hello everyone. recent builder of the midibox seq 4+ here.
i,m trying to figure out ways to make my work flow smoother but it’s feeling somewhat clunky and slow at the moment.
eg. It seems every time i start a new pattern i have to setup everything all over again, ie. setting instruments, trying to plan what groups and tracks to use for what etc.
how does everyone set there sessions and tracks up? do you save instrument settings in ‘new preset’ in the track event menu? i have been doing this but find things keep changing when i load the preset into a new track, such as midi notes for drum triggers.
any tips on how to make work flow smoother or making track/ group/ bus configurations tidier and i,m all ears!
cheers

horacio2222 great idea to have such a thread, thanks!

Let me write down my SEQ v4+ workflow, i am sure others have different ways to use it. If anyone has any videos of using their SEQ v4/v4+, you could also post it here and describe what you are doing - thanks a lot!

First of all, i have a relatively static MIDI equipment setup, there are quite a few MIDI synths around and a rather small sized eurorack system - everything is statically wired in the studio, thus the ports don’t really change often. I’ve got a printed-out instrument map nearby to know which synth is on which midi port/channel for reference.

The most important part of my workflow is to use “empty” session preset files - i have saved one that maps my most beloved synths into tracks 1-16 with my preferred standard sequence lengths (usually 16 to 64 steps, depending on synth) and is otherwise empty (no notes). I’ve learned which track is which synth and thus can start recording instantly after loading that previously prepared session preset file (remember to save to a different session file when some nice recordings were made).

For song performance i do only work with mutes/unmutes and transposition - see my older videos on youtube, i.e. this one:

This works just with 16 prerecorded SEQ v4 tracks, muting/unmuting and synth knob (mostly filter cutoff) adjustments - i’ve recorded a lot of these videos earlier on, but don’t find enough time for it at the moment, i really should sit at the synths more 🙂.

For the more modern SEQ v4+, i usually stay in the transposition screen with MUTE mapped on the secondary row of Matias switches - like this everything i need can be accessed from a single screen. I often use SEQ v4+ for static step sequences and drums and LoopA for everything more dynamic and “off-beat”. The video above was SEQ v4 only and probably only using 10 out of the 16 tracks.

So my recommendation is this: while SEQ v4+ gives a lot of options (song mode, pattern switching), it may be easiest to start simply with 16 tracks, muting/unmuting and transposition and to prepare a few empty session files, so you don’t have to set up every session from scratch.

Hopefully this was helpful!
Best regards and enjoy your new sequencer,
Peter

    thanks Peter, nice video man.
    yes., i think thats the way to go as far as session templates.
    i generally play live and don’t use song function at all. so skipping from pattern to pattern. the groups of 4 tracks configuration is still something i need to get used to. i haven’t figured out what phrase mode is yet though!

    9 days later

    Horacio, Phrase mode is where you can switch between pattern sets. So you make variations of your patterns (copy, change, SAVE) assign them slots and then you can “play” the different pattern sets.

    Like a song mode without the auto stepping, looping etc. A great thing to get into!!

    Steve

    13 days later

    just saw this..cheers 4 da explanation Revtor!
    i hope mutes also get saved in the phrases ! been trying to figure out how to save mutes without much luck

      the manuals are so vague about the phrase mode. its really hard to get a grip on it. for example there is no mention of what “takeOver Patterns” does. any one else had problems learning via the manual/ beginners guide or is it just me?

      so there are 16 different ‘actions’ for each ‘phrase’? and these are stored in each of the bottom switches on the bottom row? and then these phrases are saved in different slots and cna be recalled via the same bottom row of switches?

      if theres’s any one out there prepared to walk me through this i would be very grateful.

      also would be cool if the manual was updated/ improved according to the new layout of the midiphy version i reckon/.
      instructions like this pasted below re: phrase mode don’t apply to the midiphy layout and makes it super hard for dumb people like me to figure out.

