#281

Whatever you decide to do, I must admit that I get a bit lost in these verbal descriptions. For better or worse I’m going to need diagrams to make sense of this. Maybe I can help out by making some diagrams for all of us?

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#282

I’ll address one point at a time. So regarding the above quote. I need to be holding the scale page button the whole time to do this, right? When I release the button, I enter the scale edit page?

#283

i would appreciate help with docs / diagrams - that’s definitely not my strong side… i do have this diagram in the manual, or did you have something else in mind?

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correct. to see the scale selection page you have to hold the scale page button (one of the things i’d like to change, this should be a separate page).

i’m starting to wonder if perhaps i should disable multiple user scales completely - do people use multiple scales per preset at all? same for shared scales, they’re only useful if you need to copy scales between presets, but you could just as easily copy the whole preset and then adjust track parameters… same for separate scales for CV A and B - do people find this useful? maybe one scale per preset shared by both CV A and B would be sufficient? this would simplify things greatly.

#284

Yes, because the instructions are more procedural. As in, “to achieve [some goal] follow steps 1 through ____” with the steps being illustrated.

I dunno. Maybe video is the more efficient way to do this, and you’ve made many videos that I need to rewatch. Probably also helps not to try to grok orca last thing at night after too many beers. :wink:

#285

maybe this format works better? on scale selection page these are the only actions you can do:

  • pressing in row 7 selects user scale for CV A and makes it the current scale
  • pressing in row 8 selects user scale for CV B and makes it the current scale
  • pressing in row 5 will load that scale preset into the current scale
  • pressing in row 6 will load that shared scale into the current scale
  • pressing and holding on a user scale and then pressing on a user or shared scale will copy the scale

here is the video describing scale selection and editing (scale selection part starts at 4:34):

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#286

I have some work to do for the next few hours but I will address all points this afternoon. Absolutely yes to different scales for CVA and CVB. Even if they are just slightly different it can really add something. Also, must run soon, it might be helpful to think of the 16 notes that can be triggered as something other than ‘scales’ as they are not accessed linearly… and a ‘scale’ implies the same 5 or 6 or 7 notes per octave, which is not what one can set with 16 notes. I think the system is great, but maybe the language could be better.

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#287

I guess a lot of composition environments refer to these as “pitch classes”?

#288

yes, “scales” in orca don’t mean the same thing they mean in, say, quantizers. what they really are is a set of notes, essentially. it’s just easier to say “scales” then saying “set of notes”… i do mention in the beginning of the manual that scale term refers to a set of notes:

No matter what you do each CV output will only play notes from a set of 16 notes, preselected from a 5 octave range. These sets are referred to as “scales”. Until you edit a scale it will always contain the same 16 notes. The only thing that changes is the order in which the notes are played. Tracks is what determines this order.

one of the reasons i picked this term is because white whale / kria / ansible also use scale to mean “a set of notes”, and i think it’s important to keep the terminology consistent across different firmwares.

#289

Just realized “pitch class” is the set of all notes exactly one octave apart from each other, and I’m not seeing the consistency in terminology in environments like Supercollider and Overtone that I was hoping for, when referring to pitch collections. Agree that terminology consistency across monome firmwares is helpful, and “scale” works well enough, even if it’s not precisely “correct” in every music theory context.

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#290

This is definitely better. But if you’re going to have a page just for scale selection, with no editing integrated into that page - I like this idea - is there any need for ‘current scale’? Wouldn’t a consistent selection and copy paste which worked the same both ways be more logical. Press and hold any scale then press another to copy/paste.
Maybe press and hold the scale key (row 1 column 2) and then select any (editable) scale to edit it on the edit scale page?

#291

yes, changing it so that to load a scale preset or a shared scale you have to press it and then press the user scale you want to load it into might help with not accidentally overwriting user scales. i’ll consider this change.

for editing arbitrary scales i think it’ll be even more confusing. editing only the current scale is more intuitive as you hear the effects immediately. otherwise a user could forget they chose a different scale for editing. i think this would only work if you could choose which scale to edit right on the scale editing page, but there isn’t enough space for that…

#292

How about - selecting a scale to edit makes it the ‘current scale’?

#293

how would that be different from the current workflow?

#294

do people find white whale / ansible scale editing easier compared to orca? i could change it to match that, and it’ll be nice to have things completely consistent.

#295

It would be quite different if the pressing and holding was only done to enter edit mode, rather than the opposite, which is how it works now.

#296

what i mean is, selecting a scale right now also selects it for editing. so either you select a scale for a CV and that makes it the current scale for editing, or you select a scale for editing and it makes it the current scale for a CV but the end result and the workflow is the same, no?

#297

Sort of… but not having to hold the scale page key (is it key or button when talking about the grid? I should try to get my terminology consistent) when on the scale select page makes the selection and copy paste options much more logical IMHO. I don’t think what is there right now is far off being right. I think it just might be a little counter intuitive to some…

#298

I don’t find scale editing to be “easy” on any monome device.

Consistency is often a good thing though.

#299

So what I think I mean is - is there a need for the concept of ‘current scale’ until editing?

#300

I do find kria scale editing more intuitive, but I don’t think it’s right for here, because it only gives you the same 7 notes for each octave, which would be a severe limitation with just 16 notes over 5 octaves.
Also it dictates that the lowest note must be the first note and the highest the last, there is no such restriction in Orca and that’s a good thing, I think.

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