Arturia Forums
Hardware Sequencers => KeyStep Pro => KeyStep Pro - Feature Requests => Topic started by: konjurer on June 21, 2020, 10:51:52 pm
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16 patterns in a chain is not nearly enough to create a song. Here's why... a verse or chorus is typically 8 bars. The MOST SIMPLE song would have a structure like
1 Intro
2 verse
3 chorus
4 verse
5 chorus
6 bridge
7 verse
8 chorus
9 outro
Ok, so no problem so far! But songs do not have 4 bar verses and choruses. If you construct a song with 16-4 bar patterns then you have a 2 minute song. So you have to repeat patterns. If you could specify a the number of times you want the pattern to repeat, then 16 steps in a Chain would probably be enough. Or if Chains were longer than 16 steps.
To me, the Feature Request that would make the most sense would be to Chain Scenes. Is there a way to Chain Scenes with the current firmware that I'm not aware of?
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+1
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+1
I can barely make the intro with 4.
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I agree chaining scenes would be great and allow for much more complex and complete song arrangements
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+1
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I definitely have to stress, that this is a must. 16 is such a paltry number, even super old drum machines allowed for arrangements far higher than this, for 16 step sequencers. It seems to me that 16 is such an easy number, so it is stuck with.
16 steps, 16 chains, 16 projects, etc.
Surely we can do MUCH better than this. I don't play live, so would love to be able to have entire tracks built, saved and recalled from the KSP, in tandem with Cubase and be in all my glory.
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Was this addressed in the 1.3 upgrade? Hard to believe that more people are not running into this constraint.
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Surely the chain can be extended using the same method that patterns are? Subsequent parts would just appear in the -32 -48 -64? Surely there should be some way of applying a Scene to a step of the chain too?
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+1
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+1
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+1
Edit: Just a +1 seems too weak... Allowing for longer chains (like 64 steps ) would only require a few dozen extra bytes of memory for each project. For me it would make a world of difference. I bought the Keystep Pro early on and am still quite frustrated with this device. While most of the initial bugs have been fixed by now, I keep running into limitations that make me put this thing back on the shelf again and again. Still not quite a "Pro" device in my view. A lot of potential, though... I keep my fingers crossed.
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+1
Edit: Just a +1 seems too weak... Allowing for longer chains (like 64 steps ) would only require a few dozen extra bytes of memory for each project. For me it would make a world of difference. I bought the Keystep Pro early on and am still quite frustrated with this device. While most of the initial bugs have been fixed by now, I keep running into limitations that make me put this thing back on the shelf again and again. Still not quite a "Pro" device in my view. A lot of potential, though... I keep my fingers crossed.
I hear you on this. I do feel this 2.0 firmware, is really going to make/break what users get from this device. Lots left outstanding, on features and workflow enhancements.
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+1
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+1
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is there a way to endlessly loop sequences in a chain?
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+1
Edit: Just a +1 seems too weak... Allowing for longer chains (like 64 steps ) would only require a few dozen extra bytes of memory for each project. For me it would make a world of difference. I bought the Keystep Pro early on and am still quite frustrated with this device. While most of the initial bugs have been fixed by now, I keep running into limitations that make me put this thing back on the shelf again and again. Still not quite a "Pro" device in my view. A lot of potential, though... I keep my fingers crossed.
Well stated. I'm surprised that more people are not complaining about this. How can you put together a song in 16 short pieces?
Please fix this soon Arturia!
+100
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+1
Just got my Keystep Pro and am happy with it so far, but this is a very important feature for me, too. I got the keyboard for its sequencing abilities and hate fiddling with piano rolls or the like on screen. It should be possible to hack a longer song into the keyboard and play it back without the need for other sequencers.
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hello, i realize a firmware update is on it's way but PLEEEEAAAASEEEEE make it possible to chain scenes together... PLEASE
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+1+1+1+1
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+1 for sure. I'm trying to trigger scene after scene and trying to figure out if I should trigger it one bar or two bars before the end. At least it should have the ability to set the trigger to play the next scene after the one before it ends. Instead, I have to be quick. I still have not got my song recorded properly.
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+1
Also a super important feature that seems to have been missed in the latest update.
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+1 please
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I don't quite understand this "need."
A chain can have 16 patterns, and each pattern can be 4 bars. That's 64 bars. At 120bpm thats a bit over 2 minutes of run time. A two minute pattern that can itself then repeat. That's quite a bit really.
BUT!! Each scene can have its own chain. So with 16 available scenes, that's 1024 bars (about 8.5 min @120bpm). Of course, you do have to manually change scenes. Being able to chain scenes would be nice, but I'd hardly call it a "need."
Let's remember that the KSP is not intended to be a sequencer/arranger. Its design intent, as repeatedly stated in the manual and marketing material, is focused toward live usage. If you're trying to sequence and arrange an entire song with it, I kinda think you've got the wrong equipment. Plus it's clearly focussed toward electronic music, where 1 to 4 bar repeating patterns are the norm. Most electronic music doesn't have a typical song structure with verses, choruses, bridges, and solos. Again, wrong equipment for that. 8)
I for one am LOVING this equipment. The workflow is fast and intuitive.
