There’s not much that kills the creative flow quite so fast as having to come out of VCV and load up an audio editor to edit samples. Having basic start/end capability built into a sampler keeps the mojo on track.
You’d also need a LOT of other sequencers/modulators/burst generators and Bernoulli gates to cover the param lock functionality. And when I say a lot I mean like 128 extended 16 step ADDR sequencers for a start (to sequence 16 different param locks x 8 channels), plus 8 burst modules for the ratchets, plus 8 chance modules for the probability…
You can easily extend your logic to find a reason not to make this GrooveBox at all (whatever your personal vision of it may be), as it could all be done with a collection of other modules.
But I’d much rather have a 1 module GrooveBox than a 150 module one…
It seems like you both have differing opinions, which I totally respect.
I must admit that I’m sometimes guilty of customizing modules toward my own personal preferences. I suppose that’s one of the perks of being the cowboy developer on my own projects! Ha ha ha. I personally will use both the sample start and sample end parameters in my compositions because I’m really into that type of “IDM” type of sound. This probably isn’t a huge surprise because of my other sample playing modules – almost all of them which have playback offset controls.
(Thinking out loud, that would be XY, Autobreak, Ghosts, Grain FX, Grain Engine MK2, Sampler x8, and Repeater.)
So the final decision is…
Drum roll please…
Yes on both Sample Start and Sample End parameters.
One compelling argument for having Sample End is when using long samples, or breakbeats. In those situations, it’s really handy to be able to cut off the sample playback at a specific position. I need to get in there and add some anti-click/pop code eventually.
@shofb, I’m heading your advice and will try to keep feature-creep to a minimum, but I think that this feature is useful. It’s totally true that I’m going against the grain of modular synthesis with this module, and with the upcoming “Autobreak Studio”.
Everyone has their own preferred balance between flexibility and convenience, and I’m trying to offer people some more options. In the future, I’m hoping to get a bit more “artsy” like I did with the Satanonaut! (I’m really inspired by stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S75_Y91FNE)
As always, I love the dialog in this channel, and my modules wouldn’t be nearly as awesome without all of your suggestions!
I would say, there’s an obvious compromise here. You can experiment with Groovebox further, but you can leave the bare-minimum module to people who like it simple. I would personally love effects-heavy Groovebox. Start-end feature is very useful, especially the start thing, cause you can cut off the transient of a kick or a hit on the cymbal right now and here without editing a wav file…
Personnaly I don’t think you are too far away form the modular synthesis spirit.
Your module remains a sample based sequencer, and it doesn’t make coffee, so…
But I have another request, or maybe a simple question, when for some reason the path of the samples changes, then in the menu it is just displayed empty. Would there be a way to keep the old path in the display ?
In the case of a hard disk change, (which I did today) it can quickly be very difficult to remember the percussion sound folders, especially since with groovebox we have a tendency to try everything and anything, even in old esoteric banks, haha.
Fortunately in my case it was just a change for convenience, I was able to put the old one back in place, the time to note the origins of the samples.
Absolutely. This has been lurking in the back of my mind, but I never got around to implementing it. My other modules store the last path to the samples and use that path as a default. But I never got around to implementing this in the GrooveBox module. Consider it done.
Jens - what would be the practical difference between adding Reset to a step (which jumps to the first step when that step is reached) and simply changing the length so it ends on that step (and therefore goes back to the first step)? is it not the same thing really?
If only one of the 16 toggle switches is in the Jump position a Reset is carried out (i.e. sequence jumps to stage 1)
If two or more of the switches are in the Jump position the sequence jumps to the next step with the switch in the Jump position and then continues from this position (until another step with the switch in the Jump position is reached and then the same procedure is carried out again)
I apologize for not linking to the doepfer page before. Perhaps this “jumping” is unique for the Doepfer Dark Time.
No problem - jumping is clear now - thanks for the link.
what would this do in the context of this module though?
I understand ‘tie’ in the context of the Impromptu sequencers for example, but this module has no CV and Gate out and is essentially just triggering samples in ‘one shot’ mode that play out until they are retriggered.