By NearTao
Tue Dec 30, 2008 4:05 pm
Things I like
------------------------------
Pad A01 being defaulted to Midi Note C1 instead of B0 is great. For me at least it makes playing Midi on the pads a bit more consistent. Yes, it is only shifting the notes by one pad, but who here doesn't start with C when mentally mapping notes?
The new filter mode with the second filter is quite brilliant. I won't go so far as to say it would replace a software sampler, but it will keep me from needing one that much longer. I can't say that I care for the frequency points of the EQ Low or EQ High, but hey... they are handy to keep in your back pocket as well.
The updates to the main screen are somewhat less substantial than previous updates, but man it is pretty great how much can be crammed into this screen. I can imagine new comers being somewhat overwhelmed, but I'll take it.
Chord mode is superb. It is such a good idea and well implemented. The one improvement I'd like to see here is chord maps that can be loaded and saved as a file instead of being saved in the firmware as a global setting for everything. Maybe this should be a seperate .crd file or somehow part of the project. I'm kind of feeling that this is a feature that may be different from project to project and probably shouldn't be global.
I like the addition of the Arp, but I'd like to see patterns for Up, Down, Up/Down, Down/Up, Played and Random. Yeah there are more complicated patterns, but those are probably the most handy. Perhaps also an octave up, up to 4 octaves? That'd be super sweet, though might push the note range of the MPC a bit too far. I'd also love to be able to chain a chord into an arp, but that's probably asking too much.
Grid mode zoom, one word, wow.
Drum pad copy/paste is dead sexy.
There are still a lot of features I haven't even played with or touched (and may never), so I won't comment on them.
(Mostly) Minor Complaints
------------------------------
The Midi note is no longer displayed on the main screen when a pad is triggered unless you have a Midi output channel selected. I am not sure why this is, but I find this change a bit annoying as it was nice to make sure you were generating the correct midi note. With this change you must specify a midi output channel to get this information back and it is only displayed on drum/midi/arp but not on chord. Not displaying on chord is rather understandable though as there isn't a lot of room in there right now. I'd like to see the notes output again for at least drum/midi tracks without the need to specify a midi output channel.
Instruments still only display the first sample of an instrument instead of the lowest (or highest) sample played. This is somewhat okay, but I would like to see the actual sample name of a sample that is being played, instead of the default of the first sample in the instrument.
Instruments still do not have a way to select all parameters. I would like a shift F6 (or whatever) to select all sample banks so I can do things like adjust velocity. Also, a lot of my samples have the same note range recorded and it would make it pretty quick to create new programs this way as I could just scroll all samples +/- how ever many notes for that instrument.
Instruments also continue to lack the ability to use numeric input for the root (ORG) note of a sample. I use numeric input for the high/low range of samples all the time, it'd be nice to have this ability for root (ORG) as well. Another thing that would be nice is the ability to copy the value of the low value into the root (ORG) of the sample, as typically this will be the same except for the first note, at least for me.
16 Levels Tune still has stuck notes if you press more than two pads at a time. This is particularly problematic if you have a sample set to Loop as the only way to get it to stop is to hit Stop three times. I just checked and this issue plagues all of the 16 Levels and not just Tune. So you'll run into this for velocity and Filter/Attack/Decay...
A nit that I have is that there seems to be no way to default loop mode to On. I have tried several things, looking through options etc and haven't figured this out. I like the changes to loop mode, but it is always set to off for me. I'd like a way to set 001-End as default for my usage, but this doesn't seem to be available at the moment. For the time being I'll continue to forget to set loop, record extra measures outside of my 2 or 4 and then have to monkey around with the loop settings. Please JJ, allow us to default at least the options of Loop Off or 001-End.
Simult pad triggering only works at trigger time and not for playback. At playback it only triggers the midi note. I'm not certain what is going on under the hood, but I'd prefer the MPC to retrigger any simult pads when it gets the note. Otherwise it makes future drum layering work a bit more obtuse requiring either the creation of a new sample or a lot of note copy/pastes as you try to recreate the pattern on one midi track into another. Again, there are plenty of ways to deal with this, but it really is annoying.
