Zebra 3 Control ABCD - MIDI vs. Macros

[Urs]

So we had a meeting today and I'm putting some of our freshest minds onto the issue.

[Ou_Tis]

For MPE Timbre, could you possibly include an option to have the manually set knob value be the starting point and then have the effect of MPE Timbre be to add or subtract from the current value on the knob?

[Urs]

We'll see & depends on what you mean. We're currently testing the use of ABCD knobs as offsets to MIDI (instead of overwriting the MIDI value). If this lets us save ABCD knob values with preset, then that would define a starting point.

[Sound Author]

For MPE Timbre, could you possibly include an option to have the manually set knob value be the starting point and then have the effect of MPE Timbre be to add or subtract from the current value on the knob?

This is ideally how I'd prefer Timbre to behave as well...but since Controls A-D are the Timbre Targets in the settings, suddenly this gets a little complicated. I would prefer if Controls A-D were simple unipolar knobs for the user. Yeah, there's a bipolar mode for Controls A-D, which needs a fix for a correct Timbre center position (Urs has already acknowledged this), but I've always felt that bipolar macros are kind of unusual and weird.

Is it possible to run Timbre out as its own MIDI control signal?

[jooster]

Is it possible to run Timbre out as its own MIDI control signal?

I second this! Why not make Timbre a first-class per-voice matrix source alongside Pressure, Pitch the way these two controls already are? Then the offset/macro discussion only concerns the control knobs and timbre routing is independent and controller-portable.

[Urs]

Is it possible to run Timbre out as its own MIDI control signal?

Most people out there do not have any means to use Timbre, i.e. they either don't have an MPE controller or one of the few DAWs that have a concept for it. Hence, a dedicated Timbre modulator, if used in preset banks, would be useless for a large number of users.

The whole point of all of this is to make the different concurrent concepts, those of MIDI and those invented by people who thought that MIDI would die, work for everyone. Hence, we would like to avoid adding any specific modulators or knobs that are specific to a singular way of doing things.

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The difference to some other synths is, that our user base requires best possible virtuosity. Hence, Velocity, Pressure, Modwheel, Control Changes are integral part of the preset. The people with DAWs like FL Studio or Ableton Live, which were designed outside the scope of MIDI, do not have direct access to these means of virtuosity. Simply also, with most synths out there they don't need those (heck there are synths where a large part of the factory library has no assignment of velocity).

But with our synths, in those DAWs, these expressions are lost. Hence, putting knobs for those expressions on the UI makes these accessible. The feedback in this and other threads shows that this is a very good idea.

It's just that we need to figure out a way to make this work for people who would also like to use them like macros. I think macros are a popular concept because it gives exactly those synths with fewer means of expression some sense of tweakability. All u-he users with any MIDI-based DAW or MIDI controller have always had that anyway, it's always been mentioned in the preset usage field, etc., so we want to give these means to people with DAWs that hide MIDI away from plug-ins.

However, as for the request of setting "starting points" (and I'm sure what's meant is probably more like "offset from macro") I do not think it is possible to use and save macros with preset without the notion that the preset itself is then altered, and the MIDI assignment with it. I don't think adding separate depths for macro and MIDI makes things any better, just like I don't think that separating the concepts makes things any better.

Instead, I think we have to create awareness of the different purposes, and why it's a good idea for sound designers to publish presets with ABCD in their default setting only.

[jooster]

Hey Urs, thanks for that, i appreciate the perspective i wasnt aware of. Though now i have a few lose ends in my head:

An offset needs something to offset from — a baseline knob position. You’ve said saving ABCD with the preset alters the preset, but the offset has to be stored somewhere, or the user needs a way to opt into applying it (a switch of some kind?).

On the concern that a dedicated Timbre source would be dead weight for most users — would it help that an unused source costs nothing to patches that don’t route it? Standard banks just wouldn’t use it, same as any source a patch ignores. The ones that would benefit are the MPE-specific banks that already exist commercially (Hive 2 Expressive Suite, etc.) — those designers are already building around CC74. A first-class Timbre source alongside Pressure and Pitch might just make their work cleaner, without changing anything for the broad base or the limited-DAW users the Control funnel serves. Not source instead of funnel — both, for different players.

