Thoughts on Jump vs scroll

I’m waiting on June for the arrival of my hapax and have watched all the available videos…
The one thing I think I may find difficult is the way in step mode it jumps by screen rather than scrolling for editing notes…

I obviously haven’t tried the hapax yet… but just wondering if people that have it find this an issue? Or is there a way to scroll rather than jump? Or does it feel natural the way it is because to me notes suddenly disappearing when jumping might be disorienting

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Hi,

Do you mean vertically or horizontally ?

Vertically, you can scroll smoothly along the piano roll.
Horizontally, the pattern is divided in ‘pages’, depending on the pattern length, and the zoom level (and optionally the time signature).

Let me know if you need more detail.

Cheers,

Cool Thanks… I did mean vertically so that is good to know… but does it jump when using the arrows or is with the encoder or a second function to make it scroll?

I also have those concerns about horizontally too…
maybe that would not be as bad as vertically, until I try it can’t really say if I like it or not.
I’m sure the design was done deliberately, so I’ll wait to try it out…

Looks really great though looking forward to getting mine

There’s a few different behaviours.

When nothing is selected:

  • Encoder 1 scrolls by +/- 1 vertically
  • Encoder 2 scrolls by +/- 12 vertically
  • 2ND + Main encoder scrolls through pages horizontally
  • Main encoder scrolls by +/- 8 - think of it as ‘vertical pages’. That way you don’t miss any notes
  • Up/Down arrows scroll by +/- 12 vertically
  • Left/Right arrows scrolls through pages horizontally

When selection is active:

  • Encoder 1 and Main encoder shift the selected notes by +/- 1 semitone AND scrolls +/-1 vertically
  • 2ND + Main encoder is unavailable because 2ND shifts the selection mode
  • Encoder 2 shift the selected notes +/- 12 semitones
  • Up/Down arrows shift the selected notes by +/- 1 semitone but do not scroll in the piano roll
  • Left/Right arrows shit the selected notes by +/- 1 step unit (1/16th note in zoom x1)

It might seem convoluted at first, but it’s flexible enough that you get to work out which workflow corks best for you.

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Sweet… it’s hard to tell from demos and the manual on this type of thing but seems like has enough control to edit in grid mode…

I Probably need to try before comment any more on the workflow…
I’ve used a lot of sequencers etc… and made music for years and even have electronic music diplomas… so hopefully I can give some useful user feedback once it get my hapax…
Thanks for the info :+1:

Seems like you got an amazing sequencer can’t wait to try it!

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I would MUCH rather have the main encoder do a smooth scroll than jump by page. IMO, main encoder should scroll, and the ✜ d-pad should jump 1 page at a time

Horizontally, you mean ?

Literally no idea why I missed this. The +/- moving a whole octave when there are only 8 notes per page has been doing in head in!

This is much better.

vertically then, encoder one does this already… why repeat the same function?
(this is one thing I admit , I had to get used to)

horizontally, I think it only makes sense to do a page at a time (as it does already) , otherwise I suspect we will get lost quite quickly.

it does take a while to get used but I think that would be the case regardless of how its done…
it’s just comes down to muscle memory and using it regularly, then it clicks.

(of course some of this is NOT the same in pScale mode, where we have a kind of locked view)

for me the ‘missing element’ is the lack of a UI reference on the right display.
I really wish there was a piano roll on it (as there is on the pyramid) , so it be much quicker to see where both notes lay (on a keyboard) and also where the grid is positioned.

I think the issue at the moment, is there no real frame of reference/context, its just a set of notes on a blank background … and a little bit of help from the pads IF you can remember the pad colours.

if we look at daws, they tend to use not only a piano keyboard to help give that reference, but also some lines across the grid to help reinforce this.

I personally find this is why I get disoriented when using different jump modes, as its not immediately clear where I have jumped too.

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I’ve found the scrolling behaviour a bit confusing, but I haven’t used Hapax a lot yet and I’m sure it will feel natural once I get more used to it.

I think it would be nice to be able to scroll horizontally in smaller steps, it feels cumbersome to jump between pages when editing something that spans across pages.

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I used a Deluge the other day, which allows smooth scrolling vertically and horizontally. I thought it was much nicer than what Hapax does right now. I mean, we have 2 separate controls, once is a knob and the other is buttons. Why not give both smooth scrolling (knob) and page scrolling (buttons)? Best of both worlds!

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we already do encoder one, and buttons up/down ?!

really all your saying is you want to repeat encoder one behaviour on the main encoder…

encoder one has to do this, since it is the note selection encoder.

… so we’d be loosing either page jump or octave jump (if we switched buttons to page, and main encoder to octave)

thats what I said, originally I wasn’t sure… until I realised encoder one was doing the ‘smooth scroll’

so it might make it (for some) more intuitive to start out, but less flexible once you get used to the navigation… (which basically says, main encoder is page jumping , in H and V directions)

Maybe main encoder behavior stays the same (vertical movement), but 2nd + main encoder could scroll the page left/right.

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I had no idea Encoder 1 did that. I totally missed it. So, in that case, I’d like the Main encoder to do what Encoder 1 does, but horizontally. That would be perfect, then I can scroll with accuracy both horizontally and vertically via encoder, and in pages with the ✜ d-pad buttons.

