Thread: [Qmidiarp-devel] Proof QMidiArp is stable and some feedback after a 32 minute live session
Linux MIDI arpeggiator, phrase generator and controller LFO
Status: Alpha
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From: Louigi V. <lou...@gm...> - 2011-06-03 21:59:53
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Hey guys! Yesterday I showed you a small tune which was of not so good sound quality and pretty short, this time I recorded another live session, 32 minutes long. Made with QMidiArp, which was commanding Zyn, several soundfonts and Phaser Tempo automation in one of the Rakarracks. The phasers you hear, however, are not QMidiArp, but Rakarracks internal LFOs. Because the speed of QMidiArp was 120, it was difficult to achieve slow LFOs. All in all, I had around 7 sequencers open and 2 LFOs but one I did not use. Performance was robust, only at one time when I added the seventh sequencer it glitched, you can hear it at 24:28 into the tune. The tune is more dynamic than the previous attempt and towards the end it is really rocking. Everything done on the fly, nothing prewritten. http://www.disc-shelf.com/var_files/Patterns.ogg Some feedback I would like to supply. The Good stuff. 1. I really like the dot on the keyboard which shows where you are when you are dragging the note. The ability to mute/unmute the note fast is very useful. 2. Volume control is a great thing - nice to be able to gradually fade things in and out. 3. After the fixes QMidiArp did not crash on me. Stuff to Improve. 1. It would be nice to have new modules being added in muted state, otherwise you end up with a burst of sound and then the default sequence playing on channel 1. I was able to work around it by not having anything on channel 1. 2. Sliders sometimes behave weirdly. One time I had note length be inverted, so making it longer in reality made it shorter and vice versa. This happened in one sequencer while others were okay. Volume knobs and transpose buttons would not always change settings until you press on the slider or sort of fixate it - moving it might not change anything. Maybe it is a delay, I did not get exactly. 3. Piano roll in general is great and you get used to it, but zooming in would still be nice, notes are very narrow. While it is ok at home, I wonder if it is convenient on stage. My idea was that you can have wider keys of pianoroll and instead of taking up space with a side slider, have the slider below along with volume and transpose and let it move piano roll up and down. But this has to be tested, whether this is comfortable in a live situation. Another way is a Ctrl+Middle mouse standard zooming in/out. 4. Once when I added a new sequencer, I muted it and then switched it to an appropriate channel. Then in QSynth I chose a preset I want to use. Although the sequence was muted, it started to play something absolutely out of tune. You can hear that on the recording at 3:10. I don't remember whether at that point the sequencer itself was muted or just all the notes were muted, I think it was both. I had to unset a preset in QSynth and then choose it again and then it worked. Did not have that issue again during the session. Hope this is useful! -- Louigi Verona http://www.louigiverona.ru/ |
From: Frank K. <goe...@ya...> - 2011-06-04 18:47:28
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Hey Louigi, >________________________________ >De : Louigi Verona <lou...@gm...> >À : qmi...@li... >Envoyé le : Vendredi 3 Juin 2011 23h59 >Objet : [Qmidiarp-devel] Proof QMidiArp is stable and some feedback after a 32 minute live session > >The tune is more dynamic than the previous attempt and towards the end it is really rocking. Everything done on the fly, nothing prewritten. > >http://www.disc-shelf.com/var_files/Patterns.ogg > Really nice again! There is a good growing dynamics in the piece which makes it doesn't get boring, and the groove is nice, too. And a real pleasure to hear QMidiArp helped you in doing this solidly :) >Stuff to Improve. > >1. It would be nice to have new modules being added in muted state, otherwise you end up with a burst of sound and then the default sequence playing on channel 1. I was able to work around it by not having anything on channel 1. I've added this possibility in the latest Git, there is now an option in the settings dialog controlling the behaviour of newly added modules, also the mute state is finally saved with the session file, a thing I didn't do before because I had to do the sync of states with my nanokontrol toggles at every startup manually anyway, but it might be more handy if the state is saved, too. >2. Sliders sometimes behave weirdly. One time I had note length be inverted, so making it longer in reality made it shorter and vice versa. This happened in one sequencer while others were okay. Volume knobs and transpose buttons would not always change settings until you press on the slider or sort of fixate