Personally, I wouldn’t really be all that interested in something that would be run off of my keyboard. If I were designing a VST groovebox, I think that I would be trying to design something that could work seamlessly with a MIDI controller.
In any case, I don’t think that the thing I want really fits with what you want. But I have thought a fair bit about what my perfect groovebox would be. And this is as good a place as any to lay it out.
Personally, I’m mostly interested in using samples. So it would be sample based. What I would like is something like my old Sampletrak where you can record samples into the memory and then assign them to the pads. I don’t like the SP-404 style of things where you record to the pads. I think it’s slower and clunkier than it needs to be.
On the Sampletrak, the way things work is that you can assign a sample to any pads you want. From there you can edit the start and end points of each pad. If you want to truncate the sample then the machine will look for the first start point and the last end point and delete anything outside of that. I like that. Even without a dedicated slice mode, chopping samples is very fast. I think that’s also down to the fact that you can mark things by ear, scroll through the sample with the little wheel, and precicely edit with the arrow keys. I would like to replicate that kind of hands on system. You can also pitch each pad. So you can play them chromatically if you want to.
I think that it’s the easiest to use and most flexible of the old phrase samplers. I like it a lot. And I would like for the pad section of my groovebox to work in basically the same way. My only problem with the Sampletrak is that you only get 3 banks of 8 pads. I think I’d want 8 banks of 16 pads so that each pad could be triggered with a MIDI note.
On the sequencer side, I would like things to work more or less like the Digitakt. I would like 8 tracks with all the same parameters. I would want 2 modes. One would be chromatic. By default, I would want it to play whatever pad is active chromatically or in a scale of your choosing. But I would also like an option to assign certain pads to certain note ranges. In addition, I would like a pad mode. In this mode, you just sequence the pads. And since the pads are just a sample and some parameters, I would want the sequencer to be able to override those parameters with parameter locks. So, for example, you could repitch a pad on a given step.
One thing I would add would be an additional filter to the filter section. A lot of times, when I’m using my Digitakt I wish that I could run a track through a proper high pass and a low pass instead of the little base width filter thing.
From there, I would have an fx section. i like the options on the Digitakt and the Digitone. I like the reverb, delay, and chorus. I like the Digitakt’s compressor section. I would set things up about the same way. One thing I would add would be the option to run tracks through each other. So, for example, you could route your melodic tracks to one track and filter them all as a group. It would also be great to be able to run an external track through a track. I think it would also be fun to have the option to send tracks to the fx pre fader if you want to. Finally, I would want the fx to have their own track so that they can be sequenced, as well.
I also really like the way that patterns and scenes work on the Circuit Rhythm. Each track runs at the same tempo as the other tracks, or at a division of the tempo. Other than that, they’re independent of one another. They can have different lengths and be cued or changed independently. You can also save combinations of them with mute states as scenes and then trigger those. I really like the way that works together. I would like something like that. But I would want to add instant scene changes. I think that you could have a lot of fun jumping between scenes, especially if that involves moving through different fx states.
On the more nuts and bolts side of thing, I think saving kits and instruments would get messy in a system like the one I’m imagining. One option might be to save banks of pads. And I think that for saved instruments, ones with pads assigned to note ranges, I think it could work by saving all those settings. Then when you load it into a new project, it could create those pads on whatever pads you have available. Also, I think that you probably shouldn’t be able to truncate a sample that’s already been saved since a saved sample might be used by another project.
I think it would also be nice to have a way to import pads one by one. I think that an option might be to have an import mode where you can open the pads of another project and choose which pads you would like to import.
In any case, what I would like to see is something like the Digitakt’s plus drive where files could be named, renamed, moved to different folders, etc. The fact that things didn’t work this way on the Lofi 12 XT, kind of killed that instrument for me. If that system wasn’t so annoying to use, I think that I could have got over the clunkiness of the rest of the UI. I also think that you should be able to choose whether or not you want recordings to be saved by default. The one thing I don’t like about the Digitakt is that if I’m just experimenting I need to unload a sample and then delete it from the rec folder if I don’t want it. But I also understand not wanting to lose something you forgot to save. And that’s how I generally prefer things as far as patterns go.
As far as the physical interface, I’m imagining something like a Circuit Rhythm or a Polyend Play where there are pads that can trigger sounds or be sequencer steps. That would mean at least 32 pads. Plus things like shift and bank buttons.
As far as screens and knobs go, I really like the Elektron way of doing things where every option on the screen has a corresponding knob to adjust it. It lets you get a little menu divey without it being too painful. I mainly just don’t want a touch screen or one of those old style text displays.
Basically, I would like someone to smash together all my favorite things about my Digitakt, my Sampletrak, and my Circuit Rhythm. I want something that can sample and delete things very quickly so that I can sketch things out and maybe discard them without much set up like my Sampletrak. I want my favorite aspects of sequencing on my Digitakt and Circuit Rhythm. And I want something at least as painless as the Digitakt’s file system.
Oh, and I want it to be able to stem everything out with something like Overbridge.
If anyone wants to make this, all I ask is that you give me one.
