuration item is inside the device itself. The XT supports multis, so you can have sounds on different MIDI channels. You can set a global MIDI channel in the XT and each multi can have a MIDI channel set. There is also the Electra internal configuration that allows you to hook a keyboard up to the USB port and use that plus the preset to completely edit and play a synth. This is a configuration I have not tested because until the XT, everything else was an effects unit (or had a built in keyboard like the Micron) so there was no need.
The SYNC button.
This is an area I struggled with from the beginning of creating these presets. Sometimes (PCM 80, XT) a device has more than one possible configuration. Other times (DL8000R and others) there is very useful global information needed to make the entire editing experience smoother and easier for the user. It does not make sense in most cases to have a user start turning controls and pushing buttons without know exactly what they are editing. Some simple devices like the LXP-5, I can get the patch and at the same time grab some global data so it doesn’t need much extra steps. In general, the less manual configuration needed the better. Plus, I do not know how most users actually use these presets. Do you have an Electra dedicated to each box? Probably not. Do you start a preset, configure it a certain way then save it off as a Snapshot? I don’t know. What I do is boot up the Electra, choose a preset depending on what I want to edit, then sync it up with that device.
There’s also the desire to run the same preset on both the Mk I and Mk II hardware when possible. Sometimes that involves a compromise in the ‘nice to have’ areas like grabbing all the patch names at first.
Again - I have no idea how people use these presets since I get so little feedback. You, Kenoun, and maybe 1 or 2 others have made comments and that is all. Do people want to wait the extra minute to load all the preset names every time they start up or do they want to just go in and tweak a patch quickly? All these possibilities means an area that needs setting or at least a choice for the user.
My solution is to use a SYNC button to figure out what device is out there, grab any global data that might be useful and then allow the user to select a patch and edit. Most of the gear out there does not have a sysex message to “retrieve all patch names” so I have to loop through and request every patch by itself or a global dump of all patches. In either case, that is special code that is only used for that purpose, but I don’t think people want to see “Patch 1, Patch 2, etc” if I can display the names. For me, the SYNC button approach means that the Electra and the target device are on the same page/in agreement about all the basics on how to communicate. The goal is to minimize basic troubleshooting issues. If SYNC doesn’t work, there’s a more fundamental problem.
I do agree that a basic “here’s how to use my presets” would be good. “Go to the Config page, set the Electra MIDI channel and port, select if you want all patch names to be displayed, then press SYNC” and so on.
That is something I will do for sure.
Patch save - usually I do not put the save in at first because I do not want early bugs to cause a user to lose/overwrite a great saved preset. Once I am happy with how it is working, I will add a save. Temporarily you can go back to the hardware and save the edits there. This is also because Save involves more than just saving. You might want to rename it, change the location, verify that you do not want to overwrite an existing patch in that spot, and so on. The work is a lot more than what you see at first, so much care needs to be taken. The good news is that when I have a rename function, I can quickly move it from preset to preset with minimal changes.
I can’t tell you how to use the XT - lol. If there are controls that are not displaying properly all the time (like Volume?) then it is probably because I’m doing something wrong, but we (you and I) would have to check the actual hardware parameter to make sure the patch was not saved that way. Effects names - I have a comment in the LUA code to add a formatEffectType() routine to display the effect names. That has not been implemented yet.
There is a Mod Destination for LFO 1 rate and LFO 1 level and same for LFO 2. There are some very useful user tips and tricks scattered around the internet about getting the most out of the Waldorf XT/microwave/Blofeld/etc since they often share the same ideas (especially for the Mod section)
| fragletrollet
July 2 |
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Some comments:
You seem to have a “strategy” in how your presets should be used. Details like starting with tapping the “sync” button, and then the patch parse rubber knob to properly sync everything up.
You have midi selection in different menu’s(?): Globals and Config/Save
I thought the selection on the Globals page was referring to what channel it should send PGM CH on, but here it cuts any response to incoming midi if I change the channel to any but the one I use to control it with. I might be confused here, I just got a keystep pro I’m testing it with, and there is extensive, but functional midi routing involved.
It’s opposite with the midi selection on the Config/Save page, where nothing happens when I change the Midi Channel (while doing no change to the input sequence). I have not monitored the program change, but could these two control groups be reversed somehow? Or at least that the midi selection on the Globals page should be the Midi Channel selection of the XT itself (and therefor probably just like the Config/Save page)
Is saving patches supposed to be done with E1’s middle right button, or in other words let E1 do the patch management?
A sort of short intro page, where the correct use as mentioned in the preset description, would save many clumsy users like me who didn’t remember the whole scheme, and it took me a lot of headscratching to understand the proper, intended workflow. As in:
…
or something.
A question on the XT: is there no modulation of either LFO amp or vol etc? Nor Modulation Amount as an assignable modulation destination?
Is this where I need to use one of those mysterious Modifiers function I’ve never tried?
