Are the available grid layouts not fitting your play style? No problem, just create your own.
What should this feature achieve?
We should be able to add custom grid layouts. I wouldn’t necessarily go use a dedicated editor for this feature, actually having a human-readable JSON file for each grid layout would be more than enough (which links my wish to Store Everything in Plain Text Files).
Are there any workarounds?
Not as far as I know. We must deal with the available grid layouts and that’s it.
I was considering proposing much the same myself but I suspect it would need a (simple?) app to do it, but that would be fine by me. Once defined in an app a generated file could be copied onto the SD card (and shared). I think there are much more usable layouts of keys in a the 3x3(?) grid that would be also be suitable for different scales.
Once I’ve worked out how to vote for it I certainly will!
Definitely an app or a “grid layout editor” inside the Synth is superior, but it’s also (much) higher development times.
What matters really with “open files” is that they need to follow a predictable structure and pass validation. With JSON files you can assist that using https://json-schema.org/ for instance. That’s certainly enough for “power users” (for the remaining, yes, an editor will be needed).
From there, the synth has to trigger file validation before showing custom grid layouts on the UX. How/when/at what CPU cost? That needs to be explored by engineers.
I don’t see an editor built into the Synth as a good thing. The device is complicated by various different functions already. An app would be much easier to use, can do the validation, and it’s not hard to implement it once it’s made. Whilst I would be happy with using a text file - json, xml or whatever, but since they don’t use them now I don’t see it as a good option to add that. To keep on adding things becomes destructive rather than constructive.
(I wanted to see the Chord Editor, but trying to use it? Not fun. Would have been easy to use had it been an external app.)
I think we should be clear about what we each want with this. I guess, some just want to re-arrange the blocks. I want to be be able to make layouts of the individual notes within the blocks. Both are valid things to want - my own preferred (hopefully ideal!) layout would be done in an existing block layout, but I can see that custom block layouts has value as well.
Polyend tried custom layouts but in testing it was underutilised so they opted not to pursue it fully:
PC:Synth allows the user to define the grid space and shape for each instrument, making for a very open-ended approach that I’m certain many users will develop their own personal takes on. What have been some of your favorite ways to arrange and interact with the customizable layout in Synth?
PR: We have been researching grid layouts for a long time. Initially, we developed an open grid editor that allowed users to define which pad was responsible for each engine. We also created a few obvious grid layouts as examples of what could be achieved. After completing this, we sent the feature to our test group.
However, we later discovered that none of the participants were using their custom grids, everyone opted for one of the pre-made presets. We found that we were no different in this regard. As a result, we decided to create more layout presets and abandon the complicated editor solution.
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I personally find the presets adequate. I never felt “I wish I could change it to x” as to me, the most logical ones are already presets but I guess if this goes through, y’all can campaign for it and see if it has enough interest…
For me, pretty quickly I’ve been missing a 2x8 layout for organising a chord pack, leaving the rest for different usage.
Test groups are great, but also they are biased. I don’t think you should see product discovery as a unique event, but rather as a loop where your previous assumptions are going to be challenged by the next iteration(s). For me that’s pretty much what’s happening as the initial version of a product is release and the team is now considering new feature requests.
Not entirely a duplicate. But since I started that one I really should have remembered about it! So I apologise for that. At that time I was only thinking about the blocking of the grid. Now I find I really would like different key layouts as well. But here I wanted to clear up whether this thread was began with that in mind, and what others wanted. Personally, I could use the existing blocking options to work for me, but the note layouts is a different thing and I think there are layouts that could be more useable. Maybe I’m alone in wanting that, I don’t know.
I think it would be amazing and almost a necessity these days. There are so many different grid configurations, 3x3, 4x4, etc., out fingers get accustomed to a particular format. I don’t believe it’s as uncommon as they think. Novation has components editor (https://components.novationmusic.com/). I think it’s incredible. I have created a pad configuration for my launchpad x that mimics my Ep133. I would like to do the same with polyend, but none of their machines support custom configurations. It’s a deal breaker. My fingers know the Ep133 configuration and I like it. I don’t want to muddy the waters. I am not a polyglot with my fingers.
Polyend, I love your play and am really curious about the tracker. A configuration editor, IMO, seems like a small ask?
At the moment the Synth only supports rectangular grids, and there is indeed a rather limited number of ways to distribute a grid of 12x5 pads into 3 rectangles (or less) without laving any blank spaces. That number becomes smaller when you eliminate functionally identical duplicates.
I have no clue how the ep133 maps pads to notes, and the manual does not explain that either, but at the moment the Synth only supports rectangular grids where pads are ordered on row from left to right and bottom to top.
So you can’t map note numbers to pads, you map scales to rectangles, and that might or might not work with your usecase.
If you read the thread, there was an editor, and people did not use it.
Custom blocking could partially do what you want but not completely. Custom key layouts might depend on how they are programmed, I think. The simpler way is not so flexible, a more flexible way is more complex. (It doesn’t say it wasn’t used - just that it was planned and scrapped, unless I was looking at the wrong thread.)
Ah thanks - I don’t think I’ve seen that before. That looks like it was just a grid block editor it’s not quite clear. I’d really like to rearrange the notes layout but I’ve accepted I ain’t gonna get it and that’s understandable. The grid blocks layouts existing would be fine with me.
Thanks for responding @Lizard-of-Oz. I hear you. I don’t doubt that it didn’t test well, and I understand that it’s a done deal.
But I do wonder what the uptake of novation’s components editor is. I can only speak for myself, and I think it’s a big asset. But it may not be as popular as I imagine it is.
For the time being I’ll read play’s docs and see what is possible and see whether it can work for me. Thanks!
I do understand that using the Grid as a controller for external gear just like a Launchpad is a really nice feature. There is no reason why that cannot be done, the hardware is all there, and the introduction of parts in the grid that are never routed to the engine would open a shitton of possibilities.
But that is is a wish that goes beyond the scope of custom Grid Layouts, that’s all I’m saying.
The best I came up with for the EP133 layout (I have one myself) would be 2 blocks of three columns and ignore the remaining columns. Of course if you could have four blocks of three columns it would be easy. (I wouldn’t particularly want it myself, but it would be a good layout.)
But it’s the arrangement of individual notes that I yearn for and the 3x3 blocks would be fine for that for me.