A way to preview wavetables from the Sample Loader. This could be done by giving the Preview Button a Shift + Preview alternative mode that would allow to set the wavetable parameters to scan through the wavetable before comitting to actually using the sample.
What is the problem?
All you normally hear is “blip blip blop blop glitch glitch” with wavetables and at the end still don’t know what you were hearing, before you actually load it.
Example: user wanted to follow a Youtube tutorial and had to find a “Saw” from 30 files called PPG01…PPG02…PPG03…etc…this was a bit cumbersome…
What should this feature achieve?
The ability to visually preview and possibly scan through a wavetable sample before loading it on the Tracker
Are there any workarounds?
Load it into another software and check the wave before using it on Tracker.
Or actually commit and load the sample and then set the instrument as wavetable so it can be scanned (see here)
But how the tracker should preview WT? Should it move the WT position with an envelope? If so, what are the attack and decay times? Ot should it scan through the WT with an LFO? If so, how fast should the LFO move? And what the LFo shape it must be?
Out-of-context WT preview seems to be pointless.
There is a better way…
Load a samle. Set playback mode to Wavetable on the newly created instrument. Set up WT Pos envelope/LFO and volume envelope.
Now go to the sample loader. Select a WT file. Press Import. The imported sample will replace the original sample but instrument parameters won’t change. Switch to the Instruments pane. Play with the loaded WT using the grid pads. If you don’t like the wavetable you just loaded, go to the sample pane and select another one. Repeat.
Yes, instead of just pressing Preview once you have to perform more actions each time. Press Import, choose Yes, press the right arrow button to switch to instrument. But this way WT preview works exactly as you need in your track. Need a pad sound? Set up slowly moving WT Pos LFO. Need a short plucky sound? Set up WT Pos envelope with zero attack and short decay.
Moreover, this way you can preview with reverb and delay.
Edit: ah ok, now that I’v re-read the wish I see you mention the user could set up WT parameters before hand, but that still looks like a quite big feature to implement considering it already almost exists on the Tracker.
For a wavetable intrument (pti) a preview would technically already have the settings, that would apply for all types of instruments, unless it changed recently they always play the sample right?
But that’s probably a different wish then, more of an Instrument Preview Mode (maybe there’s even already a wish for that?)
Are we talking specifically about raw samples that are wavetables? Or both those and wavetable instruments?
Another thought, would it be OK to dedicate Shift + Preview to wavetable preview? Where if we want other preview modes, for instance granualar preview? Should it instead be an Advanced Preview Mode with different options?
So this is how I do preview of single cycle waveforms and wavetables
I like this way more because I can ‘preview’ SCW/WT with my reverb and delay settings and other things like panning LFO and filter LFO.
I don’t think Polyend will ever make a separate GUI to set up WT preview so this is the only possible option.
thanks for the video, but this is not a preview, but a postview as the WT sample is being loaded into the instrument slot.My reference is to a visual preview before the actual WT sample is being loaded into the memory of the Tracker.
The only difference between this approach and the proper wavetable preview mode is that you have to press more buttons to achieve practically the same. To view a loaded waveform, just go to the sample playback mode. One more manual action tho. But this way you can ‘preview’ with different notes using the grid. If you wasn’t able to find a suitable wavetable, just delete the instrument afterwards.
