Sequences from Robotic Bean - 1.3 is out!

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diminished
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12 May 2019

buddard wrote:
12 May 2019
In my opinion we released a complete and functional product. If we never got the chance to update it again, I would still be happy with it.
I thought that choosing to leave it open for future developments based on user feedback was a good thing?
But to each their own, I guess!
Please don't get me wrong, this is absolutely a good thing and everyone including me is happy about that. I just suffer from PTSD because of Steam Early Access. Features that never get delivered although promised, which lured people into buying an unfinished product. And since you already know that there are a few certain things you want to release with the next update, all I'm asking is, why release Sequences now and not with said features included?
"One thing that didn't make it into 1.0 is that we wanted to show the actual velocity value in the lane when you draw velocities with shift pressed. This will probably make it into the next update."
:reason: Most recent track: resentment (synthwave) || Others: on my YouTube channel •ᴗ•

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buddard
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12 May 2019

diminished wrote:
12 May 2019
Please don't get me wrong, this is absolutely a good thing and everyone including me is happy about that. I just suffer from PTSD because of Steam Early Access. Features that never get delivered although promised, which lured people into buying an unfinished product. And since you already know that there are a few certain things you want to release with the next update, all I'm asking is, why release Sequences now and not with said features included?
"One thing that didn't make it into 1.0 is that we wanted to show the actual velocity value in the lane when you draw velocities with shift pressed. This will probably make it into the next update."
It's because our release window was closing: There are many other things going on in the shop, and summer is coming up fast, so the alternative would have been to put off the release quite a bit. So we felt that releasing now, and postponing a couple of minor features for the next update was the best option.

Regarding the velocity values, it was a really late feature idea that we ultimately had to scratch for 1.0 due to our vigilant beta testers discovering a number of bugs in the last minute, so we had to fix those instead. :D

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eusti
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12 May 2019

@buddard: Glad you released now! :)

D.

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diminished
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12 May 2019

buddard wrote:
12 May 2019
It's because our release window was closing: There are many other things going on in the shop, and summer is coming up fast, so the alternative would have been to put off the release quite a bit. So we felt that releasing now, and postponing a couple of minor features for the next update was the best option.

Regarding the velocity values, it was a really late feature idea that we ultimately had to scratch for 1.0 due to our vigilant beta testers discovering a number of bugs in the last minute, so we had to fix those instead. :D
I see, thanks for the explanation!
So... things going on in the shop, huh? :D Suspicious.. :geek:
MAY MADNESS CONFIRMED!!!!
:reason: Most recent track: resentment (synthwave) || Others: on my YouTube channel •ᴗ•

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joeyluck
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12 May 2019

I'm having fun with this! A few questions/suggestions...

- Is there anything mapped to the Advance button when using step record? I didn't see anything mentioned in the user guide. Is it possible? I think if the sustain pedal could be mapped by default, that would be very handy!

- Any chance of moving the power button to the left? Players are already at a disadvantage of not being able to be minimized individually—making navigating a big chain of players a pain (not your fault and I hope that changes!). But most Players have the power button on the left (kind of like the on/off/bypass button on effects), so it's where I look when scrolling and toggling Players.

- Would it be possible to assign CV to the playhead position? That would be fun! A direction selection would be great, but I think if you can send CV to it, the possibilities are endless. This is a feature with Step Note Recorder right?

- As others have requested, it would be great to be able to save patches within the device.

- I'm also in favor of a pencil tool even if the cursor doesn't show as a pencil. I've been using emvoice VST which behaves this way, and it's clear enough by looking at the buttons to know. Your default would still be the selection tool, so folks who select the pencil know that they selected the pencil.

