Wouldn't it be nice....?

MIDIbox SEQ
1

“Short” Intro:

Years ago i thought that the sequencer i need isn’t just build. So damn it…i have to build it… but not deep enough into electronics, i started with coding a software sequencer…
Since i also wasnt deep enough into coding i did the “lazy” thing and started in C#… yeah…
But i “finished” something that is definitly not that bad.
In fact, i implemented some features i do miss in every other peace of equipment…

While i wrote my program and did other things in live i completly overslept the whole midibox thing… Until a few years ago…
I was stunned. I organized myself a sammichSID kit from Willba and from then i was hooked on.

I wanted to build a SeqV4 but never found time or money or whatever. After buying a built one here in the forum i’m stunned again…

“I’m unworthy.” 
For real…what a nice peace of electronics!
And the BLM… 
A big thanks to everyone who made those things possible! :slight_smile:

And now to the “interessting” part:

I spent some nights in my life thinking about options and functions… and some of them even had to do with sequencing. :wink:

Here are some things i managed to let become reality and now want to disucss with the forum and T.K.:

  • increase/decrease in the echo intervall per step. So you can have effects that sounds like a ping pong ball on a table. (I hope you know what i mean)

  • option to say that the increase/decrease only occurs every nth step.

  • the possibility to change the notevalue in the same way: Increase/Decrease notevalue+n every nth repeat.
    So you can have one step/note  played as “bam bam bam - bim bim bim - bom bom bom”. If you know what i mean xD)

 

But here comes the real part i want to see the Seq be able someday. I will try to help as much as i can to make it possible! :wink:

The first “easy” part (sry if the seq allready can do that, i only have it since a few days…much to read/learn):

The possibilty to “record” notevalues over a Slider while playing: You enter the possitions where notes should be played and you “control” the melody over a Slider.

Sounds crazy. And it is! You can have the rythmic of 4 bars and just improvise over a slider. Believe me, that is improving creativity! In my prog i have it this way:
You can “play” the melody over a slider just whenever and for how long you want. One option is that it can record over the running track. And if you sop record it just playes the last thing you did. I “just” activate record when slider is used. I kind of managed to do this in hardware with the faderport. It has a sensitive motorfader… but wait… i think i didnt realized that yet… but you get the idea. :wink:

If you have a melody over 4 bars and 1 and a half bar are “messed up”. totally in the middle of the 4 bars. You can just use the slider in that part u wanna change and the moment you let loose of the slider the “recording” stops.

But this feature becomes really crazy with the following:
I also implented musical scales. And a “notefilter” that only allows notes to be used that are in the chosen scale!

That means that you can “rape” the slider and every note you play/record is in harmony!
Really…this feature is so damn nice if you are not a “musician” like i am… It’s just hitting the keys (or rape the slider in this case) and allways be right. xD

And wait…it gets even better!

I implemented the possibility to assign a scale as a “base” to every step. So you can say: This track is completly in CMajor. 
Or the first bar is CMajor and bars 2-4 are in Dminor.
If you did that and programmed a nice melody you can transpose the whole pattern into every scale you want!
And that via keyboard in realtime!

What does that mean? 
You program a track with 4 bars and a nice melodic motive in F#Minor. You mark the track as F#Minor. Now you just loop this
and transpose the melody while playing with just one key on the keyboard. For example you have all minor scales in the 2. Octave, all the major in the 1. etc…
When you now press D2 your track is transposed into Dminor. If you press A1 it will be played in Amajor, etc…

And for our example:
If you have a track that is part one scale and part other scale, the whole track will be played in DMinor if E3 is pressed!
And of course: If a track is EMajor only, you can transpose every step into another scale if you want, live while playing, or be triggered by another notetrack.

This features in combination does make creating good, inovative and “lifelike” melodies so fu***ing simple and fast…!

I really made motives that were so much better then everything i programmed or tried to play before!
And creating a really lifelike melody over 64, 128 or 256 steps?
No problem! And randomizing doesn’t even get close! :wink:

I hope my explanation is good and don’t sound like “I did, i did”… I just want to make clear that that is not just a “fun idea”. It is something that exists and can make so much fun.
At least as a Prealphaversion in DebuggingMode. xD

My only dream is to bring this feature into “reallive”! :slight_smile:

My problem: I only learned csharp and i only have my SeqV4 since a few days… so my active “code-changing” part will be probably have to wait a few days… :frowning:

I don’t know yet if it would be possible with T.K.s actual code and structure. But im totally willing to learn everything about the Seq and participate as much as possible!
And i allready wanted to learn a programming-language since i know c#. :wink:
So i hope you guys like this nice musical and very inspirational feature and of course i hope even more that T.K. will read this and write his view on this point(s)! :slight_smile:

Oh and another feature:
When you start with the feature as above you will quickly come to tracks that are “perfect” but not in time. So… i added the possibility to “move tracks” steps to the right/left. 

