MonsterJam - Maschine JAM controller extension

[trevormeier]

Double-tap Play could return to the beginning?

[minortom]

Double-tap Play could return to the beginning?

Yeah, perhaps.

One of alternatives could be:
* shift-play when stopped: resume from last stopped position
* shift-play when playing: restart from beginning

No double tapping but seems like it could be awkward, having to coordinate SHIFT presses with playing state, and presumably if you want to rapidly pause and resume you'd prefer to just keep SHIFT pressed. On the other hand that's just theory, I don't know how common it is to repeatedly resume.

[UPD]

Made the double-tap work and also made shift-play behaviour configurable, will include in next update. Thanks for the idea!

By the way, how it was done before is exactly how it works in Maschine (pause/resume by default, shift-play to restart). Sometimes you just don't know which standard to pick over the other (will Bitwig users expect Bitwig behaviour or will Maschine users expect Maschine?). Now with the setting everyone can be happy.

[minortom]

https://github.com/unthingable/monster- ... ag/v8.0-b4

NOTE: re-add MonsterJam controller to avoid duplicate/deprecated settings

* Finalized PLAY button behavior: double-click restarts, click starts/stops, shift-click depends on setting
* Added setting to choose between PLAY button behaviors
* STEP: added setting for alternating note row colors, increased color contrast
* SONG now works as "home" button when not at default clip launcher view

[trevormeier]

One quick bug: the Grid size selector via the scene buttons seems to be offset by one. Scene 1 does nothing; Scene 2 selects what Scene 1 should and so on

[minortom]

One quick bug: the Grid size selector via the scene buttons seems to be offset by one. Scene 1 does nothing; Scene 2 selects what Scene 1 should and so on

Hm, I just did a quick check and I don't think I'm seeing it. Do you mean the grid in step editor or the grid in the main clip launcher view?

[trevormeier]

In the step editor

[minortom]

In the step editor

Ok, so if I go into step editor, GRID, SCENE 8, click through the first column of buttons, I get a clip like this:

image_2022-10-27_225755900.png

Then, clicking on SCENE 4, I see one for every two buttons lit in the first column (4 total), SCENE 2 — every 4 buttons (2 total), SCENE 1 just one note at the top. As designed.

Code: Select all

scene 8:
x.......
x.......
x.......
x.......
x.......
x.......
x.......
x.......

scene 4:
x.......
........
x.......
........
x.......
........
x.......
........

scene 2:
x.......
........
........
........
x.......
........
........
........

scene 1:
x.......
........
........
........
........
........
........
........

Is that not what you're seeing?

[trevormeier]

Sorry I should have clarified. This is in the Grid Selector mode in the step editor.
- Press "Step"
- Press "Grid"
- Press "Scene 1"
... there's no effect. As I understand it from the docs, Scene 1 should activate a mode with all 8 rows and 8 columns assigned to a single note.

If I press Scene 2, text in Bitwig indicates "1x32"; when I believe it should by 2x32? The controller gives me four rows in the track colour and four rows blank, both of which I can use for step editing.

Scene 4 says "2x16"; Scene 8 "4x8" etc.

[minortom]

Sorry I should have clarified. This is in the Grid Selector mode in the step editor.
- Press "Step"
- Press "Grid"
- Press "Scene 1"
... there's no effect. As I understand it from the docs, Scene 1 should activate a mode with all 8 rows and 8 columns assigned to a single note.

If I press Scene 2, text in Bitwig indicates "1x32"; when I believe it should by 2x32? The controller gives me four rows in the track colour and four rows blank, both of which I can use for step editing.

Scene 4 says "2x16"; Scene 8 "4x8" etc.

Thanks for clarifying. Yes, that is the expected behaviour right now. Scene 1 does "nothing" because it's already selected by default.

If you see a popup "1x32" on Scene 2 that means you must have the Note mode enabled, which takes up the lower half of the matrix and leaves only half the buttons available to note steps, I can see how this might be confusing. Let me explain what's happening and maybe we can find a less confusing alternative, please bear with me.

First, the way the scene buttons are set up the button number corresponds to how many notes are shown on the whole 8x8 matrix at once, and is the inverse of how many rows a note occupies. E.g., Scene 1 is 1 note per 8 rows (or 8 rows per note), Scene 2 is 2 notes/4 rows, etc..

Second, the "XxY" popup you see is calculated and shown whenever something changes. X is how many notes you're seeing right now, and Y is how many steps are shown for each note.

