Zynseq - A native step sequencer

[riban]

Hi @bambalaya! I found it a bit challenging following all your points but will try to respond as best I can.

Jeannie synth has been mentioned in this forum several time in the past with a general appreciation for it. There is a dedicated post to it here. When I saw mention of it this week I took another look and smiled at how similar its sequencer looked to zynthian pattern editor. Uncanny! But there are only so many ways to do the same thing and we often borrow from others, leading to conversion on conventions. I think there was one or two ideas that I thought were neat in @rolfdegen’s sequencer that I might borrow in the future. All love to Jeannie and @rolfdegen for his wonderful, open source device.

I don’t know what hardware you are using so I don’t know how you are interacting with zynthian. Maybe you use a V3/V4 device with 4 encoders and small resistive touchscreen (which needs a stylus to be operated reliably) or you have a V5 with more buttons and larger capacative screen or you have a self build with some other combination of hardware control or you access via VNC. The three main (supported) workflows described in the user documentation are: V4, V5 & Touch. (Although this method of documenting only came in during the Oram release cycle so is only in the latest (incomplete) main user documentation.) ZynSeq has a dedicated user manual which is quite good. I certainly recommend reading it before posting issues or comments so that such comments can be informed and possibly include feedback on the manual itself.

@bambalaya

1 file of the first scene preset name got repeated to all columns below

I don’t understand what this means.

@bambalaya

2: I tried making the bars for one scene as long as possible because I wanted to try to load an entire song, but 64 bars weren’t enough.

ZynSeq is pattern based. A single pattern is not designed to hold a whole song. You need to use the Arranger to add multiple patterns to build up a song. It is possible to add several patterns to a sequence in Arranger, and then launch that sequence from ZynPad. The arranger has many issues (as discussed in another recent post) so this may prove challenging, and we have plans to simplify this workflow.

@bambalaya

3: selecting the scene num5 which is in the same columns of scene1, just 1 row below(still the same name) and loading another preset, it loaded another sampler instance in the main mixr page, but then when playin the first scene, it played both audio together…

I don’t understand this. By default, ZynPad has a grid with each column containing launchers for sequences in the same, mutually-exclusive group, i.e. if you press a pad, it will play after another in the same group ends. There are various modes for each sequence so that you can loop them, play to end, truncate at next sync-point (bar boundary), etc.

@bambalaya

4: in Arranger the first two scenes got out of view, It starts from scene 3 up to 16, and idk how to move it back so I can see the top two scenes again.

The arranger view is a window into the whole arrangement. It scrolls up/down and left/right as you move the cursor about, e.g. with arrow keys, encoders, mouse wheel, etc. It may be that you are using touch and that might present more of a challenge. I thought that two finger gestures could be used to drag-scroll and pinch zoom this view but reviewing the code, it looks like this did not make it to the Arranger view. That needs to be fixed.

@bambalaya

5: I have no idea what the arranger “blocks” do still…

This section of the ZynSeq user manual describes the arranger. Each block represents a pattern.

@bambalaya

Mixxx like scratch mixer

I wonder if this is similar to the work we are doing in our zynbleton development branch that has columns of sequence / clip launchers in the mixer view?