Thanks for your reply.
For context, when the Morphagene was first released we did not expect that it would ever be very well suited for sequenced/played pitches. I’m gonna quote Tony from a different forum thread around the time it was announced (NAMM 2017):
Folks, the Morphagene was not designed to operate as a keyboard sampler. It is not a modular version of an Akai S1000.
It will NOT track 1V/ Octave and there is a big reason for that… EXTENDED RANGE in the lower octaves of Vari-Speed.
Having the increased and extended range at the lower speeds creates far more interesting sounds then would be possible using the exponential scale required of the 1V/ Octave standard.
We want to have the feel of vari-speed approach that of manipulating tape speed, NOT playing western melodies on a keyboard (we make the STO, DPO and telharmonic for that).
It is a module designed to explore Microsound.
Despite this, by spring 2018 we had done a lot of work to force the Morphagene to also operate as a sequenced-pitch instrument: improving the repeatability of sequencing Vari-Speed, adding the vsop options for reliable sequencing with quantized voltage, etc. and we made that available with the mg155 update.
This was “supposed to be” the last update, but in 2019 Tom found some ways to improve the audio i/o, and we wanted to change the gain setting method to be like the way it is done on Mimeophon, which people clearly prefer. To make this a more exciting update we decided to add a new feature as well in the form of morph chord ratios, and after a LOT of work it is finally ready to be out in the field.
The tape machine metaphor can’t, of course, be all-encompassing. This is still, at its core, a collection of computer code on a dedicated platform. It’s not intended to be a tape machine, but the tape metaphor provides a useful intuitive sense of how certain elements of it should feel to play, as a device whose primary purpose is the manipulation and morphing of sound rather than “unaffected” playback. Ultimately the reality of the instrument grows out of the meeting, over time and experience, of what sounds good in theory and what feels good and is fun to use in practice. Metaphors help us ground initial understanding but something like the Morphagene doesn’t really have a mechanical counterpart.
I can’t promise that a “green-favoring” option will come in the future, so again I hope that none of this is a dealbreaker. I can promise you that we do hear feedback like this, and we do, during development, try many many things and take design decisions seriously.
