Combinator 2.x improvements: More Buttons, stepped knobs, Text only, more

[BeReasonable]

1) Limit of 32 buttons / knobs is too small when you're trying to control multiple devices in one unit.

2) Need stepped knobs - specify number of steps so they can match the knob you are mapping it to in the device

3) Text only field - because sometimes you need to have a larger label for devices but you don't want to make a background since you'll have to redo it every time you add / change / move something. Something like Helvetica regular and bold, and let us specify the font size. Plus let us rotate the text in 90 degree increments.

4) Horizontal & vertical dividers would be nice, but if we can get multiple text-only fields I can do it with underlines.

5) Let us change the text location, color, and visibility on multiple items at once, as well as change styles of multiple buttons / knobs / sliders at one time too.

[sdst]

Every time I try to do something cool, I reach that 32 limit, and kill the inspiration, very frustrating

reason studio remove that limit, and let people have fun

[_andreypetr_]

Every time I try to do something cool, I reach that 32 limit, and kill the inspiration, very frustrating

reason studio remove that limit, and let people have fun

And CV inputs. This always limits making really versatile instruments per one instance that could be saved in one patch. You cannot imagine how I waited combinator 2 update, but when I saw that there are only 4 more inputs, it was kinda sad - my dream won't come true I think

[McForge]

I've only just really got into building more complex racks & skinning and not being able to select multiple controls at once & change them all, such as e.g. changing the knob/slider type, text colour etc. has been driving me crazy and giving me RSI.

Even just basics like copy/paste so if you've just spent a year or two going through 32 knobs, sliders, switches etc. changing them one by one you could at least just duplicate 8 or 16 at once. Just the really basic things like that could make like so much easier. And just font size/bold etc. which has been the kind of absolute bare minimum functionality of any computer that deals with inputting the most basic text for a half a century or more, and I would expect devs of the kind of 36th chamber of Shao Lin kung fu coding level of the props could probably throw that in on a toilet break or something.

At the moment it really could do with just these most obvious basic things first, and I just saw a thread where people were talking about it all in 2021, which was a bit disheartening.

[SebAudio]

Combi 2.0 should just be seen as a much more powerful Combinator 1.0 device. As a lot of « concepts » with Propellerhead / RS (the rack, Remote, RE, Combi, RRP…), it’s great and you think they’ll « expand » it because it seems so obvious they’ll go that way. But no. You have to take things as they are the day you buy them and just use them. They’re that powerful !

[jam-s]

I've only just really got into building more complex racks & skinning and not being able to select multiple controls at once & change them all, such as e.g. changing the knob/slider type, text colour etc. has been driving me crazy and giving me RSI.

Even just basics like copy/paste so if you've just spent a year or two going through 32 knobs, sliders, switches etc. changing them one by one you could at least just duplicate 8 or 16 at once. Just the really basic things like that could make like so much easier. And just font size/bold etc. which has been the kind of absolute bare minimum functionality of any computer that deals with inputting the most basic text for a half a century or more, and I would expect devs of the kind of 36th chamber of Shao Lin kung fu coding level of the props could probably throw that in on a toilet break or something.

Depending on the kind of change you want to do it might (sadly) even be easier/quicker to simply edit the XML of the .cmb file directly using either some script or a plain text editor and search+replace.

[_andreypetr_]

I've only just really got into building more complex racks & skinning and not being able to select multiple controls at once & change them all, such as e.g. changing the knob/slider type, text colour etc. has been driving me crazy and giving me RSI.

Even just basics like copy/paste so if you've just spent a year or two going through 32 knobs, sliders, switches etc. changing them one by one you could at least just duplicate 8 or 16 at once. Just the really basic things like that could make like so much easier. And just font size/bold etc. which has been the kind of absolute bare minimum functionality of any computer that deals with inputting the most basic text for a half a century or more, and I would expect devs of the kind of 36th chamber of Shao Lin kung fu coding level of the props could probably throw that in on a toilet break or something.

Depending on the kind of change you want to do it might (sadly) even be easier/quicker to simply edit the XML of the .cmb file directly using either some script or a plain text editor and search+replace.

Wow! Thank you for the tip!

[Ottostrom]

Unfortunaltely I rarely use Combinator 2 because the usabilitiy feels a bit sluggish to me, I cant archieve fast results and its too clunky to do changes...I think combi 2 and Mimic are not the best devices in usability (why I cant copy/paste slots in Mimic???) ...just my opinion.

Good tip with the XML file, where I find it?

I agree with you about the usability. Mimic is a great device with a lot of capabilities, but it just takes too long to setup sometimes. Copy/paste slots should be a no-brainer and I also think that you should be able to copy individual slices to slots, as you can't change the pitch on the slices themselves.
Sadly I don't expect any improvement updates to Mimic or the combi 2 anytime soon.

[Tinnitus]

Seens like s good thread to add this suggestion.

I would like to see a preset features added to combinator 2.x
This would give people even more flexibility when building cmb as you can have 1 cmb and then switch between preset configurations, rather than lots of cmb for each presets.

[jam-s]

Good tip with the XML file, where I find it?

I checked back, but .cmb files only seem to contain the XML from the included RE patches. The other info seems to be just some serialised dump of the data structure which represents the combinator object as a c++-class. If one were to reverse engineer the fields then one could write the tools to help making a nicer combinator editor, but let's hope RE will keep on improving it as it must be painful for them to use it in-house as well.