Feature Request: Swap Drum Gates to pads 9-16

[syrupcore]

Most drum machines, sample players, even GM kits default to "lowest note is the kick" and move up from there in loose priority (or outward from the center of a physical drum kit) order—kick, snares, stick, hats, floor tom are usually within the first 8 chromatic notes. With the BSP, that means in order to use the drum gate outs while also using MIDI drums, we have to mute one of those key sounds in the MIDI kit (or have them trigger together).

Would be much more useful (for me, of course) if I could assign pads 9-16 to the drum gate outs. That way, 'the meat' of my MIDI kit will still be available. Muting a hi-tom or whatever is usually up there is no big deal! But muting one of the meat sounds isn't practical and means you have to move, say the hi-hat, to a new slot in the kit. Not the end of the world but with so many kits already built or available with the 'meat down low' it would be great to have the gates connected to the top row!

One of the coolest unsung features of the BSP is the ability to have so many analog gates going at once at totally different rhythms. They can be used for a lot more than triggering analog drum synths! If you wanted to use one as a clock source to drive another sequencer or toggle something on a modular or set the delay time on a delay while using MIDI drums you have to... yeah, would be great to have the gates connected to the top row.

I have no idea if this is possible via firmware update but I'd really love to see it. If it's not, I hope you'll throw the idea onto the pile for whatever the next BeatStep incarnation is.

Cheers.

[syrupcore]

Hmm, right after I hit send I thought of a not-terribly-elegant-but-it'll-probably work solution: user map all of the pads so that they're chromatic going upwards starting on pad 9 and looping down to pad 1. Sort of conceptually messes with 'Kick is lower left' rule but think it would solve my problem.

Another potential solution would be on the fly drum pad MIDI note adjustment (vs using MCC). That way you can leave your source alone (the BSP might not be the only sequencer you have) and not have to stop mid-session to mess with a config app.

Maybe others have different solutions?

[tsutek]

Sorry, I don't understand what you want.. Can't you use a custom drum map and assign the pads 9 - 16 however you need them to be? If you're using 1-8 for cv you can map whatever extra notes to those instead, no?

[syrupcore]

Sorry, I don't understand what you want.. Can't you use a custom drum map and assign the pads 9 - 16 however you need them to be? If you're using 1-8 for cv you can map whatever extra notes to those instead, no?

Of course. But for most things* that have drum sounds in them, they start low to high. So yes, you can (thankfully) program the pads to work for whatever you need; the request has more to do with 'sensible defaults'.

* Most things except for Spark which starts with the kick on pad 9. Just got iSpark last week and when I realized this, the BeatStep's default made more sense. I doubt we'll see it change.

Again, it's not a huge deal—it's just that on every other drum pad controller I've ever encountered bottom left===Kick. Roger Linn said he regretted starting that convention but a convention it is.