It doesn’t make sense to my why the Main encoder scrolls vertically, when Encoder 1 and 2 both scroll vertically, while there’s no way to scroll horizontally 1 note at a time. Seems like a missed opportunity. Especially since the ✜ d-pad is the perfect candidate to go pages at a time.

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That’s what it does already @heckseven

@cowboy … yeah, that be logical…
if step horizontal was possible. Though honestly not sure I’d use it much , as I kind of think in pages horizontally ( as time divisions, but perhaps others work differently.
( perhaps for me it be better if main encoder was horizontal page , then 2nd + encoder was 1 step?!)

though we loose vertical by page, but I don’t use it that much , as similar I prefer octave jumps , then enc 1 for note selection.

I guess up/down buttons could become up/down by page, since enc2 is already by octave ?!
And that would match the left/right page functionality

Overall, I’d say it won’t make much difference in navigation, once you get used to it.

So I think the main question then is:
Is horizontal scrolling by one step a requirement?
( as that is ‘missing’) if so something will have to change as there’s not really a space for it in UI currently.

Anyway, send your feature request :slight_smile:

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If the 16x8 pad area could indicate where the bar line is (eg, via empty notes marking the measures and beats being colored in with a dim color) it would very easy to scroll in subdivisions of a page and not get lost.

Right now, I find it almost impossible to edit phrases that cross the bar line, which is a bummer. Scrolling horizontally and vertically one note at a time, as well as 1 page at a time is something I would do pretty much constantly!

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If only scrolling vertically was still possible when using pScale mode…!!

And with all rows active instead of disabling one or more rows (depending on the scale).

(Did send this as a feature request, so hope they will do this in the future)

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I spent some time with my thoughts and worked up the following proposal, which I sent over to Squarp.

Hi! I’ve spent a bunch of time thinking about scrolling and editing in Step mode, and I would like to propose a few things that I think will really help with usability. Right now, I find it almost impossible to edit phrases that cross the bar line (for example), which is a bummer. I think being able to scroll horizontally one note at a time would greatly help with this.

Looking at the current Step mode controls, it doesn’t make sense to me why the Main encoder scrolls vertically, when Encoder 1 and 2 both also scroll vertically, while there’s no way to scroll horizontally 1 note at a time with an encoder. This seems like a missed opportunity.

Request 1: Please set the Main encoder to scroll +/- 1 horizontally. That way, users can scroll with accuracy both vertically (Encoder 1) and horizontally (Main Encoder) via encoders, while still using the ✜ d-pad buttons to scroll a page at a time.

Request 2: Make the ✜ d-pad up/down buttons operate like the Main Encoder does, which scrolls a “vertical page” at a time, instead of always +/- 12. If Encoder 2 scrolls an octave at a time, there’s no reason to also have the up/down buttons do the same thing. This is especially relevant in chromatic mode.

Between Request 1 + 2, no functionality is lost, only added (and reorganized slightly).

Request 3: If the 16x8 pad area could indicate where the bar line is, it would be very easy to scroll in subdivisions of a page and not get lost. This could be done by coloring empty pads on measures and beats with a color. Like, the bar could be dim green and beats could be dim white. Or any 2 other unused (but configurable) colors. Maybe this is a configurable option for people who don’t want to see it.

In summary, I propose the following (based on Thibault’s post, my changes in bold)

When nothing is selected:

  • Encoder 1 scrolls by +/- 1 vertically
  • Encoder 2 scrolls by +/- 12 vertically
  • Main encoder scrolls by +/- 1 horizontally
  • 2nd + Main encoder does nothing
  • Up/Down arrows scroll by +/- 8 “vertical pages”
  • Left/Right arrows scrolls through pages horizontally

When selection is active:

  • Encoder 1 shifts notes and scrolls by +/- 1 vertically
  • Encoder 2 shifts notes and scrolls by +/- 12 vertically
  • Main encoder shifts notes and scrolls by +/- 1 horizontally
  • 2nd + Main encoder does nothing
  • Up/Down shifts notes by +/- 1 vertically with no scroll
  • Left/Right shifts notes by +/- 1 horizontally with no scroll
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I play mostly in chromatic mode since I borrow chords outside a scale/key almost always so in general navigation and programming has been tricky. What got me the most last night was the +/- 12 page switch with the up/down buttons. Why is it like this? I’d baked the buttons into my muscle memory and took a fair while to realise why it kept skipping over notes? Why isn’t it by page?

In chromatic mode it’s really difficult to dial in the right notes as there’s no reference other than pressing a note and recognising the colour. Since the note doesn’t actually play I have to keep skipping to live view, playing the notes, remembering the colours then skipping back to step view. A pretty poor workflow.

Some things that can help.

  • Vertical keyboard graphic in right oled. I’ve seen this mentioned many times already.
  • Notes sounding on press. Make this a toggle for those that don’t want it.
  • Highlight dimly the root note (configurable or just C) across the row. Again toggleable.

And yep, I’ll send this to Squarp along with a bunch of other items.

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In chromatic mode you can select the note of the bottom row of the step view with the main encoder. Clicking the main encoder will play that note without having to jump to live view.