I see that the arranger in Vangelis is disabled. Maybe there was a note about that that I missed somewhere. I’m just wondering when that is projected to be in one of these test releases? It’s more of a workflow thing for me so even though I’m not playing ‘live’ and don’t need worry too much about unknown bugs, to use the Zynthian as a full DAW-less sequencer and composition tool, the arranger is necessary. As such, I’ve needed to swtich back to Oram for the time being.
The arranger is currently “missing” from vangelis. We had no time to refactor this and the new launcher already have some “arranging” capabilities, so we decided to postpone the task until Vangelis is out. When the time arrives, a new arranger will emerge, better than ever, with a better UI, better workflows and more feature rich than before. Please, be patient and try using the launcher until the arranger is back. The launcher is quite capable for arranging songs 
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I know this is asking a lot, but to the extent you can identify specific things you want to do, but don’t see a good way to do in Vangelis, please let us know, either here in the forum or via a Feature Request - this will help a lot.
Certainly. Not only am I new to Zynthian OS (and kit now) in general, I’m new to this forum. As I’m still learning to use both Oram and Vangelis on top of it, I usually figure things are ‘user error’ (which they often are).
I’ll try and place anything in context and in the appropriate location as well. This particular question seemed more fitting here as it was pretty general.
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Found a regression:
in snapshot bank when I rename a snapshot, the following snapshot is renamed
No problems if you use Webconf
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Cool stuff. It looks promising. When you boot the Zynthian and you get the start screen with pictures that you can press. Well done.
A few things I was struggling about.
How to get back to this menu after a while. I found out that when I push two buttons I get back to this screen, but I can’t remember which ones. So either I’m too dumb, or it’s to complicated.
I like the ableton style Zynpad thing. Recording a track seems quite complicated. Getting into the pattern editor, and then pressing record. I get confused with the audio record option. (I pressed record to record a cell, and suddenly I was recording an audio file).
I would expect a ‘cell’ or whateveryou call it to record when it’s empty, so I can stay away from the pattern editor. Or something like ‘record/play/overdub’.
short press/ long press/ bold press. It still is a lot to remember. I still feel like I’m randomly pressing buttons until I get what I want. But’s it’s still not really intuitive.
but i must say i’m impressed by the improvements.
Is there something like a manual already?
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I just updated to Vangelis a few days ago and I believe you can get back to this menu via the touchscreen - hold down at the top part of the screen and it should open this menu.
I used to be able to “Add chain” via the OPT button but now the only way to do that seems via the touchscreen?
Hi @piattica,
If it’s the same one as in Oram, it also deletes the wrong snapshot.
Perhaps you should open a bug ticket?
Kind regards,
Hans.
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I only rename or delete snapshots via the File Browser now. Via Zynthian itself is too tricky.
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In mixer view, pressing the third encoder brings up the add chain menu.
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Hi @robert
Thanks for your comments and suggestions.
If you mean the “main menu”, we are working to improve this. In the next hours/days you can expect an easier way to access the main menu.
If you mean the “new chain menu”, it’s already available from launcher and mixer views by simply short pushing knob#3. Easy enough.
We are working hard to ease workflows, but some memorization is going to be needed. The zynthian hardware UI is limited with a limited number of buttons and knobs to offer an ever-growing amount of functionality. And if using touch-only UI ( i don’t remember about your zynthian hardware), workflows are sub-optimal most of times and this is something difficult to fix without writing a new UI totally focused in touch interaction.
Well , it seems you are describing a “real-time looper” behaviour. Perhaps you prefer to use SooperLooper for this kind workflow.
The new launcher is not a real-time looper. Although it works very well with audio and pattern loops. you need to enter the pattern editor to record. For recording audio loops, you must enter the audio-clip control screen too. The current audio-clip recording functionality is quite basic and we want to improve it, but it’s not in our high priority list. Anyway, we have some good ideas for this …
Regarding your confusion about the “record” button, currently, when pushed from the mixer or launcher view it operates the global audio or MIDI recorder. It works like this from a long time ago.
Anyway, we could reconsider the record workflow for the launcher view. Perhaps you want to create a feature request on our tracking system. If you do so, please, do your proposal as detailed as you can, including the workflow you envision.
All the best!
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Hi @HansR, @piattica and others!
The snapshot renaming bug is already solved (in vangelis).
Please, update and test.
Regards,
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It works now !!! Thanks
Good to hear. I’m on Oram so can’t test.
On the latest update bold pressing the back button doesn’t take me to the main menu any more but to the chain menu instead. Is that by design or did something get lost along the updates?
I vaguely remember that bold pressing back was meant to be “the way” to do it but maybe I misremember.
EDIT:
We are working on workflows. Short press of OPT button from Mixer view takes you to the main menu.
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Title: Possible ZS3 Restore Bug (FluidSynth + Sfizz)
Hello everyone,
I would like to report what I believe is a bug in the ZS3 restore mechanism in the Vangelis version.
Test configuration
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Raspberry Pi 4 (4 GB)
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Latest Vangelis version
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Engines used:
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FluidSynth
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Sfizz
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My typical setup consists of:
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4 ZS3s
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Each ZS3 contains 2 chains
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The chains use a combination of FluidSynth and Sfizz.
Problem
After creating the ZS3s and switching between them for some time, the restore process does not always work correctly.
I have observed two different behaviors:
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Sometimes, when selecting another ZS3, one or more chains continue playing the sound from the previously selected ZS3, as if the preset had not been restored.
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At other times, a FluidSynth chain fails to load the saved preset and instead plays the default GM Acoustic Grand Piano, even though the ZS3 was saved with a different instrument.
The issue appears to occur randomly and is not associated with any specific ZS3 or chain.
More frequent after the latest update
This behavior already occurred occasionally in previous versions, but I have noticed that it has become significantly more frequent after the latest Vangelis update. Currently, ZS3 restore failures happen much more often, making the feature less reliable for live performance.
If necessary, I would be happy to perform additional tests or provide more information to help reproduce and identify the cause of the issue.
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I believe the problem comes from Fluidsynth. I observed the same behavior about 2 years ago ( I am on Oram ) like playing sound from a previous selected ZS3 or playing some different random sound, also hanging notes as far as I remember. Nearly got crazy about this.
Changed all FluidSynth Chains to Sfizz and never saw these issues again.
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