Sorry for the long list, I’m pretty happy with the device in general, these ideas are in no particular order and have occurred to me over the last couple weeks.
Mute CC doesn’t mute as expected, you send 127 to mute and 127 to unmute. It should mute at 127 and unmute below 127, or similar. The current motion requires us to hit 127, then hit 127 again, going below 127 doesn’t turn off. It makes it difficult to work with other external sequencers.
Patterns should have an option to save mute state of each arp or preferably allow us to decide to include/not include mute state of arps.
Chord Chain - Allow input from an external sequencer to set the chords in the chain, which would override midi notes incoming, right now we can’t override incoming midi. Or manually allow override, Allow the chord chain to exist but disable when incoming midi notes are active, possibly by midi cc to turn on/off chord chain saved in pattern. To get tricky, Possibly per step enable/disable of the chord chain. Allow save/load of chord chains.
Play mode with external input, allow us to add a note/chord choice that will be part of the live input, it won’t be overwritten, it would allow us to jam the arp along with incoming notes.
Select improvement, multiple arp tracks, hold one track and tap another, then multiple are selected. More options than all or one, then we can edit the selected.
Binary Patterns - Add more granular control, Increase Binary pattern length to 32 steps. Allow pattern rotate. Allow pattern generation including tied steps. Allow euclidean patterns.
Rhythm Patterns should be able to be randomized and reset.
Mod Shape, allow random shape that can be re-seeded/randomized. Allow random stepped, allow a user to edit stepped random so we can create various stepped patterns, similar to binary patterns, with length, pattern, rotate. Allow finer control than 1/4 bar, will work better with note chop and ratchet since those are potentially very fine values.
Mute mod button combo added, when in mod edit menu, mute could on/off the modulation on that arp track.
Long press on a blue Arp setting function could give option to reset just that function back to the last saved preset state, all other changes in the preset remain.
Bounce Arp setting doesn’t give any visual indication of the change that Im hearing when multiple arps are selected, even if the have the same bounce setting.
Idea: Parameter lock on reset. Push encoder while on an arp parameter to lock it, so that if/when you reset, the parameter is not reset. Like midi channel would be an obvious one to lock before reset.
Bug, when setting factor, then changing division, switching from incremental to exponential resets your division to the base factor, it should retain your division and allow you to go exponential/incremental from the current division.
Editing patterns like rhythm length columns feels like the encoder should dial the column height and buttons should advance to select next/previous steps.
Midi CC to Chord selection should be one cc for selecting between 8 chords, not 8 different CC’s. Then a range should be defined like 0-127 or 0-7. Chord selection by cc shouldn’t need a manual press to enable.
Midi cc setup, learn is great but it would be nice to click main encoder to go into cc select mode, then turn the encoder to change the cc assignment. Then also touching the next button to assign while in select mode could assign the next numerical cc after what was just assigned, that would speed up assignment.
Thank you for the excellent suggestions. All feedback is highly appreciated as is the time you put into considering each of these items!
I'll do my best to answer each in turn.
1. When I first implemented this, I tested a number of different controllers and found most buttons just emitted 127 on each press. As noted on the other forum post on this topic, I plan to introduce a way to control how the toggleable settings are triggering using CC (latch on 127, 127 ON 0 OFF, >50<) Each of these seem a viable option I just need to design a way to set this in the UI, probably as an extension to the Type Setting (currently Absolute/Incremental). I hope to get this done in time for the V7 update.
2. This is on the TODO list and would be on a global setting.
Note. I cannot promise when specific features will be released. There are a lot of requests on the roadmap and I try to prioritize the most helpful and/or impactful.
3. There is a big overhaul of the chord chain sequencer planned. A lot of the design is already locked in but your suggestions make good sense and I'll try to work in as much as possible.
4. Do you mean that it should combine the incoming MIDI Notes with a chord played on ARP?
5. This has been on my TODO list for a while. The reason it wasn't included originally was my rule to allow the use of ARP with one hand (and no crazy two-finger combinations). So selection of multiples would require a shift function that ARP doesn't have. I have since broken my own rule with the Chord buttons. Equally, holding the ARP select buttons is already earmarked for another feature. But, watch this space.
Incidentally, you can assign Macros to multiple ARPs, not just one or all.
6. Increased Binary Patterns would require more buttons or paging. ARP wasn't really designed with this in mind and is more a "step sequencer" approach which I didn't design ARP to be. That said, I can totally see the appeal.
7. You can reset Patterns to a blank pattern with the reset button. And there's no such thing as random. :) I'll have a think about it. I actually have a longer-term plan to merge the functions of Rhythm and Groove with the Modulators, similar to you next suggestion...
8. Pattern-based Modulators are on the TODO list. There's a healthy plan in place for overhauling the modulation functions, including merging the pseudo-random FX features. It's on the roadmap for an upcoming update.
9. I can see how this would be a pretty cool feature. However, it might be confusing if you've not read the manual.
10. I plan to extend the Patch Reset function which would allow you to do just this. You'd have to hold reset, then select the arp track and hit "Undo" (or something like that). As said in point 5, holding the Arp Select button is already earmarked for a different feature.
11. Oh, that looks like a bug, it just goes to "SKIP" regardless of the actual settings. I'll fix it in the next update.
12. Yes, many times I have done just this and thought "Wouldn't it be good if it kept x". It would, perhaps, also be useful for Copy parameters.
13. Many of the Division options when the Function is set to Incremental are not available when set to Exponential. Although it is possible to check if the new time parameter is valid, it's actually either a length calculation or a costly lookup. This is just because of the way ARP had to be programmed to handle the complex timing calculations (4 months' worth of work!) I know it's a bit annoying but it's not just a case of keeping the same division, it's a different data set. I'm sure there's a solution but I had to prioritize finishing the feature. The same issue is apparent when you change Factor but, please trust me, this is even harder to resolve. I did try. Nothing else works like ARP because non-standard timings in MIDI are very complex.
14. I've always considered the Up Down buttons as the Y-axis (Vertical) and the encoder as the X-axis (Horizontal). I could add it as a global setting but I don't like to clutter the menu.
15. This has been raised before on the Forum. It's counter to the way ARPs CC assignment works, but a solution could be implemented as part of your next point...
16. Yes, Learn is OK in most cases, but a way to assign without external input (just within ARP) would be useful. I'll add it to the TODO list.
I hope that this information is helpful. If you want to expand on any of these points please feel free to keep the conversation going. We do try to accommodate every request but you must understand that it takes time and some things are counter to the way ARP was conceived.
I really appreciate your input and enthusiasm and it inspires us to continue developing ARP!
Cheers.