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buddard
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12 May 2019

joeyluck wrote:
12 May 2019
- Is there anything mapped to the Advance button when using step record? I didn't see anything mentioned in the user guide. Is it possible? I think if the sustain pedal could be mapped by default, that would be very handy!
Unfortunately (but understandably), Players don't receive MIDI CC's, we only intercept note on/off.
The exception is when you're using Remote, but we can't map or enable those by default, it has to be done by the user.
On Step Note Recorder 2.0, we added the possibility to map a MIDI key to Rest (which is the same as Advance in Sequences):
Screenshot 2019-05-12 17.36.24.png
Screenshot 2019-05-12 17.36.24.png (37.15 KiB) Viewed 3237 times
But we haven't received feedback from anyone actually using this feature, and we didn't want to clutter the UI unnecessarily. It might be added later on in some form, though. But we want to take our time and investigate it more thoroughly to make sure we're getting it right.
- Any chance of moving the power button to the left? Players are already at a disadvantage of not being able to be minimized individually—making navigating a big chain of players a pain (not your fault and I hope that changes!). But most Players have the power button on the left (kind of like the on/off/bypass button on effects), so it's where I look when scrolling and toggling Players.
I don't know, for now we're keeping it consistent with Euclidean. We were quite early with Euclidean during the SDK 3 alpha, and at that point the official recommendation was that we come up with our own design for the power button, if we even chose to add one! When they changed their minds later on we had already committed ourselves to this design.
So my honest answer is that I don't know. :)
- Would it be possible to assign CV to the playhead position? That would be fun! A direction selection would be great, but I think if you can send CV to it, the possibilities are endless. This is a feature with Step Note Recorder right?
That is correct, Step has a Position CV input. We skipped it for Sequences 1.0 because it didn't feel like a core feature, but it's not impossible that we add something like that later on.
- As others have requested, it would be great to be able to save patches within the device.
Oh? I hadn't noticed! ;)
- I'm also in favor of a pencil tool even if the cursor doesn't show as a pencil. I've been using emvoice VST which behaves this way, and it's clear enough by looking at the buttons to know. Your default would still be the selection tool, so folks who select the pencil know that they selected the pencil.
Thanks for the feedback! :D

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bxbrkrz
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12 May 2019

buddard wrote:
10 May 2019
bxbrkrz wrote:
08 May 2019
What synth(s) did you use for the demo?
Europa? :puf_smile:
Another useful device :thumbs_up:
The synths used in the demo video are:

ES01
Europa
Grain
Diva
:puf_smile: :thumbs_up:
757365206C6F67696320746F207365656B20616E73776572732075736520726561736F6E20746F2066696E6420776973646F6D20676574206F7574206F6620796F757220636F6D666F7274207A6F6E65206F7220796F757220696E737069726174696F6E2077696C6C206372797374616C6C697A6520666F7265766572

wireditb
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12 May 2019

mjxl wrote:
12 May 2019
This one is frickin amazing Bean !

I've put an RND in front of sequence, let it run 3 loops to (RND on 1/8) to get 3 random notes for each chord in the sequence:
Sequences.png

Then after recording those, i've moved RND behind Sequences and put the Midi note change probability on 10/15ish% for some variations, lovely !! :D
(ofc a Scales & Chords at the end to catch the notes in a scale)

Also putting a DualArp at the end it becomes a always evolving arpeggio.. super neat !
Yeah post a video or RND screenshots or some file. For few of us less rocket scientist :puf_smile: :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up:

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mjxl
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12 May 2019

wireditb wrote:
12 May 2019

Yeah post a video or RND screenshots or some file. For few of us less rocket scientist :puf_smile: :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up:
Roger that.
Like i said before i had RND on 10(ish)% randomisation (it's nicest when you have 1 low note, 2/3 high notes and set RND input change on OFFSET 0 to -2 and CHOICES 4 to 6 or so)
Then you can use DualArp for arps or just use the chords, also I obviously forgot to set Sequences to1/4 etc etc


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altron
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12 May 2019

Trialing this now and will probably purchase it. One feature request I like to +1: it would be great to be able to save patches within the device.

When I first added the player I was looking for a preset load button to load a nice collection of bass sequence patterns (which weren't there :| ).
Trap is where music goes to die.

wireditb
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13 May 2019

mjxl wrote:
12 May 2019
Roger that.
Dope thanks :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up:

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buddard
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13 May 2019

Here's another quick tip video by Anders, this time about Timing Edit and moving around notes in the grid!