      "For a fast usage the Track and Layer buttons have a special function in this page (Song/Phrase mode) : the Track buttons select the pattern group G1..G4, Layer button A sets the cursor to the “Song” item, Layer button B selects the “Position” item, Layer button C selects the “Action” item.

        sorry me again! is there a reference page with mods that people have written.
        was thinking to make the push button on the big rotary do something… like access the events page perhaps? cheers

        Horacio I’ll make video for phrase (pattern) mode tonight.. I’ll link it in this thread.

        hint-mutes don’t -really- save.. well, the saves don’t stick. But the mute page works well in phrase mode!

        Yes a single complete manual would be great. Or a video (with time stamps!) that hits every menu page and explains all the options in each.

        Until then we have the seq4 midibox pages which are great, and then the midibox wiki beginners guide. They complement each other, the beginners guide gets you into everything and then for more depth you can dig into the official midibox pages.
        Also the follow-along tutorial guides on the midibox pages are great.
        finally, reading through the midibox forum, following the development of v4, is a fascinating deep dive into what truly lies under the hood of the v4+ and how it developed. Much of this development is documented in the changelog, you can get some gold from that as well.

        so yes, it’s all a bit scattered, but there’s a lot out there.
        I printed out and got bound: beginners guide, Seq v4 user guide, user guide tutorials 1-6, and changelog. A big fat stack, good to randomly flip through.

          Phrase mode vid

          Starts with Phrase mode buttons
          Then Changing between phrases and muting..
          saving phrases is at the end of the video

          “Take over patterns” is a song mode thing. It’s (iirc) a way to quickly enter a pattern set as a song position.

          Some thing useful in phrase mode is “utility”-“opt” 1 through 3. Those options deal with track sync and changing patterns. Help keep things of different lengths/divider setting in sync.

          enjoy.

          @Revtor: incredible work! Thanks for the tutorial! Linked on the SEQ v4+ main page.

          Best regrads,
          Peter

          amazing, thank you so much Revtor, that cheat sheet is gold. woulda never know about that ‘extend track’ function. very useful indeed.
          ok so basically pattern and phrase mode are more or less the same. i was kinda hoping phrase mode would enable you to set up ‘scenes’, with various mute and pattern, tempo info etc, so that you could flick through these different scenes and be able to make cool jumps in the music; somewhere between pattern jamming, like you demonstrated in the video, and just playing a song all the way through in song mode.
          huh? so you u already figured a way to turn the big wheel click into something useful just like i had hoped for, that’s bad ass! must really speed stuff up. if you are able to explain the process of updating firmware to do this, i would be ever so grateful. (i have the left handed version. not sure if relevant). i guess you load mios up and send some code to the sd card right?
          thanks again for helping me out man, appreciate it a lot.

          @horacio2222 for more cheatsheets see:
          https://www.midiphy.com/en/news/d/46/midiphy-seq-v4-step-sequencer-pdf-cheetsheet

          You can remap all button function in MBSEQ_HW.V4, for the RH SEQ v4+ you can have a look here:
          https://github.com/midibox/mios32/blob/master/apps/sequencers/midibox_seq_v4/hwcfg/midiphy_rh/MBSEQ_HW.V4

          You can map any function (for example JAM_LIVE) to any shift register and input pin - like this you can map e.g. your jog wheel encoder button to any function, also you can do the same with the footswitch inputs.

          Best regards,
          Peter

          horacio2222

          you can modify the config files using any barebones text editor and then move them onto the sd card. The machine needs to read it to make the setup work. I’m a bit hazy on the details, but I jumped back into the build guide videos to where they had us doing all this loading and setting of these files. I just used my modified file.

            Revtor thanks again. just going through the thread about the modding the wheel.

            “…….Any by putting a minus in front of all options except “page” it will bring me to the event page of the current track that I have selected…..”

            could you explain this part if you can still remember?

              horacio2222

              when you have the file open in front of you, you will see the options list and the symbols.. My memory is very vague on this!!
              Can’t hurt anything by opening the file so make a copy of it and explore a bit!

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