For some Q-Links is a major issue, for me it just seems a bit more gimped. I don't understand the reason why we can really only use 1 q-link at a time, and recording different q-link data often (if not always) deletes previous sets of q-link data. I'm not a q-link ninja, so for most work I won't even care, but it does seem odd to me that you cannot really operate 2 q-links at the same time (at least for now) and that q-link 2 has priority. It seems like a big step down in functionality, but I'm hoping that JJ has something big in store for us in the future.
Mixer automation is probably my biggest complaint. Unfortunately without it there is really no good way to get some of the more subtle volume/pan variations. Yes there is velocity and ADSR envelopes, but they just don't cut it when you really want to ride the slider. This is another space I am just keeping my fingers crossed will be coming back as a proper feature in OS2XL and blow us away.
Overall Thoughts
------------------------------
At first I was completely blown away by OS2XL. Now that the new OS smell has worn off I still think that it is great, but perhaps worth waiting another month or two to see where it lands for those who aren't quite sure. For the most part I think it is a more solid update than some of the previous new releases, but there seems to be a few bugs here and there that could have been addressed by releasing a bit later.
For anybody on the fence due to a bug or two, I'd say that the rate at which bugs are being addressed is pretty amazing. In less than a week we've already seen 12+ bugs dealt with. The number of major issues is dwindling rapidly.
Looking back, a lot of my issues stem from how OS2 handles Instruments. So I don't want to give the impression that these are new to OS2XL, and possibly half of them are just things I'd like to see resolved.
Still, this is a pretty substantial update, and unless you absolutely cannot live without q-links or mixer automation I'd say it is well worth the upgrade. I think most of the issues have creative work-arounds, it just depends on how well you know the hardware/work flow and how much you keep an eye on the forums for good suggestions and information.
I'm very happy with the update (and there are some potentially big future updates yet to come). Although I will need to go back to OS2 once in a while if I care to finish up some older projects, at least the option is there for when the time comes.
------------------------------
Pad A01 being defaulted to Midi Note C1 instead of B0 is great. For me at least it makes playing Midi on the pads a bit more consistent. Yes, it is only shifting the notes by one pad, but who here doesn't start with C when mentally mapping notes?
The new filter mode with the second filter is quite brilliant. I won't go so far as to say it would replace a software sampler, but it will keep me from needing one that much longer. I can't say that I care for the frequency points of the EQ Low or EQ High, but hey... they are handy to keep in your back pocket as well.
The updates to the main screen are somewhat less substantial than previous updates, but man it is pretty great how much can be crammed into this screen. I can imagine new comers being somewhat overwhelmed, but I'll take it.
Chord mode is superb. It is such a good idea and well implemented. The one improvement I'd like to see here is chord maps that can be loaded and saved as a file instead of being saved in the firmware as a global setting for everything. Maybe this should be a seperate .crd file or somehow part of the project. I'm kind of feeling that this is a feature that may be different from project to project and probably shouldn't be global.
I like the addition of the Arp, but I'd like to see patterns for Up, Down, Up/Down, Down/Up, Played and Random. Yeah there are more complicated patterns, but those are probably the most handy. Perhaps also an octave up, up to 4 octaves? That'd be super sweet, though might push the note range of the MPC a bit too far. I'd also love to be able to chain a chord into an arp, but that's probably asking too much.
Grid mode zoom, one word, wow.
Drum pad copy/paste is dead sexy.
There are still a lot of features I haven't even played with or touched (and may never), so I won't comment on them.
(Mostly) Minor Complaints
------------------------------
The Midi note is no longer displayed on the main screen when a pad is triggered unless you have a Midi output channel selected. I am not sure why this is, but I find this change a bit annoying as it was nice to make sure you were generating the correct midi note. With this change you must specify a midi output channel to get this information back and it is only displayed on drum/midi/arp but not on chord. Not displaying on chord is rather understandable though as there isn't a lot of room in there right now. I'd like to see the notes output again for at least drum/midi tracks without the need to specify a midi output channel.
