When transposing a pattern, everything is fine as long as you transpose up.
Transposing down however is a different operation, you need to press and hold transpose (pad16), shift one octave down and then a few notes up, which makes this a three consecutive step operation. It is ok when you think in "target note", but itīs cumbersome when you think in "x half-tones down".
Option A:
Make the root pad configurable. Instead of defaulting to pad1, let the user choose to which pad the untransposed pattern is assigned. That way, when choosing pad 7 for example, you get 6 halftones down and 6 halftones up. If you prefer to transpose 3 half-tones down only, move your "root pad" to pad4.
Drawback: You lose the correlation between pads and the keyboard graphic printed on the panel. So probably a design no-go.
Option B (what I really want):
I may be wrong here, but think that pad 13 is currently not used in transpose mode. At least I didnīt find anything happen when I pressed it while holding pad16. So the idea is to use pad13 for flipping between a LOW ROOT and HIGH ROOT mode.
1. Current operation (LOW ROOT):
- Press and hold pad16, root pad is pad1, direct transposition only upwards.
- If there is a transposition active, it is shown by note and octave light
- To return to root note, select pad1 (and switch octaves if needed)
2. New operation: (HIGH ROOT)
- Press and hold pad16 and pad13, root pad is pad13 (lights on), direct transposition only downwards.
- If there is a transposition active, it is shown by note and octave light (same as above)
- To return to root note, we canīt push pad13, as it needs to be held down for this mode. Therefore, just release pad13, system switches back to LOW ROOT mode and you simply press pad1 to return to root (and switch octaves if needed)
The benefit of Option 2 is having an easier, more natural approach to downward transposition when thinking in half-tones instead of target notes, while still maintaining the full function of the keyboard graphic when thinking in target notes instead of half-tones.
Currrent situation:
Transpose UP = (base note) + (number of halftones)
Transpose DOWN = (base note) - (octave) + (number of halftones)
New situation :
Transpose UP = (base note) + (number of halftones)
Transpose DOWN = (base note) - (number of halftones)
Much more elegant, same logical structure for both operations. Plus you can always work in the current way if you prefer it for any reason. Personally, I find the half-tone perspective way easier than always "inverting" the interval in an octave based operation.
