Pigini's Forum Page

Request permission to shout “Bravo” in a very silly and high pitched voice.

“BRAAAHHHVO!!!!!”

… very much looking forward to the Big Push…

@UncleAge wrote:

In no way, form or fashion am I trying to derail this discussion but could someone tell me how or why they use the Event View? I always thought of it as a nice thing but never found a use for it.

Event view is sometimes handy, if it’s actually an editable event list and not just a different viewing experience.
On the Atari, I work most of the time with the event list.
In some of those programs you can actually have some custom events there doing all sorts of stuff (like randomization, start and stop of other sequences, control looping etc.).
On my tiny 10 inch screen, there is no wasted space left of the piano view , though.

@Zynewave wrote:

What did I do wrong to get such a reply 😕

My comment about dotted note alignment was not meant to be witty, just correcting a false statement. At the moment I’m implementing shortcut buttons to note values. Something you requested earlier. I already stated in an earlier reply in this topic that I would not reply to individual posts, but gather up the ideas and implement them as I go.

😳 Oops, I did it again, didn’t I?
Seems like this week I just thread into every dog poo there is, and whenever I want to sit down land in a latrine. 🙁
(Not only here, just everywhere. I mean well and it all ends up in alot of bullshit, which I even created myself.) Dooh..

I’m sorry and I do apologize. I misinterpreted your reply as ignoring all the rest of my post and as a put down to the note shortcut and snap feature. … and that was like the final kick inthe balls today for me.
At the beginning of the thread you sounded as if you were more into cosmetics for the piano roll initially, and I thought you got fed up with the wishlist about the functionality stuff.

..And I lied, ..because.. I was upset. 😥

@Zynewave wrote:

The way it works currently, you should set the quantize value to the lowest resolution you want to work with. If you want to add quarter notes on eight note resolution, set the q value to 1/8. When you click to add notes with the mouse, the default size will be 1/8, but then simply drag right to a full 1/4 or any size before releasing the mouse.

You picked an easy example (dividable by two).
But try another one:
A dotted quarter, that you want to put in at the start of a bar (getting it right, without moving it later) – you can’t (unless it’s the first bar of the track).
Because what happens is, the picked quantize snap (dotted quarter with snap active) behaves like a hidden snap grid all the way through.
If you want to put in lots of dotted notes, triples or other tuples, you end up with moving them about all the time.
I made my first suggestions, when I was at work, without having podium in front of me. So, the way I dreamed them up, might not have been the best way to implement them. But the basic idea could be modified to fit into podium better.

I can see now, the podium grid being linked to the timing signature in the arrangement view (and not static in the sequence itself), is a clever and practical thing.
I understand, the suggested loadable custom grids could clash with it. So let’s drop them, but still try to improve note input, without adding confusion. I had a rethink. And to make myself more clear.
I’m talking of optimizing the purely mouse based note input here.

💡 So how about that?:
In addition to “snap with quantize” give the choice of “snap to grid” (to the timing of the vertical lines in the visible time signature based grid, that we have now).
Snap to grid value would change with the zoom level, just as the grid does(no resnap after zooming of course, only snapping at the input of notes).
We would not need two grids, we only need the option “snap to grid” and a “note input toolbox” (buttons for notes from whole to 64th, with dotted and triplet option. could be in the toolbar, undockable for shorter mouse movements when putting in notes).
You could place your chosen notes exactly at the right timings. The grid would even help to count rests.

Another thing:
Now, you often don’t get the note value you want immediately, but have to adjust to it, because what you get first is the last drawn value, which is desirable sometimes. But, with a note toolbox, you could overwrite that value, getting it right the first time around.
I recon note input could get 3-4 times faster.

The best bit about implementing it that way:
It does not change a thing for users, who are happy with how it is now.
It adds functionality without changing the basics.

💡 A little extra (reintroducing the custom grids through the backdoor 😉 ):
A snap option to the timings of ghost notes from another track.

@Zynewave wrote:

@Pigini wrote:

But we don’t have that snapping to grid timing, without doing a duration quantize at the same time yet, or have we?

If you move events with the mouse or use the “quantize start” menu, then the duration is not quantized. If you add new notes or resize existing notes then the dragged size is quantized if snap is enabled. Isn’t that the preferred behaviour?

Good, there is a way of aligning without quantizing when editing, but it’s not exactly what I had in mind.

I was thinking of getting the input right with the wanted duration at the chosen place in the timeline directly when creating the note.
In most apps note input is linked with the quantization as you explained above. Of course I want to put in a note of a certain length, but I want to snap it to a value, which might be different from its duration. I find it a bit confusingly difficult to explain.

I better try an example:
If there was a defined grid (be it time signature based or a custom one), that can be snapped to (just to the timing, without quantizing durations)
AND
if there was a way of defining the note with its duration from a toolbox (one button per note value=one click, selector box is too slow)
THEN
I could simply select my notes and put them where I want them, possibly getting everything right in the first place. They had the right duration and would snap to the wanted position, just as intended.

Ideally, I want to be able to write my notes as quickly as possible, not put in a few and then fiddle with them. That’s why I’m blubbering so much about that timing snap to grid thing and the custom grids and the note input buttons. 😉

EDIT:
The afforementioned Divider, beside its other advantages, would also be good to speed up note input.
Example:
Put in some whole notes, select them, divide them by 8 and you’ve got quite a few 8th notes at the right time position already.