• LoopA

  • LoopA suggestions/improvements/ideas

LoopA firmware release v2.10 is finally out! Many thanks to everyone contributing ideas!

Yes, it includes a new and powerful song mode, have a look:

Also:
Robert as requested (and quite late, sorry!) we now have scale note replacement support - check out the new session fts note replacement feature - if you want to create a list of nice replacement patterns, we could add these as MatriX presets for the next MatriX firmware - thanks a lot! Also: check out white keys FTS mode! šŸ™‚
talondnb song mode is here, finally! šŸ™‚
@gwpt , @forestcaver and joshuaandrew tap-tempo support has been added, as well as eurorack gate-in support for tap-tempo, like this it should be possible to sync your LoopA to your modular system! šŸ™‚
@safrosch LoopA song mode now has a pattern launch feature, which is very similar to your request to launch a full scene - with the cueing feature in song mode you can now launch ā€œscenesā€ from their start - itā€™s explained in the video linked above
@schematicwizard weā€™ve now got the requested session safety confirmation (before destructive save/load/new operations), song mode and the screensaver should now start screensaving when a MIDI clock start packet is received
@autopoiesis as requested, an extension from 32 to 64 user instruments has been added šŸ™‚

Thereā€™s also a widely improved CC remote control support, a configurable CC remote control port filter (to avoid CCs triggering unwanted activity on LoopA), a new triplet quantization feature and a new FTS ā€œScale 615 Schoenberg Hexachordā€.

Hope youā€™ll all enjoy! šŸ™‚
Best regards,
Peter

PS: footage from the video shoot:

        Hawkeye Thanks for the hard work on this!! I watched the video, everything is crystal clear, the reset feature in song mode will be extremely useful! Iā€™m also super enthusiastic about the scale configuration per scene. Your design/implementation choices make much sense to me!

        Iā€™ll try this update very soon, thanks again šŸ™‚

          Hey Peter!

          Love so many things about this update, thank you so much for the work youā€™ve put into it. I am running into one unusual issue though with the RST function. When the reset function is enabled, the following pattern will start one step earlier than it is supposed to. For instance, if I have pattern one set to 16 steps, and pattern two has reset turned on, pattern two will start on step 16 of the first pattern, not the following downbeat.

          I have found that if I set pattern 1 to 17 steps, everything lines up correctly, or 33, 65, depending on how many repeats of the pattern I have. When watching the firmware update video it sounds like it also triggered pattern two a 16th note early. Not sure if there is a way to adjust the playback position of the reset function to the correct spot, or I have something weird going on with my setup.

          Thanks!

          Sam

          talondnb and @schematicwizard - thanks for your kind words!
          @safrosch - thanks as well and thanks for testing! This is entirely possible, while we had a small beta-test team, this might have slipped our attention - let me check and come back to you - if it is a bug, it should be possible to fix in patch version v2.10b.

          Best regards,
          Peter

              Hey Peter,

              This is a solid update! It makes the LoopA a portable powerhouse now šŸ˜
              Iā€™ll be working on some videos showcasing some gear including the LoopA.

              Thanks again!

              @diyguy - thank you!!! Always looking forward to seeing some external LoopA videos, thanks for filming them!

              @safrosch - investigated the reported ā€œpattern restartā€ issue - iā€™ve tried with this song structure:

              To test if the second pattern starts one step too early with ā€œrestartā€ on, iā€™ve put a test note on the last step/on the last sixteenth note of clip 3A in the first pattern - and youā€™re right - both this sixteenth note of pattern 1 as well as the first note on the follow-up pattern 2 are played at the same time. Iā€™ll see how to fix it and should be able to come up with a patch relatively soon. Thanks for finding and reporting the problem! I think for now you could indeed solve it by increasing the length of the predecessor pattern by 1 step, but this is of course not what we want to do permanently šŸ™‚.