Well… i have to learn more about the Seq and i definitly have to communicate with T.K. at some point. :wink:

So what do you all say? Am i crazy and are all this things that nobody wants/needs? Or do you “feel” me and and can’t wait to finally use this features? 

Whatever it may be: Thanks for taking the time to read! :slight_smile:
 

2

Hi welcome!

MIDIbox is a supurb platform indeed with a great sequencer. I don’t wanna start about the possibilities or your questions, cause others are way better in that. Only thing: "I also implented musical scales. And a “notefilter” that only allows notes to be used that are in the chosen scale!"That’s implemented in Seq4 as well and it’s called FTS (force to scale)

I just want to show you this movie from a MIDIbox I made witch has a sliders that are controlling note values. SEE HERE

Cheers,

Roel

3

Hello!

I don’t pretend to know everything about the SEQ, I’m only starting to learn it myself and there’s a lot to learn! But I think most of the requests/ideas you have are already possible within the current software. If they aren’t yet TK. is the guy to tell you if they can be.

 

11 hours ago, derkollo said:

  • increase/decrease in the echo intervall per step. So you can have effects that sounds like a ping pong ball on a table. (I hope you know what i mean)

  • option to say that the increase/decrease only occurs every nth step.

  • the possibility to change the notevalue in the same way: Increase/Decrease notevalue+n every nth repeat.
    So you can have one step/note  played as “bam bam bam - bim bim bim - bom bom bom”. If you know what i mean xD)

Have you experimented with the LFOs? One can also assign meta tracks to modulate parameters in time with the sequence

 

11 hours ago, derkollo said:

But here comes the real part i want to see the Seq be able someday. I will try to help as much as i can to make it possible! :wink:

The first “easy” part (sry if the seq allready can do that, i only have it since a few days…much to read/learn):

The possibilty to “record” notevalues over a Slider while playing: You enter the possitions where notes should be played and you “control” the melody over a Slider.

If your slider can generate CC data, I don’t see why this couldn’t be recorded/overdubbed. I haven’t gone too deep with the BLM, but you can assign slider data to SEQ parameters (or have it sent out a MIDI port).

 

 

11 hours ago, derkollo said:

I also implented musical scales. And a “notefilter” that only allows notes to be used that are in the chosen scale!

Force to scale is already present, but what’s missing is the gate to tell the SEQ when to play a note.

 

 

11 hours ago, derkollo said:

Play: This track is completly in CMajor. 
Or the first bar is CMajor and bars 2-4 are in Dminor.
If you did that and programmed a nice melody you can transpose the whole pattern into every scale you want!
And that via keyboard in realtime!

Transpose is implemented and can follow an external keyboard.

 

 

11 hours ago, derkollo said:

What does that mean? 
You program a track with 4 bars and a nice melodic motive in F#Minor. You mark the track as F#Minor. Now you just loop this
and transpose the melody while playing with just one key on the keyboard. For example you have all minor scales in the 2. Octave, all the major in the 1. etc…
When you now press D2 your track is transposed into Dminor. If you press A1 it will be played in Amajor, etc…

I’m not following exactly, because you’re talking about changing the root note and “quality” (i.e. major/minor) of a scale? Does this make musical sense?

 

11 hours ago, derkollo said:

Oh and another feature:
When you start with the feature as above you will quickly come to tracks that are “perfect” but not in time. So… i added the possibility to “move tracks” steps to the right/left. 

Pretty sure you can nudge tracks.

 

Try to sit down and explore the SEQ a bit. The draft manual  is very useful and can give a lot of hints to get the best out of your instrument.

Happy sequencing!

4

Looool. I allready wanted to thank for that link and watch it after writing. Thank god i did took the time now. xD How darn genious is that? xD

I thought i’ll see a midi-controller-type-slider manipulating the notevalues of one melody… How wrong i was. Really nice work! That piece of furniture is art!

Also… that function is available allready? Nice! How could i doubt that for one minute… I see i totally underestimate everyone here. :wink:

Thanks for your welcome and this inspiring peace of video! :slight_smile:

 

Damn… i allready sit here over 1 hour and wrote so much… and part by part i realized how stupid i am… :( 

That is why i have to write nearly everything again and before that i have to rethink some points. xD

After that i will take the time to write about your points. 

Spoiler:

I’m not a musician and i just realized that my understanding of chords in scales was total crap. Or at least i believe that right now…
I assumed that you can have a AMinor chord in a CMajor scale… and by the help of your confusion about my text i was able to realize that an AMinor chord in an CMajor scale isn’t an AMinor chord at all, right? It is a CMajor with a “swapped” third or how that is called… right?