it - moving it might not change anything. Maybe it is a delay, I did not get exactly. True that they don't behave 'normally'. Actually it's a bit on purpose. If you use the wheel to move the slider or spinbox, the value becomes active only once you hit enter on the spinbox or if you touch the slider with the left mouse button. Might be some way to differ pre-adjusted settings. But maybe it's not useful this way, agreed it's a bit surprising at the first glance.... @notelength, isn't this merely a mix of note on / offs if the same note is repeated twice with the previous note taking longer than the pause between the two note ons? I'll check more thoroughly, too. >3. Piano roll in general is great and you get used to it, but zooming in would still be nice, notes are very narrow. While it is ok at home, I wonder if it is convenient on stage. My idea was that you can have wider keys of pianoroll and instead of taking up space with a side slider, have the slider below along with volume and transpose and let it move piano roll up and down. But this has to be tested, whether this is comfortable in a live situation. Another way is a Ctrl+Middle mouse standard zooming in/out. I've added a three-state check box on the left, so that not more space is needed and IMO this is a fast and handy way to do zoom. Scrollbars have always been confusing me in sequencer pattern windows when I did live editing, so for my taste this should work not too bad, what do you think? >4. Once when I added a new sequencer, I muted it and then switched it to an appropriate channel. Then in QSynth I chose a preset I want to use. Although the sequence was muted, it started to play something absolutely out of tune. You can hear that on the recording at 3:10. I don't remember whether at that point the sequencer itself was muted or just all the notes were muted, I think it was both. I had to unset a preset in QSynth and then choose it again and then it worked. Did not have that issue again during the session. > >Hope this is useful! > It definitely IS useful, this is how things can move forward, thanks very much, let me know what you think about these late changes... Cheers Frank |
From: Louigi V. <lou...@gm...> - 2011-06-04 19:57:41
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Hey Frank! Doing a reply to all in because this feedback exchange might be useful to the whole list. 1. Muted state. Great addition! Checked it and it is very nice. 2. Sliders behaviour. What about when you use midi input? I used LFOs to change the volume of what was played by feeding midi from LFO directly into QMidiArp. The slider moves around but volume changes do not happen. But if I use my mouse - they do. 3. Three state check-box of piano roll zoom. Looks really great! However (hehe) can you add an option to view the center portion? Because often note C is the central note of the sequence, so jumping from upper to lower is like not that convenient. On the other hand, I do not want the GUI to be overwhelmed with options, so see if you think my point makes sense. Maybe we can just try it out and then remove it if it is not good. Cheers! ps: hooked up HarmonySEQ to QMidiArp, synced it and used it for a bassline with chord changes (towards the end). This is the result: http://www.louigiverona.ru/files/Materialization.ogg -- Louigi Verona http://www.louigiverona.ru/ |
[Qmidiarp-devel] Re : Re : Proof QMidiArp is stable and some
feedback after a 32 minute live session
From: Frank K. <goe...@ya...> - 2011-06-05 08:27:26
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>De : Louigi Verona <lou...@gm...> >2. Sliders behaviour. >What about when you use midi input? I used LFOs to change the volume of what was played by feeding midi from LFO directly into QMidiArp. The slider moves around but volume changes do not happen. But if I use my mouse - they do. Good catch! These were the two sliders I had changed response for to allow for the pre-set and go by enter without noticing MIDI-learned controllers didn't work any longer. They are back to normal now, thanks. > >3. Three state check-box of piano roll zoom. >Looks really great! However (hehe) can you add an option to view the center portion? Because often note C is the central note of the sequence, so jumping from upper to lower is like not that convenient. GUI is at least not bigger yet, so we can have this a try. Both are on git BTW: I noticed some stops in your last music piece, the one with sync to harmonySEQ. Are these transport sync shortcomings or were they on purpose? Did you sync with JACK Transport or MIDI Clock? Frank |
From: Louigi V. <lou...@gm...> - 2011-06-05 08:30:52
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Just built it now, will check. Stops occurred when I added a new sequencer during play. To avoid this, I created a template with 8 sequencers already loaded, so hopefully this will not happen again. -- Louigi Verona http://www.louigiverona.ru/ |