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joeyluck
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13 May 2019

buddard wrote:
12 May 2019
joeyluck wrote:
12 May 2019
- Is there anything mapped to the Advance button when using step record? I didn't see anything mentioned in the user guide. Is it possible? I think if the sustain pedal could be mapped by default, that would be very handy!
Unfortunately (but understandably), Players don't receive MIDI CC's, we only intercept note on/off.
The exception is when you're using Remote, but we can't map or enable those by default, it has to be done by the user.
On Step Note Recorder 2.0, we added the possibility to map a MIDI key to Rest (which is the same as Advance in Sequences):

Screenshot 2019-05-12 17.36.24.png

But we haven't received feedback from anyone actually using this feature, and we didn't want to clutter the UI unnecessarily. It might be added later on in some form, though. But we want to take our time and investigate it more thoroughly to make sure we're getting it right.
- Any chance of moving the power button to the left? Players are already at a disadvantage of not being able to be minimized individually—making navigating a big chain of players a pain (not your fault and I hope that changes!). But most Players have the power button on the left (kind of like the on/off/bypass button on effects), so it's where I look when scrolling and toggling Players.
I don't know, for now we're keeping it consistent with Euclidean. We were quite early with Euclidean during the SDK 3 alpha, and at that point the official recommendation was that we come up with our own design for the power button, if we even chose to add one! When they changed their minds later on we had already committed ourselves to this design.
So my honest answer is that I don't know. :)
- Would it be possible to assign CV to the playhead position? That would be fun! A direction selection would be great, but I think if you can send CV to it, the possibilities are endless. This is a feature with Step Note Recorder right?
That is correct, Step has a Position CV input. We skipped it for Sequences 1.0 because it didn't feel like a core feature, but it's not impossible that we add something like that later on.
- As others have requested, it would be great to be able to save patches within the device.
Oh? I hadn't noticed! ;)
- I'm also in favor of a pencil tool even if the cursor doesn't show as a pencil. I've been using emvoice VST which behaves this way, and it's clear enough by looking at the buttons to know. Your default would still be the selection tool, so folks who select the pencil know that they selected the pencil.
Thanks for the feedback! :D
Thank you! :thumbs_up:

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Boombastix
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13 May 2019

buddard wrote:
13 May 2019
Here's another quick tip video by Anders, this time about Timing Edit and moving around notes in the grid!
Simple video, but oh so good. Straight to the point with examples that makes musical sense. Good sound examples and not endless "dry" talk. Well done, and keep 'em coming. :thumbs_up:
Wish PH would get back into the swing of this as well (and other developers in general), I'm sure there are many small tips and ideas out there that many of us have not picked up on.
10% off at Waves with link: https://www.waves.com/r/6gh2b0
Disclaimer - I get 10% as well.

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BRIGGS
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13 May 2019

buddard wrote:
10 May 2019
steff3 wrote:
10 May 2019


yes, but CTRL-click works.

for velocity editing it is a bit inconvenient that you have to select the note before you can edit ... (maybe needed due to polyphony).

best
We've set the double-click timer to 100ms, perhaps it's a little too fast? We could try increasing it a bit so you don't have to click so fast?
In any case, Cmd/Ctrl-click is probably the preferred way if you want to draw a lot of notes.

We're not completely averse to introducing a "drawing mode" vs "selection mode" either, the only disadvantage is that we can't change the appearance of the mouse pointer, so it can be a bit difficult for users to keep track of which mode is active (they would have to look at the toolbar/switch to know for sure).

Regarding velocity edit, if no notes are selected then you draw all the velocities as usual, exactly the same as in Matrix or any other mono sequencer. We added the selection behaviour to give you the chance to edit individual note velocities in chords.
Maybe a single click like the drum sequencer player? That workflow seems faster.
r11s

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buddard
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13 May 2019

BRIGGS wrote:
13 May 2019
Maybe a single click like the drum sequencer player? That workflow seems faster.
The only problem with that is that we're already using single click to select and deselect notes...

