TubularCorporation
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Posts posted by TubularCorporation
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I didn't notice the bug you're having with the "wait to next pattern", I'll have to check it out and see if mine does that too.
The thing with the controller values is something I've noticed on mine since the most recent update, but I don't know for sure if it's a software bug or just my hand getting too close to other encoders near the one I'm actually touching and confusing it.
If you have a chance, would you mind checking to see if you're getting any trigger voltage out on the first step when you play a sequence? It's more obvious if you tie the first step to the next few since it skips all of the tied notes, too. Mine does this consistently but I've never heard of anyone else having an issue.
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It's definitely usable and fun, the bugs are there but you can adjust your workflow to compensate for a lot o them. The one that's realy getting m is the gate out thing but if the Arturia forums are any indicator I'm the only one who has that problem (it's very consistent and definitely the BSP though, I've actually measured the voltage coming out of it to confirm that it wasn't an issue somewhere else in my setup). The hardware seems reasonably solid for the price, though, so used might be a good option if you're on the fence. I'd be worried about all the 1/8" jacks and especially the microUSB since they're easy to break, but the pads and encoders all seem as good as you're likely to get in that price range.
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Really enjoying this so far, good to see a physical coming. I was really late to the game on Danny and missed out on a lot of my favorite stuff of his so it's great that he's ropping a bunch of more Smackos-like albums recently. I wish the physicals came with downloads though, because I don't want to double dip but I don't really listen to cassettes much and don't even have a CD player, but the solution so far has been to get the cassettes and digitize them for listening.
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Seconding Redefining the Workplace bigtime.
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I just picked up fellow WATMMer Retrig's tr-707 and added it to the pile. I can finally control the fucking sequencer to my JX-3p to a pretty solid clock using the +5db trig out - so I can jam while tweaking a patch and midi-slaving my other gear together. I never thought this would be a reality until I grabbed a cirklon. Last night I had my pro-2 with a few sounds that I could play while I had my EMX, 707 and MPC1000 doing drum duties, my jx-3p doing some pads being sequenced internally and clocked by the 707 and finally my guitar hooked up and me jamming through a loop pedal.
Basically this is my favorite way to make music. I haven't opened up a DAW and I can pre-arrange and them jam out a song in one take moving from riff to riff. I can record to my old AKAI reel-to-reel I thought I had the hardware bug before, now I'm pretty sure I have hardware HIV or full-blown hardware AIDS.
That sounds like a great setup.
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If it could send sysex in controller mode it would be great as a programmer for other synths, even with the bugs.
I wish companies like Arturia would open-source their firmware, I really can't see how it could do anything but boost sales and give their products longer market life.
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Oh hey, I just noticed that since the latest firmware update, if you adjust the swing amount while a sequence is playing it just randomly drops notes and also goes out of time. Once you stop turning the swing nob it reverts back t normal but while you're adjusting things are completely fucked up. Great.
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Unfortunately there's no raw footage of this without commentary, but seriously, the gameplay footage starting at 2:18. Seriously.
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Yeah, the drum section in general is really fun and over all it's better, the main issues for me are that you don't get gate voltage on the first step of playback, certain combinations of gear cause inconsistent DIN MIDI trouble (stuck notes, seemingly random glitches), you can't sync it with the control software if you're using the ground loop filter, and for that matter the ground loop isolator isn't even an actual isolator, it's just a splitter that uses one USB cable for data and a second for power - you'll still get terrible ground loops if you try to power it from a USB hub through the splitter, the only way to actually make it work right is to run it from it's own, dedicated power supply, otherwise anything connected to the CV outputs (well, anything I've tried which is only a few things) picks up a bunch of hum.
I really want to like it more than I do, because the hardware itself is well laid out and really fun to use when it's working right, and has a good, solid feel for the price. Even when I have the Midibox Seq built (which will be a few months probably, between getting all of the parts together and finding time to make it) I'm probably going to hold on to it, if nothing else to use it as a controller. I really want them to make it work, but I have this lingering suspicion that a lot of the trouble I and other people are having - sync issues, stuck notes (hadn't happened to me in weeks but started again recently), ad that gate voltage problem that nobody else seems to have except me, are related to the power problems - ground loop noise bleeding in to data lines or something and corrupting DIN MIDI, for example. I hope not but it seems likely to me. When I first got it, for example, I didn't have a bit of trouble with stuck notes at home but if I moved the exact same gear to my practice space I would get so many stuck notes I pretty much couldn't use it at all. Back home, and they'd be gone again. The only thing that changed was the power strip everything was plugged in to and how they were laid out on the table - when I was having problems, the power supply fr one of the synths I was using was closer to the Beatstep Pro than it was when I didn't have problems, and I could absolutely see RF interference from the power supply interfering with DIN MIDI if the BSP (or more likely the little 1/8" to DIN adapter) isn't shielded well.
