Hi I am playing with the midi performance mode on the (third?) beta on the OG play. 1.6
Can someone please add some information on how this is supposed to function?
When working with it I have this following interaction:
To set it up you have to set the correct CC values for the following interactions.
Cut-off, resonance, sample attack, sample decay, reverb send, delay send, overdrive and bit depth.
I am finding that when using the midi perform mode, deselecting the effect doesn’t reset the value to it previous values. So all the midi perform mode does is send pre-set values (for example 5, 10, 20 % etc) on the assigned CC channel.
This means that if I start with 0% filter cut off, I can increase this but selecting buttons in the column but the lowest value I can return to is the 5% on the top button.
Deselecting the column means effect doesn’t return it to 0%.
This gets messy when/if I skip a step in the set up. Say I know my analogue synth doesn’t have onboard effect so I don’t bother to set up a CC values for reverb and delay sends.
Now if in performance I accidently press a button in that column I have now sent an unknown value to an unknown CC, and that’s it the patch could be broken. I have to reset the patch on the synth to return it back to default.
Here are some humble suggestions to improve the mode:
At some point when, either exiting the midi set up page or entering midi perform mode, the values on the external synth are read, and that deselecting the midi effect sends this cached value to the external synth restoring the original value.
If reading values is not possible, then the top values of a column be 0% not 5 or 10% then you could at least send a zero value instead of deselecting the effect not doing anything, and that bottom row values are 100% for same reason.
And the best on would be a set up screen were you could assign all the following values;
Name ( eg, cutoff, resonance, etc) Column ( 1, 2, etc ) CC value( 92 etc ) Value range ( 0% to 100% etc, maybe incremental values too) and then possibly a default value for the unselecting the column.
Please offer any comment as it is entirely possible I have got usage completely incorrect, it would be great if devs or testers could describe what they had envisaged for how midi perform mode will work in the future. I am sure some good suggestions could come from the forum.
No, that’s a good idea.
But wouldn’t having a CC value in the sequence interfere with the midi jam mode.
My main point is that deselection doesn’t return a value to its previous state.
Bear in mind that you might want, for example, a filter at 100% as the default state, it’s not necessarily about returning a value to zero.
Yeah I think it’s a fair assessment. What’s cool about the OG Sample performance mode is that you could FSU to your hearts content, and then turn off Performance and go back to your tune unmodified.
I would expect the MIDI performance to function in the same way, although I totally get that MIDI brings functional challenges to that.
It’s like the Play needs to take a snapshot of MIDI values for any tracks that get engaged during MIDI Performance, and then send those values back when MIDI Performance is disengaged. Definitely not a small task.
While 1.6 OG-Play was a good release,
more development on the midi implementation would be greatly appreciated, and I have questions so I can make better requests:
In MIDI performance mode,
after setting midi settings | CC cutoff to the CC of my external synth ,
when using filter cutoff performance column, say to Low-Pass 50
does this send a value of 50 on that CC or does it assume filter resonance will be on a scale 0 to 127 and work out it should send 50% of 127 and send the value 63?
I guess from ear its just sending the value 50. Ideas anyone?
My point being that these are still one shot values and deselecting the MIDI performance button does not reset the previous patch state. Further more if the values being sent are (in the case of Low-Pass 10 to 80) there is no way to return the external synths patch to previous patch state.
The work around would be to be able to set the range that the column works with, say 8 steps from 0 to 127.
The best case would be that on entering the midi performance mode all the externally mapped CCs would be read and cached as a default return value that is used when the midi performance is de-selected. Is would be better than having default values set on the play as you could modify patches on the synth during performance.
Maybe my expectations are wrong and I should just have a pattern that includes CC sends that reset external patches, but I think that is a terrible hack as far as a musical performance goes.
BTW - The first 2 columns for pitch -2 to -12 and +2 to +12 work exactly the way I would expect.
De-selection return the synth back to default pitch. Brill!
