Faster pick and place with a user-customizable sample palette

[krx]

Executive Summary:
Current situation:
Pick and place of samples via the menu/knob interface is relatively slow and tedious due to the (tiny) bit of menu diving involved. Project wide and menuless(!) access to a set of favourite samples would greatly enhance the composition workflow.

Workflow improvement suggestion:
Implement a customizable pick & place palette that provides fast & direct access to (up to) 32 frequently used samples (each with their individual sound parameters) that are available for pick & place (and preview) across the entire project.

What is the problem?

Pick and place of previously unused samples can only be achieved with the on-screen menu + encoder. A faster, alternative that follows the Plays pick & place paradigm would greatly improve the workflow:

What do you want to achieve?

Use the (rightmost) 4x8 pad area on the Play for an addtional ‘sound palette’ view that enables fast and menu-free(!), pick & place access to a user-created selection of frequently used samples.
The sound palette area can hold up to 32 user-selected samples (each with its related audio-settings of course, just like to any regular soundevent on the grid) and is quickly accessible and re-usable across the entire project.

Copy/Pasting sound events to the palette should work similar to the copy/paste interaction on the regular beat-grid.

The interaction with the sound palette should work similar to interacting with the Plays onboard keyboard view (e.g. it should support: pick & place, preview, live record …just like the regular keyboard view).

Access to the sound palette view could be achieved by a short press on the “View” button to rotate through the available view pages:
→ default (mute/solo/…) view → keyboard view → palette view → […]

Bonus: Add the ability to trigger each slot in the palette via incoming Midi notes.

Are there any workarounds?

• Improvised palette for pick and place (0:45):

Basic Orientation & Workflow Guide Pt. 2 // Polyend Play Tutorial

Any links to related discussions?

• This wish here is a simplified version of a previous idea: A palette of samples for fingerdrumming and live-recording, playable via MIDI
• Similar Idea with additional color coding: Select and view samples in Keyboard sample pool
• One more thought: Fingerdrumming-style input on the palette could be recorded live into the currently selected track by using the exact same interaction as it is implemented in the keyboard view already (select track[s] → press record → play live).

Any references to other products?

Somewhat related:

• Drum Racks in Ableton live
• User defined color- or asset palettes in graphics software

[ambivalence]

seems like this recent wish is the same in its core, but also has a proposition to use color-code:

Select and view samples in Keyboard sample pool

(First time? See Writing a good feature request) Load samples in the Keyboard sample pool (4x8 grid (mute,solo,variation and select)). Load a maximum of 32 samples in the keyboard view where you can easily select them and see where the samples are placed on the grid. Samples that are used on the grid-tracks are in different colors on the grid and on the keyboard (colors can be the ones like in the perfom view), so we can easily see where the samples are on the grid to easily select and edit the…

which was also partially asked for:

Color coded instruments by folder name

Ability to see the notes of a pattern color coded based on the folder they are in. For example, all kick samples are red and all hats are yellow. Customizing your own colors would also add a level of aesthetic individuality to your pattern visualizations. What is the problem? When you place many notes into the pattern, it becomes difficult to remember which one is which instrument. What do you want to achieve? The ability to at a glance see where the different instrument types are within a pat…

all of the three wishes are great and make sense.

[icaria36]

Thank you, @krx and @nevenbucevic. This would be an improvement over the current “sacrifice” of one track to serve as audio palette, interim solution that @creativeunderdogs has publicized in their videos.

One design question is how users can get there or even discover this function without reading the manual. There are several suggestions that imply adding more pages to the current views. I guess you can get a ring of pages by using the same key combination. In this case, users would press View to rotate from the default Mute-Solo-etc to the Keyboard to the Palette (to the Finger drumming?), etc.

[nevenbucevic]

Thank you

Another good advantage from @creativeunderdogs solution would be when you select a sample (if its in use) from the Drum fingering pool (32 samples from the right) it would be possible to see it in the audio sequencer pool and easily edit it.

Shortcut can be View + Perform

[krx]

Thanks @icaria36
I updated the wish to integrate your design suggestion.

[creativeunderdogs]

wow just wanted to add thanks for taking my little idea to the next level! Until it goes through, you can set it up on a “far off variation” for now at least also to compensate you could copy that to other tracks so you can switch through on different tracks.

[krx]

I wanted to give this idea a small bump, wondering if it slipped through the cracks in the recent wave of noise here…

@borsuk @Hans @miropoly is there anything that prevents this from becoming an actual wish that people can vote on? I’d be happy to do more refinements if necessary.

I see some potential that direct access to a set of frequently used samples could dramatically speed up most people’s workflow. (Disclosure: including mine ).

[Hans]

@here Thanks for your wish. It’s now ready for voting