Black Magic Drum Machine Beta testing finished

[Az're-ul]

Beta 17

Still exploring the changes but here's a minor report

Pretty stable and fun so far

Top bar has slid to the right again & the top gapper randon button no longer works.

Flanger to filter button ?still? not working

Section Cutoff LED doesn't completely switch off (different action from other LED's)

Section Flanger LED is slightly offset

Effects Filter to Delay LED is also offset

Not sure if all small blue LEDs are very slightly off?

Red Solo Reset LED is also offset

My more useful/interesting presets so far FXB

Edit:

10-3-2009

A couple of crashes in Ableton 6 - might be me as its a recent purchase and I'm not sure what I'm doing yet. Seems fine in the beta of Live 8 though

Couple of things that might also be me or some pychoaural phenomena

Does the Drive control in the Master section also pan or maybe output more on the right hand side?

Does the Master section FX Mix control have a dead spot at its furthest extent?

[Astralp]

Beta 18 available:

- Locked Display again (this will probably happen again though!)
- Flanger to Filter button shouldn't have been there, it is either flanger or filter.
- Cutoff button shouldn't have been there, access them on the kit screen
- Hopefully taken care of all the button offsets
- Added az're-ul fxb to the zip

Thanks az're-ul for your input again!

Chester, I think I mentioned before there isn't much I can do about the slow scroll, it is due to the refresh rate being limited by the host I think. I'll have another look into it, have you tried it in other hosts, I can't remember off hand?

take care
Andy

[Chester Desmond]

Chester, I think I mentioned before there isn't much I can do about the slow scroll, it is due to the refresh rate being limited by the host I think. I'll have another look into it, have you tried it in other hosts, I can't remember off hand?

I remember you mentioning that and the only reason I brought it up again is because the record volume knob works correctly and it seemed weird that one of them would be ok and the rest not.
I thought maybe there was a "GUI refresh" parameter or something like that that might be set differently on that one and could be copied to the other knobs.

edit: yeah I tried it in Reaper and Toby's Minihost and in both the knobs operate smoothly and as expected.

[Astralp]

Hi Chester

It depends more on what your mouse is going over as far as I understand it, because that has to be redrawn, SE uses tiles to redraw and so will usually draw more than is needed. The Record is at the bottom and so travels over less objects so would cause less CPU usage. All of the knobs and buttons are my own code written in C++ and I can't think of how to optimize it any further to work around that issue. It is baffling how it only happens in certain situations though. For me the limited GUI refresh rate is the worst aspect of SE, but the positives far outweight the negatives...

I will keep trying to find a way around it though, does Traktor have any settings to change the GUI refresh rate?

[Chester Desmond]

Hi Chester

It depends more on what your mouse is going over as far as I understand it, because that has to be redrawn, SE uses tiles to redraw and so will usually draw more than is needed. The Record is at the bottom and so travels over less objects so would cause less CPU usage. All of the knobs and buttons are my own code written in C++ and I can't think of how to optimize it any further to work around that issue. It is baffling how it only happens in certain situations though. For me the limited GUI refresh rate is the worst aspect of SE, but the positives far outweight the negatives...

I will keep trying to find a way around it though, does Traktor have any settings to change the GUI refresh rate?

I'll check about the refresh rates, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't have anything like that. I will check some other SE plugs in Tracktion and see how well their knobs work.

It is baffling indeed.. my biggest complaint about Reaper has been the redraw; when you drag a window it is quite jerky, yet the BM knobs work fine..
then in Tracktion everything is smooth as hell except the BM knobs.

[Az're-ul]

Beta 18 available:

- Locked Display again (this will probably happen again though!)
- Flanger to Filter button shouldn't have been there, it is either flanger or filter.
- Cutoff button shouldn't have been there, access them on the kit screen
- Hopefully taken care of all the button offsets
- Added az're-ul fxb to the zip

Thanks az're-ul for your input again!

Your welcome Andy

Sorry for late reply, just had a week off so back to some testing this week. I'm a bit surprised there hasn't been any replies since last week though, perhaps you should do a mailshot to the testers?

A little update I've found about the slow knobs is that they seem fine with slow mouse movements but can work very slowly with fast mouse movements almost as though BM is skipping the mouse movements because its going too quickly.

Steve

I also figured out my favourite part of BM which is the changeable lane lengths
This is the only drum machine I know of that has this feature which along with everything else introduces a touch of controlled randomness into the mix

[Az're-ul]

Sorry Andy, I've been way too busy the last week or so to even load BM.

Steve

[Astralp]

Hi Steve

No problem, I'm still working on the manual, and trying to find somewhere to live...

I'm glad you like the sequence sizes, allows for some great syncopation

Andy

[Az're-ul]

Hi Steve

No problem, I'm still working on the manual, and trying to find somewhere to live...

I'm glad you like the sequence sizes, allows for some great syncopation

Andy

And I think I've got problems, sorry Andy

Got the email and should be able to do further testing this weekend, just finishing a 12 day week and hopefully I'll be free from Saturday onwards.

I'll print out the manual at work tomorrow and work my way through it over the weekend.

On the subject of emails is the HG Piano included in the deals? Keep meaning to pick it up...

All the best

Steve

[Astralp]

Great, thanks Steve!

I've Pm'd you

[elxsound]

Hey Astralp,

I didn't know this was up and started again... I'll download the beta in a bit.

After reading one of the tips from EW, I've been anxious to try and delete my ableton config file to see if that'll allow me to open Live without it crashing. The only problem is that I'm still on my semi-vacation and I forgot to bring my audio interface, so I've been using Asio4All on the laptop, which had its problems in that past too. Still, I'll give it a run, but probably won't be much help till I'm back home.

Actually, now that I think of it... I have a Zoom H4 on the way here tomorrow and that's supposed to work as a sound card too, so I'll give that a try IF it works like they say it does in all the youtube videos I watched before purchasing.

Well, glad this is on again and look forward to working more with this!

[Astralp]

Sorry, I haven't been very organised lately, but things are coming together now I think!

[Chester Desmond]

The BM page looks good so far, love that 3d rendering!

Is the manual you mention accessible at this point? I believe I've got beta 018 already but has much changed in the sample\kit area in the last little while?

[Az're-ul]

The BM page looks good so far, love that 3d rendering!

Is the manual you mention accessible at this point? I believe I've got beta 018 already but has much changed in the sample\kit area in the last little while?

http://www.hgsounds.com/bm/index.html

Online only at the moment I think

[ravasb]

Just purchased. Brilliant as usual. I have all the synths and sounds. They are all innovative and inspiring.