I think the main use case for this device is to record notes and edit them, so I think it makes more sense to have Selection Mode enabled by default?

It's not completely ruled out that we try and add some way to somehow toggle a Drawing Mode. But it depends if we can do it without messing up the UX!

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BRIGGS
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13 May 2019

buddard wrote:
13 May 2019
BRIGGS wrote:
13 May 2019
Maybe a single click like the drum sequencer player? That workflow seems faster.
The only problem with that is that we're already using single click to select and deselect notes...

I think the main use case for this device is to record notes and edit them, so I think it makes more sense to have Selection Mode enabled by default?

It's not completely ruled out that we try and add some way to somehow toggle a Drawing Mode. But it depends if we can do it without messing up the UX!
Maybe later down the line, make a separate player for 'grid artists' like myself? :puf_bigsmile:

Don't let me ruin it, for the keyboard players!
r11s

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craven
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14 May 2019

buddard wrote:
13 May 2019
...
It's not completely ruled out that we try and add some way to somehow toggle a Drawing Mode. But it depends if we can do it without messing up the UX!
a drawing mode sounds superb!
Thanks for this great device. Very well designed and fun to use!
:ugeek:

antic604

14 May 2019

After 15 minutes of toying with the trial I just went out and bought it - it's awesome already & hopefully will be even better in the future. However, it requires some getting used to, because it looks like a proper sequencer so I'm also trying to use Sequencer shortcuts, like Del to delete notes (which tries to delete the whole device!), etc. I really hope future versions will add some sort of CV sequencing as well to go along with the MIDI notes and per-note Length control. I wouldn't mind some type of Repeat parameter, like in Drum Sequencer, too because I would hate wasting all the 32 steps with double or quadruple the tempo for just that. Oh, and vertical zoom for the notes wouldn't be out of place, too.

BTW, this device - and others like it - highlight my currently biggest problem with Reason: lack of folder tracks! It's very easy to use Sequences with its own patterns track, actual instrument track and few FX with their own automation and suddenly you end up with 4-5 tracks just for a single voice (+ few automation lanes sometimes), without any way of collapsing all of that into single track... Hope v11 solves that.

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buddard
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15 May 2019

And here's our latest video about Copy/Paste in Sequences, Anders is on fire right now! :D
It shows off some neat tricks that might not be obvious at first glance, but they can be a great timesaver!



By the way, we're adding all these videos to our Sequences playlist on Youtube!

WongoTheSane
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15 May 2019

This is an excellent series. I wish all devs would do that. Simple, to the point, and full of little useful tips. Really well done.

Spaceship
Posts: 54
Joined: 11 May 2019

15 May 2019

This is a nice device. I am looking forward to future updates.

It would be good if you could chain patterns. A possible implementation could be to hold shift and select multiple patterns to make them play in a row.

Probability settings for gate and octave would be good, as would a randomize amount for velocity.

Preset saving and additional CV outputs (note and velocity) would be welcomed as well.

Thank you!

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geronimo
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16 May 2019

With a preset browser, no one will try to use the functions of this Players; that's the secret and the paradox.
Know how to edit his module. Then everything is saved in the corresponding REASON project.

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buddard
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16 May 2019

We have released Sequences 1.0.1, which fixes some bugs discovered after release:
  • Looping in combination with pattern automation could cause patterns to play out of sync
  • Timing Edit would sometimes merge steps together when pushing them past the edge of the display
  • Triggering Advance via Remote before activating Record would result in a crash

antic604

16 May 2019

buddard wrote:
16 May 2019
We have released Sequences 1.0.1, which fixes some bugs discovered after release:
  • Looping in combination with pattern automation could cause patterns to play out of sync
  • Timing Edit would sometimes merge steps together when pushing them past the edge of the display
  • Triggering Advance via Remote before activating Record would result in a crash
Awesome! :thumbs_up:

Now please add 2 CV layers for each pattern and per-step Length control :) :oops:

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