Just trying to understand this

[Ou_Tis]

We'll see & depends on what you mean. We're currently testing the use of ABCD knobs as offsets to MIDI (instead of overwriting the MIDI value). If this lets us save ABCD knob values with preset, then that would define a starting point.

I meant modulation value = knob value + midi cc value, which I'd assume is what you mean by "offset".

But if you want the range to be the same for people without the relevant midi controllers you can just set the minimum and maximum modulation values to remain the same as before.

Most people out there do not have any means to use Timbre, i.e. they either don't have an MPE controller or one of the few DAWs that have a concept for it. Hence, a dedicated Timbre modulator, if used in preset banks, would be useless for a large number of users.

The whole point of all of this is to make the different concurrent concepts, those of MIDI and those invented by people who thought that MIDI would die, work for everyone. Hence, we would like to avoid adding any specific modulators or knobs that are specific to a singular way of doing things.

Most midi controllers don't have Pressure (or aftertouch) either but you added that as a dedicated modulator.

There's space in the gui for additional control knobs above the keyboard, to the right of the "Microtuning" section. So if you add a few knobs, or provide the option for the user to add knobs, a preset that uses MPE Timbre by default could be remapped to one of those knobs.

The difference to some other synths is, that our user base requires best possible virtuosity. Hence, Velocity, Pressure, Modwheel, Control Changes are integral part of the preset. The people with DAWs like FL Studio or Ableton Live, which were designed outside the scope of MIDI, do not have direct access to these means of virtuosity.

Simply also, with most synths out there they don't need those (heck there are synths where a large part of the factory library has no assignment of velocity).

But with our synths, in those DAWs, these expressions are lost. Hence, putting knobs for those expressions on the UI makes these accessible. The feedback in this and other threads shows that this is a very good idea.

What? Ableton Live and FL Studio support all of those, as well as MPE, so I'm not sure what you mean. You can record them as midi or program them in as midi.

It's just that we need to figure out a way to make this work for people who would also like to use them like macros. I think macros are a popular concept because it gives exactly those synths with fewer means of expression some sense of tweakability.

Macros are popular in complex synths like Phase Plant, Pigments, and Serum in large part because they allow users who don't want to delve too deeply into complex patches a simple method for tweaking the presets. Many macros are clearly intended to be set to a particular static value by the user rather than being varied during performance for expressive effect.

Zebra3's non-standard synthesis methods and complex modulations make these sorts of macros seem very appealing.

However, as for the request of setting "starting points" (and I'm sure what's meant is probably more like "offset from macro") I do not think it is possible to use and save macros with preset without the notion that the preset itself is then altered, and the MIDI assignment with it. I don't think adding separate depths for macro and MIDI makes things any better

If by "depth" you mean the range, you can keep the range the same by keeping maximum and minimum values for modulation value and having modulation value = knob value + midi value (of course provided that's not below the minimum etc.).

[Urs]

Hey Urs, thanks for that, i appreciate the perspective i wasnt aware of. Though now i have a few lose ends in my head:

An offset needs something to offset from — a baseline knob position. You’ve said saving ABCD with the preset alters the preset, but the offset has to be stored somewhere, or the user needs a way to opt into applying it (a switch of some kind?).

On the concern that a dedicated Timbre source would be dead weight for most users — would it help that an unused source costs nothing to patches that don’t route it? Standard banks just wouldn’t use it, same as any source a patch ignores. The ones that would benefit are the MPE-specific banks that already exist commercially (Hive 2 Expressive Suite, etc.) — those designers are already building around CC74. A first-class Timbre source alongside Pressure and Pitch might just make their work cleaner, without changing anything for the broad base or the limited-DAW users the Control funnel serves. Not source instead of funnel — both, for different players.

Just trying to understand this

By routing Timbre to any of A/B/C/D (which are MIDI Control Changes), we get exactly what Timbre and A/B/C/D are meant to be. In Zebra 3, even if people don't want to set up A/B/C/D to CC 74 (because their knobs on their MIDI Controller might not support it), they can still route it to any of A/B/C/D.

[Urs]

Most midi controllers don't have Pressure (or aftertouch) either but you added that as a dedicated modulator.

Sorry, what exactly is the purpose of such nonsense argument?