Third, with Note mode on, the step grid "window" effectively shrinks from 8x8 to 8x4. Because of how the relationship is defined in the first point (i.e. how many notes per 8 rows, ignoring any shrinkage), with Note mode enabled (shrinking step grid by half) Scenes 1 and 2 effectively become the same. With Scene 1 the shrinkage turns 1 note x 64 steps into 1x32 (because now there's still one note but half as many steps), with Scene 2 2x32 also becomes 1x32 (because now you can't see the second note row). You can see this work in reverse by turning off Note mode, then 1x32 will turn into 1x64 or 2x32 depending on which Scene you have selected.

Finally, the reason you're not seeing a popup while flipping between 1&2 and concluding it's doing nothing is that the calculated step grid dimensions are not changing. It actually is switching between 1x64 and 2x32 grids underneath, but because your current visible grid is still 1x32 in both cases it doesn't tell you.

Would it be less confusing if Scene buttons were flipped, i.e. were a count of button rows per note instead of notes per 8 button rows? That seems to be what you're expecting in your description. For me it's more natural to think in terms of "this is how many notes I see on the big grid" than in reverse. Either way there is always a caveat of this being defined for the big 8x8 grid, and by halving the grid two of the scene buttons necessarily become the same, either 1 and 2 or 4 and 8.

I guess one benefit of flipping the Scene buttons is that the "visible rows per note" count doesn't change with halving of the grid except in one case, while "visible notes" changes in all cases but one. Maybe I'll add a toggle.

P.S. I'm planning to add Novation Circuit-style note sequencer layouts, so I'll probably bunch the Scene buttons together (1,2,4,8 -> 1,2,3,4) and use 5-8 for those additional modes. Also for adding scales I might need to reshuffle the right side buttons a little (perform/notes/lock/tune). Just a heads up.

[trevormeier]

This was actually occurring with Note mode off, which is why I sent it as a bug. But after a reboot of my machine I'm not seeing it anymore, so it's as expected now.

I like the way the scene buttons are now, it works for my brain too. And sounds good on the Circuit-style sequencers, that's going to be fun!

[minortom]

This was actually occurring with Note mode off, which is why I sent it as a bug. But after a reboot of my machine I'm not seeing it anymore, so it's as expected now.

I like the way the scene buttons are now, it works for my brain too. And sounds good on the Circuit-style sequencers, that's going to be fun!

That's good to hear, if not completely reassuring. Please let me know if it comes back. Not that I believe in magic, and hopefully b5 fixes should prevent this from happening.

Glad you agree with the scene buttons. Still waiting to hear your opinion of alternating row colours

[minortom]

https://github.com/unthingable/monster- ... ag/v8.0-b5

VelNote (NOTES) mode finally implemented! (see docs)

* Added: popup indicating currently visible notes when it changes
* Fixed: VelNote velocity buttons were indexed wrong, now indexed right
* Fixed: tap tempo (SHIFT+TEMPO) would erroneously activate TEMPO mode, improved handling of combos

[trevormeier]

I think the alternating row colours is an improvement. It’s a bit confusing that some rows are dark though. It communicates that something is disengaged or not working, which isn’t the case. I wonder if it’s better to have the “off” rows (that are currently dark) instead be a standard colour like amber? I also think it could work to have the not-engaged steps be off, but I’m less sure about this. Let me give it another spin with b5 and I’ll try to have a more cohesive opinion

[minortom]

I think the alternating row colours is an improvement. It’s a bit confusing that some rows are dark though. It communicates that something is disengaged or not working, which isn’t the case. I wonder if it’s better to have the “off” rows (that are currently dark) instead be a standard colour like amber? I also think it could work to have the not-engaged steps be off, but I’m less sure about this. Let me give it another spin with b5 and I’ll try to have a more cohesive opinion

Standard colours... that might be the solution, good call. I originally used clip colours for everything, as that gives a nice indication of which clip you're working on, but it does make standardisation progressively challenging (because what if your clip colour is using that), especially given the limited palette.

Let me rethink the colour scheme, maybe I can confine the clip colour to just the Scene buttons (so that indication is still there) and make all other colours standard.

[minortom]

I think the alternating row colours is an improvement. It’s a bit confusing that some rows are dark though. It communicates that something is disengaged or not working, which isn’t the case. I wonder if it’s better to have the “off” rows (that are currently dark) instead be a standard colour like amber? I also think it could work to have the not-engaged steps be off, but I’m less sure about this. Let me give it another spin with b5 and I’ll try to have a more cohesive opinion

Ok, here we go.

I tried to pick colours that are the least bright (wasn't amber), and there is 3 of them so scrolling is easier to see in all grid modes (because it's not a multiple of 2). Also added a quick toggle to turn the colouring off and on.

https://github.com/unthingable/monster- ... ag/v8.0-b6

* Experimental fixed color scheme for alternating note rows
* Added SHIFT+NOTES to toggle alternating colors
* Changed default grid mode from 1 to 4 notes