LOOP EDIT needs some improvement in OS128XL

looking at the online manual for this, it really looks like JJ screwed this mode up!

http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/~mpc1000/128xl/grid_drum3.htm


it's one of the best features in OS2xl, but here it looks like he really over-complicated it. that multi-pad view really screws things up, and he made it 10 times slower & harder to work with because now you have to move the cursor to the top of the screen each time you want to edit a simple parameter. the way it all laid out in rows in OS 2xl is much better.

look at all the crap he expects you to memorize! :

If PAD1 is hit, marker will be 1 / 16 step back.
If PAD3 is hit, marker will be 1 / 16 step movement.
If PAD4 is hit, the event on a marker will be eliminated and marker will be 1 / 16 step movement.
If PAD5 is hit, a marker will be moved to the first of back beat.
If PAD7 is hit, a marker will be moved to the first of next beat.
If PAD8 is hit, all the events on cursor will be eliminated.
If PAD9 is hit, a marker will be moved to a left end.
If PAD11 is hit, a marker will be moved to a back event.
If PAD12 is hit, a marker will be moved to a next event.
If a DATA wheel is turned pressing PAD13, the event on a marker can be shifted. (- / +11 tick)
If a DATA wheel is turned pressing PAD14, the velocity of the event on a marker can be changed.
If PAD15 or PAD16 are hit, the step interval of PAD2, PAD6, and PAD10 can be changed.



use to be you just used the arrow & bar keys to move the cursor around!

i don't have OS128XL yet, and haven't decided whether to get it yet or not, but we really got to get him to fix this! i'm afraid he will use this as the basis for a new small-screen JJ OS.

he should just bring back classic LOOP EDIT mode and use the extra screen space to just add more rows of information at the bottom. you could put the automation stuff down there so you could easily view/edit it. loop start, end, attack, decay, etc... it would be great to be able to view/edit that stuff in LOOP EDIT. it would be like the 'parameter locks' feature that Elektrons gear has (Machinedrum, Monomachine, etc..)

wow haha, quite an alarmist title you got there.

i think you might need to experience this firsthand in order to judge it more accurately. feel free to come check it out btw.

i've never been a loop edit user, but comparing the two, this gives you more immediate control provided that you learn the pad commands

use to be you just used the arrow & bar keys to move the cursor around! ....now you have to move the cursor to the top of the screen each time you want to edit a simple parameter.

navigation: you can still do this, plus data wheel. navigation isn't really any different.
moving to top of screen to edit param: no, the graphic is misleading here. you actually cannot navigate to the field with shift/vel to edit them. you use the qlinks (which is very, very fast).

... you could easily view/edit it. loop start, end, attack, decay, etc... it would be great to be able to view/edit that stuff in LOOP EDIT. it would be like the 'parameter locks' feature that Elektrons gear has (Machinedrum, Monomachine, etc..)

agreed, 100%. loop edit on the big screen has a lot of space wasted vertically just to show a visual of the velocity of an event. others may disagree, but i don't think a visual velocity queue is necessary here, if, as Sooty suggests, a multitude of params (including velocity) could be showed at the bottom in numeric form.

i'll fire up os2xl sometime today to get more of a comparison going, but i think you'd probably like this in practice more than you do from the manual.

more complicated, yes. but i think definitely a lot more powerful. it's kinda weird compared to traditional MPC workflow.

one benefit too is for those of us using doubletime resolution, you can view 2 bars at one time to simulate 1 bar. this was one of the major reasons why i never used loop edit to begin with.

