to transpose you hold and press the button above or below. to rotate you hold and press the button above and to the right, or below and to the left. i will think about how scale editing could be improved to make transposition and rotation easier - maybe even having dedicated controls for that - would be nice not having to use button combos.
pretty sure at this point i want to have a separate page for trigger settings, and i like the idea of adding more logic choices - should be easier to do with a full page. maybe even something more interesting, maybe some way to introduce chance here. modulating gate length - yes! will most definitely add this to the list. one of the things i want to address with the new version is finding ways to break the typical orca monotony, having variable gate length is a great way to do that. possible options could be random gate length, or specifying a range between a trigger and a full gate length and then have it increase / decrease on each step, or maybe make it be based on which tracks are active.
different rotation for CV AND CV B is currently not possible - when you rotate it shifts actual notes. but it would be easy to change rotation to be more of a parameter that is applied to scale but doesnāt shift it. one of the benefits of this approach is being able to go back to the original scale easily - right now you canāt do that unless you store it as a preset. and i really like the idea of being able to apply a different rotation amount for A and B - i find i often struggle to make them sufficiently different, and this should be interesting musically. iām adding this to the list.
now, sequencersā¦ i have a somewhat radical proposal. the 3 sequencers got added as an after thought and they feel separate from how the rest of orca operatesā¦ which in itself can be a good thing by providing variation of a differen flavour. but it feels like it should either be made more powerful or different. i think sequencing it in a more traditional style can be done via teletype, and that would allow you to make it as simple or as complex as you want without cluttering orca UI. what i suggest is using orca itself to trigger rotation in the same way it does everything else - by using tracks. so then you specify a combination of tracks and when all the selected tracks are on it rotates or mutates by specified amount. this feels ārightā to me in several waysā¦ it follows the orca philosophy of tracks influencing everything. consistency with how the rest of orca works means itās easier to use/remember. and i think it will make for interesting results musically.
iām still thinking through the details of how it would work in practice - i want to keep it simple but powerful enough to make it interesting. say, for conditions simply applying logical AND to selected tracks (rotate only when all specified tracks are on) should be sufficient, donāt think we need logic here. but i want to be able to specify multiple conditions, so that you could say ārotate by 2 when tracks 1&2 are on and rotate by -3 when tracks 1&2&4 are onā. you should also be able to specify reset in similar manner (āremove all rotationā).
iām also thinking this concept of using orca tracks to trigger rotation/mutation could be expanded to other things - to do things like change phase by 1 when specified tracks are on, for instance. i think this is a better way to sequence mutation, as long as it can be implemented with a straightforward UI.
i also want to add another modulation destination - transposition. i think this would really open up the kind of sequences you could do with it, especially being able to apply it separately to CV A and CV B. this would apply similarly to rotation, it wouldnāt transpose actual notes but it would just get applied on top.
arcā¦ the main question is whether arc should be used more as an improvisational / controller tool (so, create presets with grid, control/mutate them with arc) or should you be able to use it with arc only. i still think itās possible to combine both purposes without sacrificing too much. the only danger here i see is having too many pages. personally, i like the idea of being able to use arc to get most of orca functionality without ever using a grid, and to me that necessitates being able to edit scales. i tried to make scale editing close to that on ansible, so for somebody used to doing it on ansible it might be familiar enough to be usable. using USB to edit scales in text files is not a viable workaround - most of the time you want to hear changes immediately.
i do want to drop preset sets for divisors / phases etc. this was a leftover from the very first version, and while i like having it for sentimental reasons it doesnāt seem to be that useful (probably the sets i selected are partially to blame!). if full track parameter editing was possible there wouldnāt be a need to have these sets. it can be done as one page though: encoder one selects one of the 4 tracks, and the remaining 3 encoders control divisor/phase/reset for selected track.
at this point i think itās too early to discuss how to arrange arc pages - this all will be influenced by other changes i described above, once that is finalized we can work out which parameters should be accessible via arc. i do feel that how parameters are grouped into pages is important, and would help with identifying pages. i used different visualization for different parameters specifically for this purpose (say, scale editing is very distinct looking), but there is definitely room for improvement. reverting to page 1 after reconnecting - wouldnāt that be more cumbersome if you just want to quickly connect grid to edit one parameter?
yes to separating bank/preset! one encoder for 64 presets always felt a poor workaround. not sure how to improve global reset thoughā¦ do people actually use values over 16 for global reset?
finally, i think i will drop support for arc2 - sorry arc2 users! itās just too difficult at this point to accomodate both.