All I know is that when it's working it's really fun an even though I'd like a few more features (a proper pad mute mode on the drum track so that you didn't have to keep two buttons held down with one hand while you muted and unmuted drums with the other; saving the pattern chains they just added; ability to pass SYSEX data from the input to the output, ability to send velocity per step even if there isn't a note-on on a given step, so you could tie a note across a few steps and then sequence filter cutoff changes on those steps, for example; more than one octave of pads for the drum track; a looper/roller that actually worked right when you were using swing; etc. etc.) it's definitely really fun as is. But then it will do something weird for a while.
Glad to hear that drum triggers work well, that's one of the things I haven't tried yet but I've been collecting the parts to make a little semi-modular drum module with 4 or 5 voices and a couple of filters and things, and I was hoping it would work well with that, without having to make a midi to trigger converter or something.
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It's really easy to switch modes from the front panel, but that is a hassle if it's consistently happening. The thing is, on mine at least it defaults to 4x4 USB interface as long as it's connected to a USB host (and defaults to simple passthrough, not splitting, when it's not connected to a host), so it sounds like that could be an issue with how the OS handles USB class compliant devices or something, rather than the hardware itself. Or maybe that was an older revision and they've changed it? The one I got does have a couple of modes that aren't in any of the reviews. That sounds annoying though.
I wouldn't recommend it as the first or only midi interface but it's great if you want something else around, and it's the cheapest splitter I've heard of - buying the parts to make your own would cost more, and it would do less. But yeah, if you don't already have an interface I'd hold out for something more polished. If you need a standalone splitter and/or merger I can't find any alternatives even close to this price range, and the USB interface is an added bonus. When I was shopping around, the cheapest alternative I could find that came close to covering the same ground was three separate devices (a MIDI merger, a MIDI splitter and one of those cheap "usb to MIDI cable" things) and that still would have come to around $140 before factoring in power supplies and cable, which is why I ended up giving this a shot.
I do wish that there were more options for mergin inputs though. You can split any of the inputs to the four outputs (the handful of reviews online don't mention that, so maybe they've updated the firmware recently) but you can only merge inputs A and B (which are then available on all four outputs).
But yeah, not the best choice for only interface but great as a useful tool to keep around. I might even pick up a second one.
EDIT: I'm kind of sad to hear that there aren't any problems with it functionally, honestly. Since the last firmware update on the Beatstep it sometimes sends out random bursts of MIDI data that are ignored by some o the gear I have hooked up to it but cause all kinds of problems with other gear (since the update, if I use MIDI to control my Anushri - which I reverted to for a while because of problems with the gate voltage frok the BSP that I think I already mentioned) it sometimes spits out a random note at full velocity in the middle of a sequence, which it never did before the upgrade. When I had the Yamaha FB01 I just got hooked up to it, if you played a sequence for more than maybe 20-30 seconds it would just stop making sound and require a hard reboot, like all the voices of polyphony were being eaten up by stuck notes with 0 velocity or something. I was hoping that the splitter might be the culprit, even though none of this happened during the week when I was using it BEFORE upgrading the BSP.
GEAR
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Guilt aside that looks pretty sweet... I planned on a MIDIsport 4x4 and this is 1/6 the price. Thanks for the heads up.On the plus side, that did lead to me getting one of these for the live rig, and it's one of the best deals I've seen in I don't know how long. 4 in/4 out USB midi interface that also works standalone as a 1 to 4 splitter and a 2-1 merge, plus a couple other modes I never use. Board looks pretty well made and it's been working fine so far.
EDIT: the downside is it literally smelled like a tire fire when it first showed up and is undoubtedly made in some kind of terrible conditions someplace, but so are most of the name brand alternatives.
Is it class compliant or did you need to install drivers?
I got the MIDIsport 4x4. Thing is amazingly good and no hassle to set up.
The MIDIBOX is the Chinese rip off of the 4x4 (I think its two 2x2's put together) of it but it does a great job with the 4 in and 4 out part. No so much the MIDI splitting. Requires software to switch the settings.
Doesn't require software to do anything (in fact there is no software). It's class compliant, I only use it for patch editing and it works fine for that. For the other modes, there's a button to cycle between them. The only down side so far is that it doesn't remember which mode it's in so you have to choose it again every time you power it up but there are only 5 or 6 modes so it's not a big deal.