Nym wrote:wow haha, quite an alarmist title you got there.

hahah yeah, i know. it is one of my favorite features tho and when i was looking at that manual i was like... whaaaaat??!
waaay too complicated.

i think you might need to experience this firsthand in order to judge it more accurately. feel free to come check it out btw.

i might take you up on that offer!

use to be you just used the arrow & bar keys to move the cursor around! ....now you have to move the cursor to the top of the screen each time you want to edit a simple parameter.

navigation: you can still do this, plus data wheel. navigation isn't really any different.
moving to top of screen to edit param: no, the graphic is misleading here. you actually cannot navigate to the field with shift/vel to edit them. you use the qlinks (which is very, very fast).

well, that's good to know. you still need to hold a certain pad down while you use the qlinks for velocity/time shift, tho. i still like the old version where all of the time shift/duration values are displayed in a row. makes it easy to see in a glance which hits are shifted, which seems even more important now because it looks like JJ removed the ability of the velocity bars to move back & forth on the display to illustrate the time shift, right?

i also just like the clarity of only editing one pad at a time and using the pads to switch the one you are editing. very fast & intuitive. nothing to memorize. one of those pad commands in there now erases all events and that seems pretty dangerous to me!

... you could easily view/edit it. loop start, end, attack, decay, etc... it would be great to be able to view/edit that stuff in LOOP EDIT. it would be like the 'parameter locks' feature that Elektrons gear has (Machinedrum, Monomachine, etc..)

agreed, 100%. loop edit on the big screen has a lot of space wasted vertically just to show a visual of the velocity of an event. others may disagree, but i don't think a visual velocity queue is necessary here, if, as Sooty suggests, a multitude of params (including velocity) could be showed at the bottom in numeric form.

it seems we're mostly in agreement on this. i do like the velocity bars, even tho they don't need to be very big, just enough to give you an idea where the accents are. i really think he should get rid of the multiple pad view and put some extra rows to show the automation. he can keep the qlinks to edit velocity/time shift on whichever step you are on, while the data wheel can be used to edit duration + automation values.

having TUNE, FILTER, ATTACK, DECAY, etc... in LOOP EDIT is a must in my opinion. The value of that far outweighs multi-pad views.


AND... if he got rid of the key commands that F3 tab could change from "HELP" to "CC" !!!!!

think about it: view / edit MIDI CCs in LOOP EDIT mode! that would be super useful. it would be a nice additional way to enter MIDI CCs on the MPC to get really quantized data entry of when you want the values to change in discreet steps instead of smooth curves.

haha i feel like i have mostly good news for you

because it looks like JJ removed the ability of the velocity bars to move back & forth on the display to illustrate the time shift, right?

nah that's working, too!

you still need to hold a certain pad down while you use the qlinks for velocity/time shift, tho.

nope! pad 10, 6 and 2 allow you to have individual swing/velocity settings per each of the 3 note input pads.

one of those pad commands in there now erases all events and that seems pretty dangerous to me!

yes, pad 8

yeah please do come by, i'm about to be on break from work til early january
meanwhile, not to be paranoid but ... just maybe change the title so as not to freek out some of our more delicate members? your call and i don't want to come across as censoring anything. i just want to see the os128xl momentum continue.

we can draft a request regarding those extra params you were talking about.
os128xl is actually hurting for note param access - it's hard to do from GRID. i'm doing everything in realtime during recording these days, much less editing as a result. this is good for practice, but i'm a deep editor so i need my param access.

i'm thinking instead of dramatically changing the whole loop edit screen it'd be nice to have a popup window for those params.

and "help" as an F-key seems wasteful to me haha...once those functions are memorized, it's just a lost key.

Nym wrote:yeah please do come by, i'm about to be on break from work til early january
meanwhile, not to be paranoid but ... just maybe change the title so as not to freek out some of our more delicate members? your call and i don't want to come across as censoring anything. i just want to see the os128xl momentum continue.

no problem. i toned the subject down a bit.
i'll send you a pm about getting together.

we can draft a request regarding those extra params you were talking about.
os128xl is actually hurting for note param access - it's hard to do from GRID. i'm doing everything in realtime during recording these days, much less editing as a result. this is good for practice, but i'm a deep editor so i need my param access.

agreed! loop edit is perfect for this.

like i said, this is just like Elektron-style parameter locks. you can do amazing stuff with that. it's time to bring those capabilities to the mpc.