From: Geoff K. <gs...@gm...> - 2011-09-19 02:24:04
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Hi Florian, I have always found the midi drums in muse to be confusing and in need of some care. This is one area when there could be some big improvements, especially for those learning muse. I've listed some of my main issues issues below and some thoughts. I think you are on the right track with some of your bullet points and ideas below (second and third bullets). My main use of drums is with up to 3 external different midi hardware, but usually just 1 at a time (1 yamaha keyboard, 1 roland sound module, and 1 old yamaha drum machine) so my comments would only reflect that use scenario. 1) The port settings are on both the left arranger trackinfo pane. However, the port actually needs to be set correctly in the drum part view. Changes in the trackinfo pane port settings don't get carried back and forth and vice versa. very confusing. the port settings have to be changed in the drum part which can be different than the trackinfo. This was a big source of confusion. However, this can be interesting since one can easily mix and match instruments from different devices. Also msb/lsb/prog are only changeable from the trackinfo making it hard to change programs. this is not a big deal for just 1 midi drum device (since it can be originally set up with the correct msb/lsb/prog in trackinfo and port in midi part), but if changing devices and ports it becomes difficult to keep track of what is going on. what can be done? a)-make all drum configuration, port/msb/lsb/patch/(channel?) settings in the drum part pane and gray out all the trackinfo? this would be most flexible, but also require most work to tweak drum parts, especially at startup. make it impossible to add more than 1 drum track. this could also be similar to your second bullet below if you restricted it to one port. sounds like a lot of development work. b)-as an alternative make all configuration in the the trackinfo pane and simplify the drum pane by removing settings for port? This would fit most closely with the midi layout. It might make it possible to have useful multiple tracks of drums if desired. someone might not like this change in behaviour. this is similar to your third bullet point below. 2) Channel is always set to 10. This isn't a big deal for me and I think I actually like it at 10 . Keeps it simpler not having to remember the channel also. Although it would probably be okay to change this to add some flexibility. Should still default to 10 since that is what most midi stuff does. 3) Although you can have more than 1 drum track in the arranger, it is pointless and confusing. If you have two tracks and change one the other drum track changes as well. Either limit the arranger to 1 drum track (point 1a) or make drum tracks configurable by the track info (point 1b). Hopefully, these thoughts make some sense to you. Geoff K. On Sat, Sep 17, 2011 at 10:14 AM, Florian Jung <flo...@we...>wrote: > ** > Am 17.09.2011 15:42, schrieb Florian Jung: > > Hi > > the drum tracks should have a configurable channel, patch and bank > settings (patch and bank seems to work, but not channel!) > > there is an extension to general midi: Yamaha XG. XG allows you to use > any channel as drum channel, as long the bank is set to 127 (i believe > but am not sure that it's enough if the low 7bits of the bank are 127). > so muse should support this as well. > > first, all the channel spinboxes and the channel entry in the list > (which are either grayed out or set to "-") should be accessible as well. > > second, whenever the user changes some drum track's channel from 10 to > something different, and if the bank is NOT 127, the user gets prompted > whether he wants muse to set the bank to 127 ("yes", "no", "yes,always"; > "no,never"). > > i don't know which code parts are responsible for this, so i'd ask > someone of you to either do this or tell me which places i have to look at. > > greetings and thanks > flo > > > > oops. i just looked at it... it's not as easy (or hard? we'll see...) as > the above: > > the drum editors support setting an own channel and port for each "sound" > (entry in the list. expand the list then you see it). however, there is some > stuff missing: > > - (it's impossible to add or remove entries to/from the list. maybe > this should be kept, as it may be really hard to change it. it seems that > drum tracks internally map their drums to midi notes, but when playing, > they've some kind of "dictionary" to translate a "midi note" to a > combination of "port, channel, played note".) > - there must be some window or sidebar (<-- yay!) which lists you all > "channel/port" combinations used by the drum editor, and allows you to set > their patch and bank. alternatively, there must be a "patch" column in the > drum editor's "sound" list. whenever changing a patch and/or bank, all > sounds with the same "channel/port" combination must be updated as well. > > with these two things done, the drum editor would be able to deal with > non-channel-10 drums > > > alternatively: > > - the "channel" and "port" column are removed from the drum editor > - the drum track's "channel" columns are made accessible (as described > above) again. > > > i prefer the first solution, as it's more powerful. however, some > user-friendly way to simply change the patch must be provided. this can be > done, for example, by some side bar which gives you a patch/bank spinbox for > each "channel/port" combination. > > the second solution is simple, but doesn't really abstract nice. > > > my favourite solution: > > - add an hideable side bar to the drum editor which lists all > "channel/port" combinations, and allows you to set "patch and bank" for > them. > - whenever a MIDI track wants to use some channel/port combination > which is already occupied by any drum track, display a warning message > - whenever you change a drum's channel from 10 to something different, > ask the user whether he wants muse to automatically set the bank to 127 or > not. > > this seems quite simple to me. > if you (robert :)? or anyone else?) offer me a backend function for setting > and getting "patch/bank" for each "channel/port" combination (of course, > with all the stuff required that muse really SETS that patch and bank when > playing), and tell me at which places you can change a MIDI (not drum) > track's channel, then i could take care of the rest (that is, the GUI > stuff). > > > > what do you think about this? (especially you, robert, as you seem to be > the one who knows the drum edit good ;) ) > > > greetings and thanks > flo > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > BlackBerry® DevCon Americas, Oct. 18-20, San Francisco, CA > http://p.sf.net/sfu/rim-devcon-copy2 > _______________________________________________ > Lmuse-developer mailing list > Lmu...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/lmuse-developer > > |