It's great to have around as something small, light and functional but also cheap but solid enough that you can carry to a practice or whatever and not worry about it.
EDIT: I'm curious to know what problems you've had or heard about with the MIDI splitting, since that's mostly what I use it for. I haven't noticed anything that I could specifically blame on it but since I've only used it to pass data from the Beatstep Pro to a couple of other things and I've only ahd it for a couple weeks, it's possible that they just haven't showed up yet.
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Did I mention that they decided that since it can't generate sysex it doesn't need to pass sysex at all? So you can't pass through it from another sequencer or controller, and you can''t use it as a USB midi interface to program hardware from an editor, for example.
On the plus side, that did lead to me getting one of these for the live rig, and it's one of the best deals I've seen in I don't know how long. 4 in/4 out USB midi interface that also works standalone as a 1 to 4 splitter and a 2-1 merge, plus a couple other modes I never use. Board looks pretty well made and it's been working fine so far.
EDIT: the downside is it literally smelled like a tire fire when it first showed up and is undoubtedly made in some kind of terrible conditions someplace, but so are most of the name brand alternatives.
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Yeah, I'm still holding out hope that the firmware will get fixed, it's definitely improving, but over all it's just not where it needs to be.
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That thing looks really great but I can't afford one and for less than half the price I could do the Midibox route, and it's exactly what I'm after. I love sequencing on the old MPC still but it's limited for live use, you're usually just muting and unmuting tracks and occasionally changing sequences, building a track live is definitely possible but it would be pretty clunky, it's more at home building stuff p with overdubs and editing like a DAW.
This is just what I get for straying from my "never buy anything if I could build something comparable" rule.
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This thing continues to be too buggy and limited, despite the improvements. I'm going to cut my losses and build a Midibox Seq and then eBay it. Too bad, the hardware itself is well laid out ad fun t play with but between the firmware bugs and the ground loop issues (that the ground loop isolator they shipped with it doesn't really solve, while also breaking connectivity with the new version of the software editor) it's just not worth the hassle.
That makes Arturia's score for selling me hardware that actually works zero for two, not going to try again.
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Yeah, that Software stuff is so good.
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This forum is proof.
Came in here to post this.
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You could really see people setting themselves up as gatekeepers/taste arbiters/starmakers/hypemongers in the Vaporwave scene last year, not surprised this year is the year it finally went mainstreamish.
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Nope, 2 melodic sequences an one x0x sequence.
You probably want a Midibox Seq v4 but that's a big project to get together.
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TRiP - you can change the MIDI send and receive channels for the two sequencers and the x0x style drum sequencer but not on a per step basis. But you can definitely change the output channel during playback to control different synths from the same track, I think that's what you're asking about, right? Only three channels at a time but you can change them on the fly.
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There are still some bugs but the new firmware is a big improvement. Pattern chaining, ability to modify all parameters in a sequence simultaneously, the looper strip is actually usable now, you can set it to wait until the end of a sequence before jumping to the next one now, jump to the start of the current sequence with a button press, and some other smaller stuff. Mostly things that should have been there from the beginning, and it's sad that it was considered a retail ready product with the shipping firmware, but it's getting there. haven't used the original so I can't speak too much about the differences, but more tracks, deeper editing, more of a complete sequencer than something you would add on to an existing setup. I still don't think it would be good as your only sequencer but it's a really fun, useful second sequencer, even with the remaining bugs (the one that's killing me right now is that since at least one firmware ago you don't get any gate voltage on the first step when you start playback; it works fine after the first time through but when you first start a sequence, the first note and any notes tied to it aren't triggered if you're using CV. If you tie all 16 steps and press play, you get silence. I've gone as far as actually measuring the voltage on all the CV outputs and confirmed that it's definitely the Beatstep but so far zero acknowledgement from Arturia and nobody else on their forums has reported anything.
Still, since the latest firmware came out I'd actually feel comfortable recommending it, which I wasn't before.
I'd recommend reading the bug reports on the Arturia forum if you're planning to use a lot of analog sync, because there are some issues with that I believe. I've only used DIN midi sync on it, myself.
I haven't had the stuck note bug crop up in a few months, so who knows what the deal was with that. It seemed to come and go depending on whether I was at home or in my practice space, so I have a feeling it's a power issue, or RFI from nearby power supplies interfering with the MIDI output because of bad shielding or something like that. It has never happened at home.
Legowelt
in Music Discussion
Posted
I didn't realize how much he'd released on vinyl!