PyraOs 2.3 / Sequence Chains / PLAY restarts on next sequence

Great to see this addressed in 2.3. I know a lot of people were looking for a way to skip through sequence chains or start a song part way through and have it play through to the end.

I am experiencing some erratic behaviour though. Anyone else successfully using this new feature/bug fix?

Last night I was finding that the “play from” position (like a play cursor, if you will) would get stuck on a certain sequence and wouldn’t skip forward via the PLAY/Restart key. Left alone, Pyramid would play through the troublesome sequence and into the next and after that would let me skip happily from one sequence to the next, even jumping from the last back to the first at the end of the chain. But every time, on that one particular sequence it would get stuck and refuse to jump forwards.

I thought it might have been something to do with a cluster of long tracks around that point in the sequence set to re-latch / trigger mode. Was Pyramid not letting me skip on at that point as one of the tracks in the sequence was longer than the programmed sequence length in the chain and Pyramid was determined to let it play through the 8 bars I’d told it to play through?

I was getting tired and frustrated by this point and wasn’t minded to do too much analysis. So I just deleted the long tracks in question and re-saved the project.

Then when I tried to skip through / re-start part way (using the PLAY button as before) I found that Pyramid didn’t want to let me do this at all, the play button would only play from the start of the selected sequence, there was no skip through function at all.

I did a little cry. Turned it off and went to bed.

Am I missing something fundamental here? Is it me or Pyramid? Or is anyone else experiencing buggy behaviour here?

As far as the 2.3 fix/feature goes: I sort of liked the way it worked…when it worked. But I did think it was a bit of a half measure as far as a solution for users who want to easily navigate through a sequence chain. For me, this is the real DAW killer. A great machine for jamming and experimenting is one thing. For the same machine to provide navigational/orientation functionality commensurate with DAWs for people that like linear sequences and like actually finishing definitive versions of their songs makes a massive, massive difference.

It would be nice if you could swtich from Seq Perform mode to Seq Play mode without stopping playback* and then use 2nd+Main encoder or 2nd+ < or > to scroll backwards and forwards in time through the chains in the sequence.

In this view, the display could potentially show a much longer chain across multiple display lines (rather than the single string it shows when you are building/editing your chain) Once you select the point in the sequence chain you want to start from. Releasing the encoder or 2nd button, Pyramid would then commence the sequence chain from the selected point as per the bar/beat launch settings that govern general sequence switching.

*I accept that this might not be possible as Pyramid would not neccesarily know where in your sequence chain you wanted to start from IF the active sequence occured more than once in your chain. (I guess you would have to build in an option to rejoin the chain at the first or last occurence of that sequence or force the user to choose the re-start point before switching from Perform to Play)

Any thoughts or feedback on this people?

jim

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I also experience annoying bus in 2.3

:persevere:…mine are pattern and seq mode related. It makes me mad right now.
I opened a thread with a buglist for 2.3. If you want you can make a short summary of your problems there.
Cheers

Mine are

1

I’m in sequence mode. I have a very basic sequence chain programmed where the sequence changes from one to the next pretty much every 8 bars.

When I switch to sequence play mode and hit play the sequence chain plays from beginning to end. pressing PLAY whilst Pyramid is playing instantly restarts play from the next programmed sequence in the chain. Like its supposed to EXCEPT… When I get to step six in my chain, hitting Play will not restart play at the next sequence. It does nothing. Just restarts the active sequence.

I cannot get Pyramid to restart at next sequence anywhere else in the sequence chain other than in the first six programmed links in the chain. I leave the chain running and it moves from sequence to sequence as programmed but using play to restart at the next sequence is ineffective.

Can find no explanation for why this function performs as expected in some sequences but not others.

2

I have a long track. It is 24 bars long but my sequences are generally 8 bars . It contains CC params for another track. It is 24 bars long and set to Trig mode so it should play once from the beginning of the track and right the way through without looping. My sequence chains are generally 8 bars long but I want this CC lane to modulate a part that I want to evolve across 2/3 sequences. The manual states that if the track is active in a sequence that you switch to it will continue to play as if in free mode until it is finished and won’t loop or restart if you switch sequences.

But that is not working for me. Pyramid restarts this track from the beginning when the sequence changes.

Any advice / corrections / righteous pointers to page X of the manual greatly appreciated.

Or

Anyone else finding bugs in sequence mode?

1 For me hitting play while a sequence chain is running just pauses the sequencer. If you think you have found a bug and you have the steps to replicate it you should contact Squarp. Thats the fastest way to get bugs fixed :wink:

2 This is expexted behavior. There are different types of track play modes. Trig means that tracks that are active in the sequence will only play once, not loop, if you switch to a new sequence while it has not played thru yet and it is muted in the next sequence, it will be stopped. If it is active on the next sequence, it will restart and will be muted once reaches the end.
Each pattern can have its own play modes. If you want to use one pattern with different play modes in with different sequences, just make a copy of the pattern and have one with free and te other with trig play mode. Switch accordingly.

Hope this helps :wink:

Thanks Joosep. I really appreciate your input here. Clearly you know your stuff.

Am I misinterpreting the manual then? My assumption here is that if the track is triggered via trig in the active sequence it will continue to play in the next one through to then end of the track (providing it is not muted in next sequence)

“if an active track in the sequence is set to TRIG, it will play once without looping. If the track is active in the next sequence, it will continue to play just as in FREE run mode.”

I would only expect it to start over if it was set to relatch:

“If an active track in the sequence is set to RELATCH, it will always start from the beginning of each sequence, even if the track is not finished yet. In other words, each track restarts at the beginning of each sequence.”

I’m going to triple check my patterns within the track have the right run mode set though. Might have assumed that the track settings would “win” (or automatically be rolled out to patterns when they are created) rather than checking each individual pattern has the appropriate run mode set.

Regarding the sequence restart “bug”. If you change the play pad setting to play/restart in Misc settings you should find the sequence restarts rather than just pauses. My problem is that when this is enabled sometimes the sequence restarts at the next sequence (before I hit my trouble spot) other times it just restarts the active sequence (after my trouble spot)

This might help you to recreate my issue. Not that I expect you or anyone to spend time on my problems rather than writing their own bangers!

jim

I think you are correct about the trig thing tho, it does restart, and it seems thats not how it is in the manual :wink:
Regarding the sequence chain, I am not sure that it is a “feature” really. I just think that is a loophole that does not work completely. I think Squarp said something about developing a way to select the starting point in the chain in the future. As of right now its a pain.
Contacting Squarp will get you answers and results faster than here :wink:

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Thanks. I submitted. Will let you know if I get a response.

Bugs aside, would definitely like to see a better approach to chains and start points in future releases. jim

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Following. I’m also interested in seeing this fixed. : )

The squarp fellas confirmed this was a bug and is getting a fix in the next os. Thanks for your inputs everyone. Jim

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Thanks alot for letting us know!