              Best regards,
              Peter

              @safrosch just uploaded the patch, which should fix the pattern restart ā€œlast-stepā€ issue - you can get the new v2.10b release on the main LoopA page or directly via this link:
              https://www.midiphy.com/files/256/LoopA_firmware_v210b.zip

              Iā€™ve tested it quite a lot and pattern restart behaved nicely now over here, but i am unsure if i caught everything - it would be super nice, if you could run it through some tests on your side as well!

              Thank you very much and best regards,
              Peter

              Just tested it out and it works like a charm! Thanks so much for the quick adjustment!

              Sam

              safrosch no problem - and thanks a lot for testing, Sam!

              Best regards,
              Peter

                  12 days later

                  Hi Peter,
                  great to see your update with the note replacement implementation! I would collect a set of repl. patterns the next weeks for you, for hard coding. Finally these patterns should be changed on-the-fly with running sequencer using the free matriX :-)
                  In what format would you like the replacement patterns? C-arrays?
                  Robert

                  Robert sounds great, thanks a lot!

                  While playing with the note replacement feature, i managed to squeeze some quite interesting sequences out of LoopA, canā€™t wait to add this to the MatriX on the free slots of the scale page! Yes, switching the replacement schemes will work while the sequencer engine is running šŸ™‚.

                  In my tests, it often made sense to combine the note replacement feature with the FTS ā€œChromaticā€ scale (basically FTS is then disabled), so that every semitone gets replaced with its destination note, without the scaler interfering. But it is also good fun to use note replacement with the FTS-scaler adjusting the replaced notes afterwards, to e.g. a standard 7-tone scale.

                  Any format you provide is good, easiest would indeed be C arrays. It would be also very nice to add a name for the replacement scheme (up to 20 characters, can be futuristic or inventive) for future easier reidentification of the scheme, e.g.:

                  {ā€œHarmonic Crush Aā€, +5, 0, -5, 0, +3, -2, +4, 0, -7, +3, 0, -1},
                  ā€¦

                  The first numeric value (after the name) defines the delta of semitones ā€œaddedā€ to ā€œCā€, +5 semitones in this case, followed by eleven more delta values for all the semitones of that octave up to key ā€œBā€ (ā€œHā€ in german).

                  Best regards, thanks a lot for creating the replacement strategies and no rush!
                  Peter

                      14 days later

                      For those of us getting hard of seeing, possible alternate screen output for ā€œowners responsibilityā€ to wire it up as an option. The current screen is nice, just wish it and the line thickness were thicker/bolder.

                      Bill

                      Billloopav2 thanks for your suggestion, Bill!

                      I hear you! Unfortunately LoopA (as many other synths/sequencers) has been built for exactly this display type - to my best knowledge, there are no larger displays supporting this screen resolution and access protocol (itā€™s not as easy to swap the screen as it is on a computer). You might benefit from an external physical loupe (something that you can clamp to your synth stand, like a large soldering magnifying glass) or by using magnification glasses - my suggestion here would be the Carson Pro MagniVisor series - i use them quite often, and they work wonders.

                      Best regards,
                      Peter

                          6 days later

                          I find myself working in step record mode quite often. It would be great to have some shortcut to change the ā€œadvance notesā€ setting and not have to go to Setup menu and scroll down every time I want to switch from quarter notes to sixteenth etc.

                          koooch When you are in the mute screen while step recording pushing the Select and turn the Data knob changes the advance settingsā€¦.

                            Keeze Brilliant! Looks like I missed that in the manual, thanks šŸ˜„

                              9 days later

                              I saw we got an update for LoopA. Can I ask if you ever plan on implementing pitch bend messages?

                                After going through the video of the new update, I saw that you implemented 'ā€˜pattern restartā€™' in song mode. What is the reasoning that we canā€™t have that feature when changing clips with the 'ā€˜Sceneā€™' knob? Iā€™m sure Iā€™m not the only one that was asking for this fix, and Iā€™m quite stumbled why you said it canā€™t be done but now the song mode uses it, yet we canā€™t manually change clips at note 0.