Hi @Aethermind !
The MIDI DIN-5 device from the MIDI-IN (or MIDI-OUT) menu refers to the serial tty port from the RPi. If you are working in a bare-bones setup with no serial MIDI circuit, it has no sense to have this device. We should add a configuration option in the webconf to disable/enable the serial MIDI, so it doesn’t create confusion in bare-bones setups. Please, add a feature request in the issue tracker so we don’t forget this conversation 
Thanks!
Hi!
if I go to the “midi in” I see different things, and if I bold push a usb device I can’t switch between acti Omni and multi mode but just check uncheck multitimbral. I’ve tested both oram and vangelis.
I’m a newbie and maybe I’m making some obvious error that i don’t see.
Also, if I check multitimbral I can only control midi channel 1 with the selected device and so cannot choose the midi channel I want to control.
I don’t have the official kit, I’m controlling the zynthian by the Akai APC Key 25 mk2 and my pi5 is inside an argon v3 case with SSD, can this be the source of the issue?
Thanks for the help and the excellent work, this machine is so fun
Hi @sagga! Welcome to the zynthian family.
The UI for multitimbral mode has changed. We now just have the single checkbox to enable multitimbral mode. If disabled then the MIDI inputs acts on the selected chain.
When a MIDI input is configured as multitimbral, then each MIDI note-on/off message received from that MIDI input is sent to any chains that have the same MIDI channel assigned. For example, if you had 4 chains assigned to MIDI channels 1, 2, 3 & 4 repesectively and a MIDI input configured as multitimbral then any note-on/off messages received on MIDI channel 1 would go to the first chain. Any received on channel 2 would go to the second chain, etc.
Hi @riban .
Ok thank you for the explanation, my only problem at the moment is that i don’t understand how to assign the multitimbral midi input to a midi channel that isn’t the 1. If i open the options of second chain, midi channel 2, go to midi in, set to multitimbral my midi qx49, it will play chain 1/midi channel 1. I have to check some other setting in the admin menu?
I’m not sure you are quite understanding multitimbral mode in this context. You have to send from your MIDI controller on a different channel. That is what is meant be multitimbral. The instrument reacts differently to notes from different channels.
okok now i get it, i thought i’ve to set the midi channel via ui. thank you
Haha, this is like discovering a hidden chamber from when I played Super Metroid as a kid!
Quickly pressing enc 4 does nothing at all, and there is no hint that you should bold press the option anywhere in the UI. Press it longer than bold press, and you get nothing, so you really need to hit just right.
This is a really neat feature (crucial for me at least), but please make it a bit more obvious to find. 
I would suggest that you can get to it by pressing it quickly, since that doesn’t do anything to this particular option anyway, at least not in my setup, from Admin->MIDI Input Devices->Internal Devices->DIN-5 MIDI.
FYI, I’ve been trying to find this option for at least an hour now. 
Short, bold and long press is a fundamental UI concept which is why its description is given promnience in user guide. Users must understand this concept to be able to use zynthian. We are slowly updating the Oram user guide which currently (2024-12-03) is incomplete so it can be beneficial to refer to the older (more complete but out of date) legacy guides.
In general, a short press will cause an action to occur which may be toggle a value select a menu entry, navigate to a view, etc. A bold press may access context settings. In this example of configuring a MIDI input, the menu may be accessed from two places: admin menu and chain menu. When accessed from admin menu it provides global configuration options. When accessed from chain menu it offers chain specific options as well as some of the global options. In the chain you can enable/disable each MIDI input for the chain which is achieved with short press. The global options can still be accessed with bold press because it offers benefit in workflow to be able to access these options from here. For consistency, we keep the same workflow of bold press to access these options from both locations. Observe that in the view accessed from admin menu that services such as BLE MIDI, MIDI over IP, etc. can be enabled/disabled with short press. There is logical consideration to this which, although maybe not initially evident, does improve overal workflow by means of providing consistent behaviour. I dislike systems that appear to be designed by different people at different times that give different methods of access for similar features… but things evolve so it sometimes happens!
Maybe we could have a kind of indicator on the screen to point out when a button press turns to bold and long, somtehing like the heart status.
I.e. the heart turns into different colors: first empty, then white finally red… just ideas to give the user some feedback.
The concept is good but there may be technical challenges. We don’t necessarily get notifications for each stage and adding them may impact behaviour, e.g. increase resource usage. That is not to say it couldn’t be done. If it is considered sufficiently beneficial we could probably implement something.
The behaviour of short, bold & long can be adjusted by the user in webconf INTERFACE->UI Options. The time that bold (default 300ms) and long (default 2000ms) trigger can be set, so a user may tweak these settings to give them the behaviour that best suits them.
[quote=“riban, post:49, topic:8622, full:true”]
We are slowly updating the Oram user guide which currently (2024-12-03) is incomplete so it can be beneficial to refer to the older (more complete but out of date) legacy guides.[/quote]
First, thank you for the long and thoughtful answer, it makes sense.
I knew it was called “multitimbral” and searched for the terms “zynthian mulltitimbral”. First page of hits were discourse links with long discussions where key information was missing, i.e. how to get to the actual setting, then some links not relevant and then the wiki.
In the wiki the User guide under 2.2.2 mention multitimbral, but no hint on how to enable it or a link to e.g. the 5.9 heading where you actually set the options.
I understand fully that I can’t expect you guys to have everything updated at all times, that’s why I try to be clear on how I search for information and what I would like to find.
I had this idea that it would be nice to have “recepies” on how to do certain things, with specific button presses and concise explanation. Something like The Zynthian Cookbook that thoroughly explains things like
Zynthian is really an awesome machine and you have done something absolutely awesome with it, but the learning curve for me is long and steep. I hope and guess that I’m not the only one who is feeling like this when first getting it into my hands, or else I feel really, really, stupid
Hi @freeman and others!
I would like to highlight this fragment from the user’s guide:
https://wiki.zynthian.org/index.php/Zynthian_UI_User's_Guide_-_Oram#Types_of_action
It explains the different types of “push actions” used across all zynthian UI:
Short Push Push and release in less than 0.3 seconds. Normally used to select an item, check/uncheck an option or trigger the default action for the item.
Bold Push Push and hold for longer than 0.3 seconds then release before 2 seconds. Normally used to open options menu, access extra details or edit the item.
Long Push Push and hold for longer than 2 seconds. Long-action triggers before release. Used for important functions that are not used very often.
These are unspecific general rules, that apply to almost every view and menu in the zynthian UI.
We have tried to make the UI as coherent and uniform as possible, so you can expect “bold push” will open a menu with contextual options, an edit view or similar. I mean, if you “bold-push” a MIDI Input device from a list, you should see a menu with options for this device. If you “bold-push” a chain strip from the mixer, you should expect the chain options. If you bold-push a preset, you should expect options for the preset, etc.
Bold-push is part of the DNA of zynthian UI, so please, grab the 2 first rules in your mind and you probably would discover the learning curve is not so steep (long push is rarely used).
All the best,
I changed the name of this topic from:
Stage / multitimbral mixed mode
to:
Stage / multitimbral mixed mode - discussion evolved into GLOBAL STAGE/MULTI-TIMBRAL MODE IS DEAD! and further to more general Zynthian UI issues
I hope that is agreeable to the participants. Please carry on…
Could we maybe have a little " > " arrow at the end of the name where there is a submenu? or some kind of visual indicator that the element is different from other elements?