Sure, there's a lot of dumbed down stuff out there. But we make instruments for musicians.

(sorry, I don't react well to smart ass criticism that is absolutely ridiculous and condescending even. If people can't comprehend that we cater for professional musicians, professional sound designers and people who want to use our tools without spectacularly dumbed down ways, I really don't feel like continuing the conversation.)

[Ou_Tis]

Most midi controllers don't have Pressure (or aftertouch) either but you added that as a dedicated modulator.

Sorry, what exactly is the purpose of such nonsense argument?

Sure, there's a lot of dumbed down stuff out there. But we make instruments for musicians.

(sorry, I don't react well to smart ass criticism that is absolutely ridiculous and condescending even. If people can't comprehend that we cater for professional musicians, professional sound designers and people who want to use our tools without spectacularly dumbed down ways, I really don't feel like continuing the conversation.)

Sorry, I didn't intend that as "smart ass criticism" and I didn't mean for it to seem condescending. As a Seaboard player I sympathize. I may be mistaken about most midi keyboards not including aftertouch, but I genuinely think that's true, and I know that many professional keyboard players don't use aftertouch/pressure at all. But it's a tangent that I shouldn't have mentioned.

I'm also sorry if my attempt to clarify what I meant by range and "starting point" came across as condescending, I was just trying to be absolutely clear about what I meant. It seems like keeping range the same would address the main issues you raised.

[Urs]

So let's quickly reset the conversation here.

We make instruments that benefit not just from Velocity, Pressure and Wheels but also from multiple realtime controller assignments. Hence, we have always added two options, Breath and Expression, which became Control A and B, then also Timbre and whoch now have become A, B, C and D.

If people use our instruments with controllers that do not support Pressure or even Velocity, that is a choice they make, not ours. We're sad that people miss out.

If people use our instruments with a mouse and don't draw or set up those controllers, we also think they miss out, but it is also their choice.

However, more than 90% of our user base have controllers that can (could) fully utilise the means our instruments offer. But then, two or three of the most popular DAWs don't let them. People miss out on features in our software, and options programmed into our preset libraries, and that is really not their fault.

So what we're doing here is, we offer different means to access those features in these DAWs. While they look like macros, they really are not.

Again, as was discussed many times, sound designers do not support macros (too much work), but they do support (if reluctantly, some) adding means of expression to their presets. We also know that less than 10% of users ever used macros in our other synths, which is disproportionate to the effort and cost of setting them up.

Yet, we are happy to discuss making these means of expression saveable with presets, for those who have no need for them and who prefer macro-like behaviour.

But we are not going back to discussing "macro first" workflows or feature sets. We can surely discuss adding "user macros" which are mostly empty and can be assigned by users who wish for macros. It's just that we think there's going to be a vast overlap, and whatever macros are set up will interfere with the expressions anyway.

So we're trying to find a compromise, this is what this thread is about.

[jooster]

discuss adding "user macros" which are mostly empty and can be assigned by users who wish for

Ahh, i see, that 'solves' my question about where is that offset coming from if the abcd controls stays non-macro. So then designers/users would set offset values in the user macro that ship along with the preset? But then the problem just shifts from ABCD to user macro i.e., your 'overlap' comment.

Unless the overlap _is_ the point. If the user macro is a saved value and the ABCD expression adds to it rather than overwrites it? So maybe the real question isn't ABCD-macro vs separate-user-macro, but replace vs add at the target. Add semantics make the overlap harmless wherever the saved value lives.

Urs sorry you must have gone over the ground a million times already...

[pdxindy]

So what we're doing here is, we offer different means to access those features in these DAWs. While they look like macros, they really are not.

This didn't come up in the past with Control A and B because this is the first time they are represented with knobs in the GUI. And with various popular synths having macros, it's easy for users to assume Ctr A-D are macros.

There's enough room on the GUI to put a label above A-D on the Perform page. Maybe a name to help users understand that they are not macros?

[Urs]

Don't get me wrong, I really, really don't mind them to be used like macros, for whoever wants this.

As long as it does not make their use as performance controls feel awkward or buggy.

The main issue here is probably not even a technical one. The main issue is, once a technical solution is decided upon, communicating how the two (or three) sides can work them, and what preset designers need to take into account to make them work for everyone.