Nice to hear about the forthcoming clip launcher in M9.0.
In MuLab 8.6.15 I came across some minor issues with respect to the Time Bar and some other things. This post is a lot of reading again and not all issues really affect workflow a lot nor are they major bugs, so it may not be necessary for you to address them all; as always you can be the judge of that. Here goes:
#1 Bug: loop Locators are initially placed behind newly added markers. Steps:
Step 1: insert a new marker and rename to e.g. ‘qwerty’ to make bug more apparent.
Step 2: place one of the loop locators onto that marker. It will be hidden behind the marker and can not be grabbed anymore unless you move the marker first.
Saving and reloading the project (or reverting to the saved file) fixes problem for existing markers, but any markers added after that will again hide the loop locators when you place these on that marker (or you have to save and revert again, etc, etc.).
#2 Bug: when the Project Modular Area is set to ‘Floating’, the shortcut ‘Switch to Project Modular Area’ always shows the Modular Area in docked mode (and the corresponding button is not highlighted). Even though the shortcut is called ‘Switch to..’ it’s probably more useful when it mimics the behaviour of pressing the ‘Modular’ button (in the case of ‘Floating’). That means you will want it to simply toggle to and from (show/hide) the floating Modular Area window. Better said: when the Modular Area is set to ‘Floating’ the ‘Switch to Project Modular Area’ shortcut should behave like the ‘Show/Hide Top Modular Area’ shortcut. I hope it makes sense.
The following issues are about the new [Alt]+S functionality of MuLab.
#3a Issue: right click the Rec button. Hover over ‘Edit Recording Setup’. Press [Alt]+S: ‘Not a shortcuttable function’ appears, but actually it is shortcuttable via shortcut ‘Event Recording Setup’ or Project->Event Recording Setup [ALT]+S. Both show the Event Recording Setup window. Maybe something to do with the name tags (‘Edit’ vs ‘Event’)?
#3b Related issue: I noticed that in the Event Recording Setup window you’ve removed the ‘Record Events’ check box (in M7 it was still there). I actually like the functionality in a particular case: sometimes I record some vocals (direct audio stream to one of MuLab’s Tracks) and like to jam/live play a synth in MuLab without recording those events. When ‘Record Events’ is switched off this is easily done. So, a bit like using MuLab both as a standalone synth (without recording that synth) and at the same time as an audio recorder for some other source. Comparable to some crude version of ‘Arm for Record’ per Track, but then also for event Tracks, not just audio, you see?
Luckily this functionality is still hidden away in M8 (please don’t remove it, because I use it for the situation described above) and can be accessed via the shortcut ‘Toggle Recording Events’. The only major hiccup I face is that I have no visual confirmation if ‘Record Events’ is switched on or off and I have to guess. Since the functionality is still built in, could you bring back the visual confirmation in ‘Edit Recording Setup’ or was there some compelling reason to remove it?
Back to [Alt]+S (related to the Time Bar).
See picture above:
#4: right click Loop Locator -> ‘Turn Loop On’ and ‘Loop Selected Parts’ -> hover and [Alt]+S gives ’Not a shortcuttable function’. Via the regular shortcut menu ‘Toggle Loop’ and ‘Loop Selected Parts’ they are shortcuttable.
[Alt]+S on ‘Insert Time Slice’ and ‘Delete Time Slice’ work okay.
#5a: [Alt]+S on ‘Edit’ (this also goes for right clicking a Marker, see picture below) gives you a shortcut option, but it will be assigned to the generic shortcut ‘Edit’ and this gives unexpected results (because it edits the object that is focused at the time, rather than the Loop/Marker - I suspect because these cannot be focused). I guess the correct shortcut link would be ‘Specific’ -> Marker -> Edit (not sure for the Loop Locator case, though, couldn’t find a proper specific shortcut). But when you set this ‘Specific’ shortcut via the regular shortcut menu, it doesn’t actually do anything (maybe because of the focus issue with Loop/Marker). In any case, I only mentioned this for reasons of consistency, because in my opinion a shortcut is pretty unnecessary here (double clicking the Loop/Marker does the job).
#5b: This same thing occurs for [ALT]+S on Marker -> ‘Rename’ and ‘Delete’ (see picture below). They are shortcuttable via the regular shortcut menu (and in this case also via [Alt]+S), but they are assigned to the ‘Generic’ Rename/Delete. Since a Marker is not really focusable, that shortcut will never rename/delete a Marker and gives unexpected results (deletes/renames another object that was focused before) even when you’ve left clicked the Marker (trying to focus it, or something). In this case too, you might expect that the ‘Specific’ -> ‘Marker’ -> ‘Rename’/’Delete’ shortcut would do the trick, but here again the shortcut can be set, but never does anything.
