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Alpha: Arranger and a broader reference question.

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written by: 0beron

I guess for the Tau the arranger grid goes all the way to the top, with the control keys on the bottom of course 3 and 4 (they are longer than the other 2)

written by: mikemilton

Mon, 7 Jun 2010 12:13:07 +0100 BST

Ok, now I'm really confused.

Page 22 (not 23, btw) of the alpha reference documents the first two rows of the arranger as including scroll keys etc.

I observe, from using the device, that this is correct.

The arranger entry in the wiki references the info above.

However, the arranger entry in the wiki goes on to say:

"When the Arranger Agent is created, first of all a Keygroup must be connected upstream of it. This keygroup must have at least two courses - the first course contains all the mode and scroll keys related to the Arranger:

Key 1 of Course 1 is used to scroll the view point onto the arrange window to the right
Key 2 of Course 1 is used to scroll the view point onto the arrange window to the left
Key 3 of Course 1 is used to scroll the view point onto the arrange window down
Key 4 of Course 1 is used to scroll the view point onto the arrange window up
Key 5 of Course 1 is used to turn the arranger on/off
Key 6 of Course 1 is used to turn 'event mode' on or off
Key 7 of Course 1 is used to turn 'set loop start and end points' mode on or off
Key 8 of Course 1 is used to reset the arrange window"

Huh?

Is there some keygroup somewhere laid out in this way?

Are there event mode and reset keys in the arranger keygroup that are not documented in the QReference?

In general, the information in the sections on eigenD agents and belcanto are greatly appreciated and interesting but I find them, for the most part, to be unactionable except for some snipits of useful belcanto that work in the context of pre-existing setups.

It feels a bit like having a really good understanding of the thread specification for every bolt in a motor without having much of a notion of motors themselves.

I'm sure (well, I'm hoping) this will all become clear at some point. That said, an overall piece that provides context for actioning this information would be really useful. If it exists could someone point me to it?

my appologies for being dense

m


written by: 0beron

Mon, 7 Jun 2010 14:32:16 +0100 BST

I think the keygroups that the arrangers use aren't any of the conventional playing keygroups (ie 1-11), and they are only wired in to their respective arrangers. You could probably remap them if you found out what index number they are.
I'm also a little confused as to the 'reset' key and others, I have found a key that toggles all the lights off, but then pressing it again puts them back as if they weren;t really cleared. The control keys really should have some lights on them, as at the moment they are blank.

I agree that the details on the wiki are not yet all that useful, and I requested some more info about plugging things together via their various ports. I guess that in order to do anythin interesting you need so much belcanto to get the interconnections right that doing it by hand isn't really feasible and we need to wait for the fabled workbench.

The wiki page does have some useful info in that you can set the step size. This would be useful for more complex drum patterns, and also to increase the time interval for when the arrangers come into use controlling the drummer/recorder etc, since then you'll probably want one step every 8 bars or so rather than each quaver.

Thinking about this, are there some spare keys in the control keygroup that could function as 'divide by 2' and 'multiply by 2' ? Also when you go from say one step per semiquaver to one per quaver, are all the even semiquavers (indexing from 1) then deleted from your pattern? What would be nice is a kind of multiresolution view of your drum loops, like a power of 2 zoom. You could start with the grid at crotchet spacing , and program in a bars worth of kick and snare, then maybe have another button to replicate the pattern 8 times over, then zoom in to semiquaver spacing, at which point your existing lights would move apart by 4 rows. You can then program in the hihat using the kick and snare lights as a reference. Crucially, zooming back out again would leave the hihat running, although the lights would disappear since they now lie in between the rows.


written by: sam

Tue, 8 Jun 2010 17:14:14 +0100 BST

Hi,

Thank you for posting. You are quite correct, the relevant information is found on page 22 of the Alpha Quick Reference Guide not 23 as I stated in the wiki documentation - thank you for pointing that out and I have amended the article.

The wiki documentation refers to the new Arranger behaviour. It has been changed slightly to accommodate the new Tau factory setup, which has the control keys in a different place. Originally the Arranger would use the first two keys in each course (conventionally at the top of the instrument) as control keys. In the new version, the control keys come from the first defined course, allowing them to be mapped elsewhere on the keyboard. So in a nutshell, old behaviour: keys 1 and 2 of each course are used, new behaviour: keys 1-8 of the first course are used. In this change we also added the key to reset the scroll position of the grid, which is mentioned on the wiki, but isn't in currently released software.

In the standard Alpha factory setups, the courses of these Arranger Keygroups have been reconfigured so that the Arrangers are laid out as before, with the top two rows being control keys (with the addition of the reset key as mentioned above). In other words, course 1 now occupies the top two rows of the keyboard, and courses 2-6 occupy the rest, making up the grid.

In relation to comments regarding the reference section of the wiki in its current form, we are working hard on producing content for the wiki as a work in progress a little at a time and uploading each article when it is complete in the hope that it can be of help to the user community right away. We are aware of a number of requests for a more general article about the interconnection of EigenD Agents - this is very important to us, which is why we are taking our time to produce a very clear and comprehensive article for this area.

Please bear with us during this collaborative process - any feedback about the wiki articles is encouraged and invaluable.

Sam
Eigenlabs Software Department


written by: Tenebrous

Tue, 8 Jun 2010 17:22:00 +0100 BST

Ahhh, moving Course 1 to be the top two rows makes a lot of sense, and clarifies how I read the Wiki article a lot. :)


written by: mikemilton

Tue, 8 Jun 2010 17:33:11 +0100 BST

Thank you for this clarification. It helps.

Sam, I see you working hard at the WIKI and want to say how much that effort is appreciated!!

Thanks, m


written by: 0beron

Wed, 9 Jun 2010 10:39:06 +0100 BST

I guess for the Tau the arranger grid goes all the way to the top, with the control keys on the bottom of course 3 and 4 (they are longer than the other 2)



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