The biggest problem I've had so far is that the 2.0 update broke proper sync from a DAW with MIDI over USB. I haven't tried using other hardware for MIDI sync, but I've read that that's also broken. I'm currently working around that by using the KSP as master clock.
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Another request for chaining scenes. I read that the more requests there are the more likely it will be implemented. (This is my first and only feature request).
I was just working on a tune with a complicated drum part, and the first 1/2 takes all 16 chains at 152 bpm. All it is, is bongos/shaker/wood block - just backing percussion for live performance.
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+1
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+1 for a thread resurrection...
I'm all for this, but there is still a lot you can do with 64 steps spread out over 16th, 8th or 1/4 notes. Really depends on the resolution you need in your pattern, which is where I agree it gets frustrating. I can build five minute or so songs no problem for what we play, but it IS limiting with particularly drum creativity.
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+1
I ve been playing live with several synths with my band and the biggest issue I always come with is the lack of longer chains. I have to chain manually scenes but it can lead to mistakes in live music if vibing too much or distracted with something.
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Cut your tempo in half and you magically have 2x the number of steps.
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I don't quite understand this "need."
A chain can have 16 patterns, and each pattern can be 4 bars. That's 64 bars. At 120bpm thats a bit over 2 minutes of run time. A two minute pattern that can itself then repeat. That's quite a bit really.
BUT!! Each scene can have its own chain. So with 16 available scenes, that's 1024 bars (about 8.5 min @120bpm). Of course, you do have to manually change scenes. Being able to chain scenes would be nice, but I'd hardly call it a "need."
Let's remember that the KSP is not intended to be a sequencer/arranger. Its design intent, as repeatedly stated in the manual and marketing material, is focused toward live usage. If you're trying to sequence and arrange an entire song with it, I kinda think you've got the wrong equipment. Plus it's clearly focussed toward electronic music, where 1 to 4 bar repeating patterns are the norm. Most electronic music doesn't have a typical song structure with verses, choruses, bridges, and solos. Again, wrong equipment for that. 8)
I for one am LOVING this equipment. The workflow is fast and intuitive.
The biggest problem I've had so far is that the 2.0 update broke proper sync from a DAW with MIDI over USB. I haven't tried using other hardware for MIDI sync, but I've read that that's also broken. I'm currently working around that by using the KSP as master clock.
So right. Instead of begging the mfr, how about do some experimentation lol. And the KSP is not an MPC. If you don't want to push buttons, use a pre-recorded backing track. Much simpler lol.
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Cut your tempo in half and you magically have 2x the number of steps.
So I’ve been using this and a Time Division of 1/4 for the track I’m working on to get around the step limitation and discovered a bug that I reported last Friday. The problem is: if I record unquantized in this fashion, the KSP doesn’t record all the notes I play. It just randomly leaves out some.
I suspect they set the resolution too low for 1/4 at any given bpm. I hope they can fix that… it’s pretty counterproductive.
To be honest, at this point in time I’m hoping they abandon the KSP as soon as possible for a version 2, because it seems they are not able to fix everything that is wrong with the current device. What a tease though… the KSP on paper is pretty much everything I was looking for.
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+1
I need the ability to do repeats on patterns within a chain (play pattern 1 multiple times as a single step, proceed to the next pattern, ect.). I'm a singer-songwriter and I wanted to use this for arranging while I'm playing so I don't have to jump back and forth from my chair to use a DAW to test or improvise a new part in the context of the whole song
Let's remember that the KSP is not intended to be a sequencer/arranger.
It literally says "sequencer" on the housing right under "Keystep Pro"!
This is the difference between whether or not this is a useful piece of hardware for me. I can't chain a basic verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus song with chains this short. And switching to 1/8 notes will limit me to, well, 1/8 notes. This is a 450$ product advertised specifically as a sequencer and I can't make sequences longer than like 2 minutes unless I want to be limited to 1/8 notes or larger? That's insane. How can there be so many hyper-specific little tweakable things but not this basic feature?
I use a drum machine with a basic sequencer and it can do multiples of each pattern per step in the chain. Maybe I'm dumb to have expected this to behave in a similar way, but this seems like a very limiting problem even for electronics musicians. Plus this thing is heralded by people as DAWless. I probably have spent 10 hours researching this thing and trying to learn the basics. I specifically went with the pro model because I wanted chains longer than 8 patterns. Never in a million years would I have guessed that there is no value for pattern repeats in a chain.
Please let me know if anyone is aware of a controller/sequencer that:
- has a piano roll with velocity-sensitive keys that push down
- has a multiple tracks
- has pattern chaining in which patterns can be repeated without occupying multiple steps
I transcribed all the patterns from one my songs from my drum machine to the keystep and just now ran into this problem. Now I have to waste more time reselling it and will probably be out 100 bucks because now it's used.