[Alt]+S on ‘Insert Time Slice’ and ‘Delete Time Slice’ work okay.
Finally, right clicking on some empty part of the Time Bar reveals this menu:
#6a: [ALT]+S doesn’t work on any of the options here (including ‘Insert/Delete Time Slice’ which apparently do work at Loop Locator and Marker) and I think all but ‘Set Time Signature’ and ‘Insert Tempo Change’ are actually shortcuttable via the regular shortcut menu.
#6b: I would like to make use of the two shortcuts ‘Set Loop Start/End’ but even when set via the regular shortcut menu they do not work. If you decide to fix this, the question will be if the Loop Start/End should be set at the mouse cursor or at the play cursor position. Personally I would favour the mouse cursor position.
I use the shortcut ‘Loop Selected Parts’ (set via the shortcut menu, not [ALT]+S) quite frequently and it works okay.
#6c: the generic shortcut ‘Add Marker’ seems to do the same as ‘Add Marker at Cursor’ and takes the X-position of the whole screen into account (even if the cursor is outside the MuLab window), am I right (or should you only be able to add a marker when the cursor is inside the arranger and time bar window)? It seems to work fine, only I noticed that occasionally the Marker is not added, but after some thorough testing, I still can’t figure out the steps to repeat it.
#7: right click the Tempo (see picture below): [ALT]+S also doesn’t work on any of the options, but ‘Half/Double Tempo’ and ‘Edit Tempo Change’ are shortcuttable via the regular shortcut menu.
#8: right click the Virtual Keyboard (see picture below): [ALT]+S doesn’t work on any of the options. ‘Show Virtual Keyboard’ is shortcuttable via shortcut menu ‘Virtual Midi KeyBoard’ and so is ‘Automatic Midi Input Focus’ via ‘Toggle Automatic/Manual Midi Input Focus’ (or [ALT]+S on Project->Automatic Midi Input Focus).
#9 Bug/issue: this is about automatic numbering of copied items.
This is a quite general one and it applies to all objects in MuLab that can be named and copied, like sequences and mux modules. I noticed it when using the ‘Delete unused’ functionality and when deleting multiple objects at once. Let me explain better by giving these steps:
Step 1: Start with an empty project and insert any mux module in the Project Modular Area (for example a Patch Point)
Step 2: Copy/paste multiple (three is okay) of those patch points. They will be named Patch Point (1), Patch Point (2) and Patch Point (3)
Step 3: Delete Patch Point (2) and (3) simultaneously. Patch Point (1) remains, but since there are no other Patch Points anymore, the name could revert to ‘Patch Point’ again (that’s without the (1)).
I thought it might have something to do with the Undo-Redo History, but clearing it doesn't make any difference and I discovered that it actually does revert, but only if you do it this way:
Step 1: Start with an empty project, insert Patch Point, copy/paste multiple Patch Points.
Step 2: Select all but two of those Patch Points. Delete selected ones.
Step 3: Delete one of the two remaining Patch Points. Now it correctly reverts to ‘Patch Point’.
I think something similar happens when you click ‘Delete Unused’ in the Browser, for example for sequences:
Step 1: Start with an empty project, insert empty Track, insert midi sequence. It will be called ‘Sequence’.
Step 2: Copy/paste ‘Sequence’ several times. Names become: Sequence (1), Sequence (2), etc.
Step 3: Delete all but one Sequence in the composer.
Step 4: Go to Browser - Sequences - This Project. All Sequences are listed. Click Options->‘Delete Unused’. All but one are deleted, but the remaining one is not called ‘Sequence’, but still has the affix ‘(1)’ added to it (or any other number, whichever you left in the composer area).
Now, repeat Steps 1, 2 and 3.
Then go to Browser - Sequences - This Project. All Sequences are listed. In the browser, manually delete all but the one sequence that is still in the composer. This way the remaining sequence will be called ‘Sequence’ again without the addition of a number, as expected.
In short, I guess it has something to do with deleting multiple objects at once. When something becomes unique by deleting a bunch of similar items, the name doesn’t drop the affix. But when something becomes unique by deleting only one similar item, it does.
Thanks for your persistence in reading
Regards, TDM.
