Hi,
by now engine’s sounds are audible by short-pressing “select” encoder, then UI gives the next page
… this is not so helpful if i want to listen several presets faster, before choosing the right one. Have to go back and forth from control page to sound list etc…
Is it possible to remain on patch list after short-press (so it becomes a simple preset audition) and going to control page with a middle-press instead?
In this way it can be faster navigating through sounds, before entering the control page for the right one…
Regards
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Hi @ivanmonterosso!
I totally agree with you in the “problem” 
, but i’m not sure of the “solution” 
A different approach could be:
- maintain the current short-press for “preset selection & change to control screen”
- load the preset without changing to control screen when the list selection remains unchanged for 1-2 seconds after moving.
I would like to “listen” more opinions before implementing a change like this in the Zynthian-UI …
Regards,
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I think, that it’s too “dangerous” to change anything without pressing a button.
Maybe, just the other way around?
short-press as is,
middle-press load preset without changing to control screen.
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Yes, this could … i thought Short Press as First move, Just for a question of Speed, picturing live scenarios where a Quick search is needed, under certain stress conditions.
Or…tell me What you think about this:
Operations stay unchanged, except for preset audition: preset is loaded directly while highlighted in list through navigation (it’s what program change does: value change=sound loaded immediately).
Interface remains on list for further scrolling.
Short-pressing confirms preset on layer and enters control pages, as usual…
It could be very handy to have some sort of ‘live preset monitoring’ mode.
It could be turned on automatically, for example, when the ‘Preset’ screen is active.
In this mode, any ‘note on’ message should force loading (temporarily) the currently highlighted preset.
So, to hear the instrument, you may only need to rotate the zyncoder and hit some notes on the keyboard (or, maybe, hit twice).
When you exit the ‘Preset’ screen by pressing ‘Back’, the previous (‘permanent’) preset is restored for the layer.
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Fine… It works the same way if you don’t press “select” It won’t overwrite sound choosen before.
Enabling preset by “note on” forcing loading is very fine too. Even better than autoload on highlight. In this way you Can scroll fast jumping on a preset category ( you know you want strings…) and activate monitoring Just hitting a note without causing cpu overload …
yes, note on is a great idea.
With “dangerous” I meant the situation when you are in a live performance and want to change the sound.
You don’t want the engine to change its setting only because you waited too long in a screen.
And if you change the behaviour, that a short-press won’t go to the next screen, you break the common user interface.
Took me a while to get the middle-press, because I didn’t rtfm.
So I vote for Note-On.
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Hi @Zynthianers!
I’ve implemented the proposal from @Schpion for preloading presets using Note-On events:
It slighty changes the workflow. Now when pushing back after preloading some preset the UI goes to “control” instead of “banks”. When no preloading is done, the normal behaviour ( going to “banks”) is maintained.
The changes are not in the master branch yet. If you want to test it, you have to fetch and checkout the “midi_master_chan” branch in your zynthian-ui. Also, zyncoder library has been modified, so you need to pull the changes and rebuild.
Enjoy!
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It’s simply AMAZING. …there’s only a little issue:
at first choice (being layer still empty) if monitoring then going back with short press without choice, UI hangs. (but sounds and reacts to cc etc…)
In that situation, short pressing “back” it’s good if would do nothing at all…
in case of already full layer, it’s ok it turns back to control page.
With middle press it’s all fine (return to categories if any).
But… IT’S WOWMAZING 
INFO:root:Restore Preset: None (0)
zyngine/zynthian_layer.py needs a check for self.preset_name or index
Yes, my 8yr old will like it as well. He made his first zynthian experience lately and I told him, that he doesn’t need to select the preset anymore and I saw a shimmer in his eyes 
BUT. Imagine you are playing live and you know, you have to change to another preset soon and want to go to the bank and wait for the moment to select the preset.
This doesn’t work anymore.
I think, we need both options. Maybe this monitoring feature should only be activated when you enter the bank with a middle press?
At early experience with Zynthian, I was thinking about footswitch…
The best option for me was cycle through a selected list of presets with footswitch, thus leaving my hands free and allowing almost gapless preset switching.
But I have no idea yet, how to handle so many layers and midi channels with single footswitch 
what I have been doing is sending program change from my midi guitar or controller to increment to decrement threw a preset list on a engine. could program a midi footswitch have not tried it yet will look a it this weekend.
I don’t need a solution for this specific “Live”-issue.
But you want to have the option to play along, browse the presets and decide with a button (or footswitch) that the sound changes and not by every NOTE-ON event.
currently in all engines except mod-ui.
if a program change 1 comes over Midi the channel the engine will Increment down the list or program change 128 will go up the list up. On my midi guitar I have a program up and down buttons. it works just fine click button try the next preset until I find what I want. Just does not change banks. but that I can do on the touch screen.
@john, this not what this thread is about. I am talking about the changes, Fernando did in the new branch.
This is not about Midi program change events.
I understand If you are in Zynaddsubfx and you are on a given preset lets say 25 and you want to try the next 10 presets I just send a Program change 128 it goes to preset 26 no I dont like that so send another program change 128 and test the next preset if I send a program change 0 it will go backwards. no need to go back and forth on the UI. It is fast and easy for auditioning the sounds,
Note this does not always work in MOD-UI.
Honestly in live scenarios i think more about using pre- edited snapshots built for each song, rather than switch on the fly the engine’s sound… or if you want use sounds as “snapshots”, you should work alot on each engine structure…
(if its structure allows you to do it)
Let’s assume this: Zynthian has to be more similar to a classsic synth/workstation, in which you must be able to build combinations (Speaking in “korg language” ) of several sounds using just its interface…
(with MOD UI sadly you MUST pre-build a patch… but we know…)
It’s ok if sitting on a PC and you prepare snapshots comfortably,. But on Live you have to be fast. (even pre-organized too… )
The Note ON behaviour is great for speeding up snapshot building process, it allows quick auditing through sounds, but…
if your habits are slightly different, in fact yes, the note ON, playing instantly on highlighted item, doesn’t allow you to play continuously with a sound on a layer and switch to another sound on that layer on your demand . (maybe you want unchanged the rest of snapshot, and changing snapshot for just a sound variation… would stop the sound…)
So, could be in this alternative way:
- Leaving untouched NoteON operation only on fresh layers.
- On fullfilled layers, short-pressing “Select” confirms sound monitoring - UI remains on sound list - no layer overwrite.
- (middle?)pressing again, if sound hasn’t changed, layer will be overwritten - UI jumps to control pages.
Or ( sayin’ goodbye to Note ON, sadly 
) leaving only push select for sound monitoring in any case.
In this way you are free to navigate thru sounds while you play, and choose to change sound with another push on Select (could be enough just only monitoring without the need of overwriting layer…)
P.S.:in any of these situations, there’s a “fault” mentioned before, that could not be solvable:
In each engine, of any type, changing between sounds causes a sound interruption. Only a Master Effect could (almost) solve the silence gap…
The thing is more aggressive on switching between snapshots, obviously… it could contain several engines and must complete loading of their respective sounds…
But this is another story 
check out this post,
This is in the process of being implemented.
We still have two unused zyncoders on the “preset” screen
I think, we could turn the “monitoring mode” on and off by rotating, for example, the “LS” zyncoder. And it’s current on/off status could be displayed somewhere on screen 