Hi
The Roland Jupiter 8 was designed so that the Panel 'Upper' and 'Lower' buttons logically switched all controls (VCO through VCA) from controlling the Upper preset and Lower Preset. Allowing the rich dual mode to be easily controlled.
This was a very logical move from our friends at Roland.
Let's face it, it would have been silly to cram both sets of these same controls on the keyboard dash. Hence a simple 'switch' was introduced to flip between controlling each.
SO, (unless I have missed something here), why oh why have Arturia given us direct MIDI mappings for both upper and lower, but NO control over the powerful Panel switch? When working with an external MIDI controller, mapping knobs and sliders to this many items is just plain unworkable. However, if the 'Panel' switch was accessible to MIDI, then life would be easy again.
We also find ourselves with no MIDI access to the Presets, Assign Mode or the arpegiator. Could this be because a limited amount of mapped items have been needlessly used up by Arturia's attempt to map both upper and lower simultaneously?
Please could I suggest that R&D at Arturia seriously look at 'Removing' all of the Lower MIDI entries while creating and reserving ONE entry for Upper/Lower toggle. This would mean that the Plug-in would simply need to identify the mode of this switch and PASS the external control to the appropriate set (Upper or Lower).
For example, If I mapped 'Envelope 2 Attack' to 'Slider 1' on my MIDI controller, the Plugin would look first at the Upper Lower switch, If the switch was set to lower, then the interface would present the lower settings & my slider would control the Lower Env 2 Attack, if it was set to Upper, then it would show & control the Upper.
The bi-product of this would also be that less MIDI items would be used/required and this might allow Arturia to give us access to our precious Presets/Mode/Arpegiator and so on.
Some readers might scream back at this post, saying, yes, but what about if somebody wants to control with a microprocessor in realtime and that, in this instance, the MP could do with direct realtime access to both, then still no worries, just make the switch a 3 way (All/Upper/Lower), thus, existing configs work (All mode) & MP's don't need to switch anything, but human users can now switch and control the Plugin with ease from the sliders & knobs on their external controller keyboards.
I my experience the Jupiter 8 was not just capable of producing great rich sounds, but the process of manipulation on this puppy was extremely logical and easy to work with thanks to the thought that Roland put into it. I find myself frustrated that this VST seems to break this when it doesn't need to.
If I have missed something here and there 'is' a way to access these items within the VST, then somebody please tell me, as I have had to resort to magnifying the VST interface and mouse controlling everything.
TheGman
