04-30-2021, 05:06 PM
Well put Kris,
I had written out a response to this earlier this week and must not have hit send as I was surprised to see it is not here.
I'll try to touch on some of these issues as well though they may have been covered by Kris above.
"I have encountered some issues which make the NDLR suboptimal for live use."
There are more than a few things that make NDLR a...lets say challenging choice for a live performance. This is partly because that wasn't really what it's designed to do. Not to say it can't be used for live performance, but the NDLR is mainly designed for jamming out with a bunch of synths while unwinding after work. It's a lot of fun but it can be frustrating when you try to get it to do something like play the exact same thing 2 times in a row.
"When the NDLR is slaved to the MIDI input clock, it does not respond to the standard Start/Stop commands."
So when externally clocked the NDLR doesn't do anything until it gets the next clock tick. This can mean notes won't turn off, or some other weirdness, but as Kris mentioned this is the trick to starting things with an external clock. You can press start on the NDLR while the clock is off on any part you want and it will do nothing until you hit start on the Master device, at which point it comes to life, hopefully the way you had in mind!
"what does not happen that really should is the Chord Sequencer doesn't start or stop."
At this point the Chord Sequencer doesn't have a reset functionality aside from going to the menu and disabling/enabling it. I would love to see that change and it is in the feature requests.
"If it did, it would allow the NDLR to be ready to switch in and out the various parts. In this case, it would make most sense to me for the part controls (Pad, Drone, Motifs, and All) to operate as mutes, rather than start/stops."
Like Kris mentioned the easiest way to get this kind of functionality is by muting the audio rather than the MIDI.
"In a related way, when the NDLR is the master MIDI clock, the MIDI start/stop are sent correctly when using the All Parts button. When using a single part control, however, it doesn't sync correctly with external gear. For example, I have my drum machine slaved to the NDLR, and I press the All Parts button to start, everything is synced properly, so I can use this to record MIDI to my DAW for later manipulation. For live use, however, I would likely want to start just one part, and when I start using on of the individual part controls, the sync is off by one beat (I can't remember whether it's ahead or behind off the top of my head)."
I also haven't run into this. I will see if I can reproduce this on my end and let you know.
Similarly, when I switch out a part while playing a Chord Sequence, and then switch it back in, it loses sync with the other parts. Is this because I have a setting wrong somewhere? The behavior I desire is, again, for the part controls to behave as mutes rather than actual pauses so that they maintain synchronicity.
Again, this is not something I've run into, but it can be avoided by using the Audio Mute solution.
"Is there a formal issue tracker somewhere that I can search for other reports? I honestly can't tell whether any of the issues I'm experiencing have already been reported."
Yes there is but not a public one. I just log the issues reported here in the forums as well as those received via email to Support@conductivelabs.com.
I'll try to see if I can get some of the issues you mention reproduced and report back.
Jesse
I had written out a response to this earlier this week and must not have hit send as I was surprised to see it is not here.
I'll try to touch on some of these issues as well though they may have been covered by Kris above.
"I have encountered some issues which make the NDLR suboptimal for live use."
There are more than a few things that make NDLR a...lets say challenging choice for a live performance. This is partly because that wasn't really what it's designed to do. Not to say it can't be used for live performance, but the NDLR is mainly designed for jamming out with a bunch of synths while unwinding after work. It's a lot of fun but it can be frustrating when you try to get it to do something like play the exact same thing 2 times in a row.
"When the NDLR is slaved to the MIDI input clock, it does not respond to the standard Start/Stop commands."
So when externally clocked the NDLR doesn't do anything until it gets the next clock tick. This can mean notes won't turn off, or some other weirdness, but as Kris mentioned this is the trick to starting things with an external clock. You can press start on the NDLR while the clock is off on any part you want and it will do nothing until you hit start on the Master device, at which point it comes to life, hopefully the way you had in mind!
"what does not happen that really should is the Chord Sequencer doesn't start or stop."
At this point the Chord Sequencer doesn't have a reset functionality aside from going to the menu and disabling/enabling it. I would love to see that change and it is in the feature requests.
"If it did, it would allow the NDLR to be ready to switch in and out the various parts. In this case, it would make most sense to me for the part controls (Pad, Drone, Motifs, and All) to operate as mutes, rather than start/stops."
Like Kris mentioned the easiest way to get this kind of functionality is by muting the audio rather than the MIDI.
"In a related way, when the NDLR is the master MIDI clock, the MIDI start/stop are sent correctly when using the All Parts button. When using a single part control, however, it doesn't sync correctly with external gear. For example, I have my drum machine slaved to the NDLR, and I press the All Parts button to start, everything is synced properly, so I can use this to record MIDI to my DAW for later manipulation. For live use, however, I would likely want to start just one part, and when I start using on of the individual part controls, the sync is off by one beat (I can't remember whether it's ahead or behind off the top of my head)."
I also haven't run into this. I will see if I can reproduce this on my end and let you know.
Similarly, when I switch out a part while playing a Chord Sequence, and then switch it back in, it loses sync with the other parts. Is this because I have a setting wrong somewhere? The behavior I desire is, again, for the part controls to behave as mutes rather than actual pauses so that they maintain synchronicity.
Again, this is not something I've run into, but it can be avoided by using the Audio Mute solution.
"Is there a formal issue tracker somewhere that I can search for other reports? I honestly can't tell whether any of the issues I'm experiencing have already been reported."
Yes there is but not a public one. I just log the issues reported here in the forums as well as those received via email to Support@conductivelabs.com.
I'll try to see if I can get some of the issues you mention reproduced and report back.
Jesse