Hey
I pinged the following off to R&D at Elektron because it seemed just too good an idea not to flag up - the seed came from user @PES (kudos) - I’ve just embellished it a bit !
Straw Poll +1s below if u like (what’s not to like !?!) - related suggestions welcome too
This machine is all about performance, right ? - so this is a performance enhancement to dream for (except it’s so easy to do and so elegant)
When in perf mode we currently have 6 mutes available on Trigs 1>6 - that’s a total waste of the other 10 buttons, no arguments, it’s a waste !
What if all 16 buttons could be configured in the same manner as the performance encoders, except they would only send two values equating to the active and inactive values (see comment at end too)
So it could be configured to be Delay send 0 and Delay send 100 etc etc (a few macros per trig would be nice, up to five like for perf encoder would be incredible)
Here’s the win win, you could assign Track level as a destination option in the setting menu for toggle - so you can have your mutes back and AND effectively have SOLO buttons …
You could set 3 mutes [level 0] and 1 unmuted [level 100] for a given trig ! = Solo
It’d need a bit of feedback on the screen to show you what you have pressed (e.g. the macro title in same area mute ‘leds’ are currently flashed)
I’d have the trigs configurable to be either latching or non-latching !
Eventually it could be extended to possibly allow programming chords into the buttons, assign note/vel/track -so you could play poly across tracks or play an arp on a track
Think about it, how sweet would it be to assign a trig with a note, velocity, track AND a ‘momentary’ SoundLock !! so you’d be able to set up a non-latching playable drum layout or a latching drone-fest !
There may need to be some thought about whether the macros act as relative or absolute, or even if the values are only sent for active state (ie toggles from current to assigned val)
A third press of the Perf button might bring up an overview of the 16 abbreviated button macro names !
Midi control data might also be configured and sent out, oh yeah !
You mean using the trig buttons to turn on and off destinations for the performance macros? I can imagine that being useful.
I think it’d be easiest to just use all the trigs and use the scale button to page through them. I mean, I’m spending the time doing the assignment for the macro once, (x50?! 10 knobs 5 controls each) I’m probably not going to be motivated to assign trigs too.
What about keep the first 6 trigs as mutes and use the other 10 for the corresponding parameter per page? That is on the first page it mutes the 1st button of each macro, 2nd button on second page, etc.
On the other hand, I have no idea what future plans are, but what about just letting us straight up swap macros or select them via the trig keys? That would feel a lot easier to keep track of and setup to me. It’s easy enough to copy a performance macro and make slight changes. As far as I can remember loading new ones is instant, so I think assigning them to trigs might be possible.
With the way you can load new sounds now, I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a mode that lets you “play” sounds.
page is disabled in perf mode anyway - so just 16 Perf buttons, that’s plenty !
i’m talking about new additional performance mode style macros, so there is only one/two permissible values per assignment (maybe up to 5 as with encoders) per button (ie a 1-bit switch instead of an 8-bit encoder)
Mute functionality can be maintained/extended and Solo modes can be configured - and e.g. Fx send gates , Instant transpose (per oscillator), level reductions aot mutes, drum hits, sustained notes, input jack mutes etc
really the possibilities are limitless if set up right
buttons can often be more powerful performance-wise than encoders imo
this is meant to be an instrument, right, the more useful things you can configure to perform with it the better surely, this just seems like a perfect extension of the existing functionality entirely in the spirit of the device
perhaps the other 3 pages could be enabled to allow the existing behaviour on one page and the macro buttons on another page and instrument hits (temporary soundlock overdubs) on the other pages !
This needn’t be complicated, but it can be powerful - especially if the the drum playback ‘hits’ could be recorded as soundlocks right into a track, rather than doing it slowly in grid mode !
The A4 engine is way powerful enough to pull this ‘kit play mode’ off - just see @void’s morphing kit videos
I never use the Performance Macros, for some reason my brain just tells me “you can do this later”, but this “later” hasn’t happened so far.
What I absolutely love though is using the Pattern Direct Start & Jump modes.
Press a button --> BOOM, instant awesome. Very cool for switching to another pattern just for a short duration… All sorts of funky stuff happens with the sound, especially if the FX settings are radically different between the kits that are used…
The proposed use of the Trig buttons sounds like the same level of fun.