Hehe. The XT is so cool. But keep the Volume parameter low (Amplifier section), as it’s so easy to clip it. While that can and does sometimes sound awesome, being very gentle with the Volume (40 area), every other volume inflicting parameter maxed out, and then adding needed post gain with a preamp or plugin makes for a very different synth.
This preset makes me want re-discover this thing.
Thank you
On another note, I would love the real names of the effect selection, and preferably a list a list selection as not to browse so quickly between them all.
Great work as always
I missed the follow-up. The XT display in theory can be updated but the amount of work to do that would significantly increase the MIDI traffic, the size of the preset, the time it would take to develop the preset, and it would slow down the entire editing process and still not guarantee that the Electra and XT would be in sync all the time.
I’m still trying to find the magic combination of sysex button press commands to send to invoke the ‘random patch’ functionality from the Electra One, but that involves jumping around the screens from some unknown starting point…
I’ll look at the Min/Max freeze. I was having a freeze on patch A019 and was trying to determine the cause - maybe it was using a mod source of min or max …
Note that I’m on travel for the next 2 weeks and probably not taking the XT with me, so if I make any updates, they would have to be carefully considered ones since I cannot test the results of the change.
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My approach has been two thoughts to the problem. Most of the effects units I have been working with have great options, lots of parameters, and very minimal (or no) display, so there is a lot of scrolling and menu diving.
With these effects, I try to present a set of logical pages with the idea that a user is going to do some real editing. Most of the time, I do not like splitting 12 reverb parameters across 2 pages with the “most common” on Page 1 then the rest on Page 2 (for example). I feel that for effects sound design, each logical grouping should stay together as much as possible.
For the Waldorf XT, I took a slightly different approach. I tried to grab the parameters I think people use a lot to quickly change the sound, so there is a lot of duplication of existing front panel knobs from the XT onto the Electra One. This makes sense if the XT is located away from the E-1 and allows a quick sound sculpting. The other thought is that if you had the E-1 sitting next to the XT, it would make more sense to eliminate anything with a dedicated front panel control and focus on all the menu-diving parameters instead. The other big area for the XT is the Single vs. Multi sound organization. I think I can make it easier to see and edit a Multi on the E-1 than on the XT itself.
I try to use group boxes, different colors, etc to help the user distinguish each section, but again this is an area where I get little feedback, so I’m left to do it how I think is best.
Because the Electra One screen and encoder layout is uniform, it’s always going to be harder to develop the kind of muscle memory one gets from using a MiniMoog or Odyssey or something like that. Also, there is a certain point where the density of parameters means that even a single E-1 is not really helpful. A large computer screen with a nicely designed graphics interface would probably be the best solution. I have not seriously tried running two E-1’s in parallel with each one dedicated to part of the gear’s parameters. That’s an expensive solution for people for maybe not much benefit.
I do think there is a market for ‘performance’ presets. A subset of the total controls available that would make sense to use in a live/improv/jamming scenario. So you wouldn’t have access to editing an 8 stage time/level envelope, but you would have maybe attack/sustain/decay params, filter cutoff/resonance, some VCA/mixer controls, then some oscillator and LFO controls and that is all. I think with some practice you could get fast with that kind of minimal preset layout.
OK, fixed the Mod Matrix min/max thing - I had left out an option, so the count was off, and it could die.
Fixed the Effect Type - added names and spent an hour trying to figure out the best way to deal with the fact the effects are numbered internally 0-7,32,33,34
Ended up having to use a List Control, which I personally hate using because they feel very clunky in use (lots of turning to get it to slowly advance) - sorry @martin, but i just don’t like them, but in this case it was the only way to keep the control range, sysex buffer, and the parameterMap in sync.
Now I’m done for a bit today and most of this week.
Yes would be nice with a “shift + button up/button down” (one of the right buttons as shift, lower and upper right buttons for stepping up or down in the list) keypress combo to quickly and precisely step through a list
That’s always one of those “what is the best approach” kind of things.
On one of my presets I experimented with tapping the control when naming a patch and have the tap jump from lower case to upper to numbers to special chars. To me, those jumps make sense.
I can also see the jumps making sense on something like the PCM 80 patch selection control, similar to how the hardware works.
For lists of mod sources and destinations, it’s not always as clear where the jump points should be located.
To be honest, I think Martin has done an excellent job with the encoder ballistics and I’m usually able to quickly scroll to what I want.
There is also the issue of adding fancy details when the preset is still not finished and has other major issues.
OGG-
Chiming in after more than 3 months of exclusively non-studio-related work, all related to more or less emergency work on our home. That’s now out of the way. Still, the soonest I will get gear into correct wiring etc condition will be in another 2-3 weeks. As you know I am very determined to give back in the shape of user-level feedback for mW/XT (v2.33, 30-voice) and PCM80 with the Dual FX card…
/resyn
FWIW : parameter 160 is used twice : once as LFO1 shape , and once as LFO2 Symmetry
Tip for the LFO page: if you don’t want to overlap the LFO2 area with the ARP area , you may do something like
thanks - fixed the duplicate parameter number
Also tweaked the display as suggested - I like it.