Instruments still only display the first sample of an instrument instead of the lowest (or highest) sample played. This is somewhat okay, but I would like to see the actual sample name of a sample that is being played, instead of the default of the first sample in the instrument.
Instruments still do not have a way to select all parameters. I would like a shift F6 (or whatever) to select all sample banks so I can do things like adjust velocity. Also, a lot of my samples have the same note range recorded and it would make it pretty quick to create new programs this way as I could just scroll all samples +/- how ever many notes for that instrument.
Instruments also continue to lack the ability to use numeric input for the root (ORG) note of a sample. I use numeric input for the high/low range of samples all the time, it'd be nice to have this ability for root (ORG) as well. Another thing that would be nice is the ability to copy the value of the low value into the root (ORG) of the sample, as typically this will be the same except for the first note, at least for me.
16 Levels Tune still has stuck notes if you press more than two pads at a time. This is particularly problematic if you have a sample set to Loop as the only way to get it to stop is to hit Stop three times. I just checked and this issue plagues all of the 16 Levels and not just Tune. So you'll run into this for velocity and Filter/Attack/Decay...
A nit that I have is that there seems to be no way to default loop mode to On. I have tried several things, looking through options etc and haven't figured this out. I like the changes to loop mode, but it is always set to off for me. I'd like a way to set 001-End as default for my usage, but this doesn't seem to be available at the moment. For the time being I'll continue to forget to set loop, record extra measures outside of my 2 or 4 and then have to monkey around with the loop settings. Please JJ, allow us to default at least the options of Loop Off or 001-End.
Simult pad triggering only works at trigger time and not for playback. At playback it only triggers the midi note. I'm not certain what is going on under the hood, but I'd prefer the MPC to retrigger any simult pads when it gets the note. Otherwise it makes future drum layering work a bit more obtuse requiring either the creation of a new sample or a lot of note copy/pastes as you try to recreate the pattern on one midi track into another. Again, there are plenty of ways to deal with this, but it really is annoying.
For some Q-Links is a major issue, for me it just seems a bit more gimped. I don't understand the reason why we can really only use 1 q-link at a time, and recording different q-link data often (if not always) deletes previous sets of q-link data. I'm not a q-link ninja, so for most work I won't even care, but it does seem odd to me that you cannot really operate 2 q-links at the same time (at least for now) and that q-link 2 has priority. It seems like a big step down in functionality, but I'm hoping that JJ has something big in store for us in the future.
Mixer automation is probably my biggest complaint. Unfortunately without it there is really no good way to get some of the more subtle volume/pan variations. Yes there is velocity and ADSR envelopes, but they just don't cut it when you really want to ride the slider. This is another space I am just keeping my fingers crossed will be coming back as a proper feature in OS2XL and blow us away.
Overall Thoughts
------------------------------
At first I was completely blown away by OS2XL. Now that the new OS smell has worn off I still think that it is great, but perhaps worth waiting another month or two to see where it lands for those who aren't quite sure. For the most part I think it is a more solid update than some of the previous new releases, but there seems to be a few bugs here and there that could have been addressed by releasing a bit later.
For anybody on the fence due to a bug or two, I'd say that the rate at which bugs are being addressed is pretty amazing. In less than a week we've already seen 12+ bugs dealt with. The number of major issues is dwindling rapidly.
Looking back, a lot of my issues stem from how OS2 handles Instruments. So I don't want to give the impression that these are new to OS2XL, and possibly half of them are just things I'd like to see resolved.
Still, this is a pretty substantial update, and unless you absolutely cannot live without q-links or mixer automation I'd say it is well worth the upgrade. I think most of the issues have creative work-arounds, it just depends on how well you know the hardware/work flow and how much you keep an eye on the forums for good suggestions and information.
I'm very happy with the update (and there are some potentially big future updates yet to come). Although I will need to go back to OS2 once in a while if I care to finish up some older projects, at least the option is there for when the time comes.