(There’s still the matter of setting it up… what about if there was a simple way to set the encoders/buttons to interpolate/switch entire sounds/kits? If setting up a performance macro was as simple as dialing in a sound-lock is, I would use this ALL THE TIME.)
indeed, the good thing about buttons is that you KNOW what you’re getting - gives confidence, i’m sold on this, i will sob if anyone comes up with a valid reason it can’t happen … eventually !
As you guys say, using buttons to switch values/states can be more enjoyable…as you can on the OT when changing scenes with the cross fader fixed in one position. When switching patterns the fx and parameters create interesting transitions themselves.
I can’t help but think it may be a bit ambitious though. All of these extra (upto 16) macro assignments will add a load onto the CPU and may not be such an easy thing to implement. As mentioned above, it would be a laborious task assigning that many parameters to all those macros…just for one pattern!
Why not simplify this idea so… The 16 buttons store the values of the existing 10 performance macros only , like presets (or scenes)?
You could always press the perf button one more time to access the mixer/mute page.
Maybe. Extra CPU load for non essential features still may not be considered though.
Assigning buttons to store values of the existing perf macro controls seems a more straightforward way to realise Avantronica’s suggestion of utilising the buttons.
from what I can tell the A4 has more than enough headroom in that regard.[/quote]
i’m not sure it adds anything to the cpu - it can instantly change sounds (sound locks per trig) - it can never be more demanding than that - it’s just setting up playback of an analogue voice, it’s not more voices in a VA synth - it does seem like it’s sounding complicated (the macro business) to folks …
The default could be just Mutes and Solos, no need to go in there ever if it’s not for you, but for the adventurous, the potential is there in an intuitive logical extension of existing functionality - it does seem to be resonating with a few commenters that buttons are indeed a satisfying interaction conduit
Those 10 dead spare buttons on the performance page never cease to annoy me - making them All performance macros/snapshots/sound-hits/toggles/solos/mutes/etc seems like a no brainer - it needn’t be as deep as the encoder configurations, but if it were possible to assign multiple actions per trig it is a ps easy way for Elektron to give folks the one-finger Mutes & Solo buttons many have been crying out for - that for me is the dullest use of the potential but it should make the ‘performance’ potential clear
It’d just be up to Elektron to deliver it in a way that worked for them - we have so many cryptic button combos going on yet we have these big f*g buttons doing fk all right at the front of the machine in performance mode - the genesis of the idea wasn’t even mine, although I’d pondered 5 macros attached to Fn+[Sharp Keys] - i do think my idea of having a soundlock attributed to a Trig macro is genius though, particularly if the act of playing it could be recorded in Realtime mode - so much easier than current method, especially for drum hit programming
It just seems to make sense and fit and enhance !
brilliant suggestion ! + add defeats for track slides and accents too, all at no effort to Elektron besides a bit of coding - the sorta thing i see people hankering for here all the time - anything this directly performance related and conceptually easy is sure to strengthen the case and get them thinking !
hmm… ideas can always sound better than they are, there’s definitely something to strive for in this area though - I think the notion that a button can have two values at either the off or on state might need some thinking through, might need to be just my latter thought that it’d be a toggle on value(or increment) that reverts to the current (or sequenced value) then there’s what d’ya do with the sequencer variations if you’re toggling a value that’s plocked already
i think the most flexible/fun system would allow absolute shifts (jump to this value), relative shifts (e.g. drop/raise a param as Perf Enc) and permanent shifts (ie a non-latching way to set the sound parameter to a discrete value, a few buttons could be configured to play a parameter)
having said that, some ideas already mentioned would be far simpler conceptually and give instant performance potential …
i’m sure there’s more thinking to be done to get the balance right !
Anyway, if Elektron are curious, the original idea started in this thread, 6th comment onwards
There are cases where buttons have had more than two states.
Off - On - On(dim) etc…
But then toggling modes becomes cycling through modes. Perhaps not ideal.
imo the A4 could benefit from something that is both simple and gives mad results…
like on the MD when you hold FUNCTION and tweak the knobs, it will tweak that parameter for all tracks, relative to where it was, regardless of the machine in that track… pretty good. this could be adapted to the A4, they must have they’ve tried & tested stuff like this but then not put it in the final OS?
you could pretty much do that destruction now with the encoder perf settings, buttons are just so much more immediate and direct, i’d even be supportive of a mode extension for encoders which gave a switch mode (a bit like the 1bit amplitude modulation settings) so it just sent one value when active !
- the sorta thing i see people hankering for here all the time - anything this directly performance related and conceptually easy is sure to strengthen the case and get them thinking !