The minutes and seconds clock in the song view starts at 0m:00s no matter which slot you start playing from. I makes it hard to line up patterns in the song view with external gear, e.g. a DAW arrangement.
What should this feature achieve?
If starting to play from any position other than slot 1, the clock should calculate how much time would have elapsed since the beginning of slot 1 and start the counter from there.
For a graphical example, let’s say the song mode pointer was paused at slot 7 like in the image below. If “Play song” was selected and Play begins in the DAW, instead of the internal clock starting at “0m:00s”, the tracker would calculate how much time has elapsed in Slots 1-6 and add that to the time amount (for example 0m42s). That could help users better coordinate the DAW timeline with the Tracker song timeline, especially if the Tracker isn’t using the same time signature and/or a # of steps per pattern to match with the measure # in the DAW.
Are there any workarounds?
spending time counting everything and constantly screwing up which slot I’m supposed to be starting the tracker.
@ringmod606 did you update this topic from a regular post to a Wish? It’s all good! It’s just that you inspired me to write my own similar wish and I definitely wouldn’t have if I realised yours was a wish too when I first read it. I have no intention of stealing your Backstage fame or attention
Hi 3xm! Yeah, I was encouraged to add to the wish list several months ago, but only got motivated to post once the new firmware updates came out.
I think your wish list item is a bit more eloquent than mine and a much more rigorous solution! But I don’t know the technical requirements for adding SPP/MTC to the MIDI/USB specs versus just having the Tracker internally calculate song time elapsed at the current song pointer.
The Tracker also doesn’t necessarily need to have the same number of steps/beats in a pattern to match the DAW. Like if your track is 4/4 in the DAW but 5/4 in the Tracker, how would that work? The implementation might have to get complex and even more work-around-y.
You are using the word “just” which is always dangerous when it comes to programming Your Tracker and DAW would need a standardised way of syncing at what time they are. That is exactly what SPP and MTC is for (former is for syncing to the same MIDI beat, latter is for syncing to a timecode). And my best guess is that (at least one of) these would be the way to implement it, as Polyend would otherwise also have to convince DAW makers to add support for whatever new solution they come up with.
That’s where SPP is quite handy. It doesn’t really care about the time signature of your composition. It’s all about counting MIDI beats (which are 16th notes, according to Wikipedia). But, sure, it’s possible to still create a logical mess for yourself if you have different time signatures on the various devices involved in the syncing. You could even have a different BPM as well. That mess goes for both SPP and MTC. And probably also for any other way of trying to keep things in sync.
So…
Reading your wish again, I’m not sure if you are asking for a technical solution to keep the Tracker in sync with your DAW (the title of your post points in that direction) or if you are simply asking to have the clock on the Song page start at something that reflects how much time would have elapsed if the song had been playing from the beginning to where you are playing from (which is what I’m reading from the “achievement” section), to help you do some sort of manual syncing/alignment with your DAW?
I’m not sure if you are asking for a technical solution to keep the Tracker in sync with your DAW (the title of your post points in that direction) or if you are simply asking to have the clock on the Song page start at something that reflects how much time would have elapsed if the song had been playing from the beginning to where you are playing from (which is what I’m reading from the “achievement” section), to help you do some sort of manual syncing/alignment with your DAW?
why not both.gif
But seriously folks, either of those solutions would save me gobs of time when I am constructing things in song mode.
Sure, both would be nice. But I think you need to decide on one of them in order to have the wish accepted by the Polyend staff.
When you’ve decided whether you are asking for the simple clock or the full sync solution, please update the wish accordingly and be clear about what you are asking for.
As I created the other wish for SPP/MTC support, you might want to go for the simple clock wish. It might also be easier for the developers to implement (and be a step towards SPP/MTC suppport). But I’m not offended if you consider that a biased advice from my side
Cool! I think, in order to have things as concise as possible, it would be nice to clean up the full wish and update each section with what you are wishing for, instead of appending an “edit” section. Does that make sense? I don’t mind doing it if you agree and don’t want to do it yourself.
I also just got yet another idea while reading your updates. I believe some people actually like how the current clock works. They work in a less linear way and just jumps around patterns more improvised, maybe don’t even use the song mode at all. And in that case, it’s very useful that the clock starts at 00:00 when you press play, to let you know how long your current live jam has been running. So, with a high risk of confusing more than helping, maybe the white top bar could have 2 different clocks: One counting like today, and another for the calculated time into the song (projects might have a Clock Display setting allowing you to toggle either of them).