Based on my false assumption and to much weed in the middle of the night i coded stuff that doesn’t make much sense… at least not the way i though of it… So, now i have to readjust my thoughts to minimize the danger of continuing writing pointless stuff. xD

And since i spent the whole day with Andre from Tubeohm troubleshooting an anushri that we both just wanted to kill at the end of the day and now realizing that im stupid… Lets just say it was a hard day today. xD

But i definitly wanted to say thanks for your time and your help! :wink:

Specially because im really happy about your bulk-order! I use the virtual BLM right now and it’s soooo nice. Cant wait to built it! And specially with that case… really nice work doing this bulk order!! I allready thought about offering my help by beeing the “european handler”. I live in germany and can offer to distribute the things from here to all european users. I’m trusted builder at MutableInstruments and therefore trustworthy and experienced in getting and sending stuff around. :wink:

So if you need help from someone who doesnt know shit about scales and keys… xD

 

Thanks again you two!

 

Regards

5

There’s no stupidity, one has to scratch a little bit at a time with such a complex instrument. 

With regards to chords and scales, an A minor chord always has the same notes played (A, C, E), but whether A is played as a major or minor chord depends on the scale “quality” and root note.

Major scale: 
I    ii    iii    IV    V    vi    vii°

so in C we have C Dm Em F G Am B° and back to C

minor scale:
i    ii°    III    iv    V    VI    VII    vii°

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numeral_analysis

So the uppercase roman numerals are major chords, the lowercase are minors, and it’s all subjective because C uses the same notes as Am. The little circles represent diminished chords, where the interval from the root note is a lowered third fifth. 

If you use one of the many scale flavours in the SEQ, these will be different again. 

 

 

6

Hey,

may be stupid was a bit of a harsh word. But you know what i ment. :slight_smile:

Thanks for your little lesson bout scales. But that was the one part i wasnt unsecure of. xD

You directly gave the answer why tranpsoe isnt transpose.

In a Synth or Sequenzer you can transpose by increase/decrease every played note. 

In musical transposition you have to know in which scale you are and wo wich scale you want to go to.

You will never get a minor scale oout of a major scale by just increasing every note by x.

Therefore you need a track to be labeled as a chosen scale. When you wanna transpose it has to be looked where the intervals are and how to move the notes accordingly. :wink:

That is why “transpose by a given value” and then force them to scale dont work. You have to know weatcher you come from minor or major and then change the intervals accordingly.

The stupid thing i ment is that changing scales every step e.G. is completly useless, cause normally you dont change scales in a song. That is what i didnt realize before. :wink:

All in all, that feature works well and makes a lot of fun… weather it is musically correct to change scales in that manner…^^

 

But i see… i have to spent some more time with the seq to be sure what he allready is capable of and what not… :slight_smile:

Thanks again. :wink:

7

Hm… so much text so late in the evening (and I already had to read so many topics today :wink:

Are there any specific questions to me?

Changing the firmware: some people find it simple, some others gave up - independent from their programming skills.
There isn’t so much documentation available about the MBSEQ firmware architecture and places where changes have to be done. There is also no documentation about “possible” and “impossible” features. A microcontroller is a very limited device, unlike a PC. You always have to keep the RAM consumption in mind. In addition, you’ve to check if the UI still allows the entry of additional parameters, or if an existing page has to be overworked, or a new page has to be created.

People with good self education skills successfully added features in the past, w/o so much help from my side (which I can’t give anyhow… :wink:

Best Regards, Thorsten.

8

i didn’t forget you. :wink:

I figured out, the best way to “explain” the things i ment, is by making a short vid of my sequencer… but before that i have to figure some other things out like screen capture etc… So it can take some days…

The roman numerals you mentioned is definitly worth reading, but right now i don’t get the point of it… It seems a bit like: Learning something new that seems to be very limited (major/minor)…but since i have many open questions in that topic in general i thought about opening a thread specifically about that topic…

In the moment im still exploring the Seq so i won’t request anything that is allready implemented. Or to say minimize that risk…

 

Thx you took the time! (More or less xD)

Right now, no specific questions. :slight_smile:

But…some “honey”: Genious work you did and do! 

The more i get to know the seq the more i love it! It has so much features i did’nt implented in my software cause i thought i will never get it built in reallive…

The lack of documenation or information in generell is a bit of a pain. But i prefer hardware without documentation over a documentation without hardware at any time! I also see the great work jjonas is doing with the manual and so there is still hope that information will rise more and more. :wink:

If i will be able to change the complete firmware at some point… i don’t know and i don’t think so. For my case i would be glad to be able to understand and therefore may help to implement things or ideas in form of “professional communication” and not just by saying “I want this and that. Make it possible!” :wink:

I allready have some experiences with microcontrolers…e.g. Atmel’s and know a bit about structural limitations. That’s why i tried to “limit” myself when programming: Reusable classes, limited hashsets, not just creating instances cause im too lazy… ^^ That’s probably why i intuitivly understood the concept of having “different” tracks for notes depending of their overall length and count of layers. And to be honest i was a bit impressed, because i would just have given one option, :wink:

We will see how far my participation will go. As for now i have to learn many things…^^

Thanks again for your time and work and when i’ll have specific questions i’ll come back to you. :wink: