Re: [xl7] Gerald I?m with you!
2002-01-10 by erik_magrini@Baxter.com
You guys really have that many problems huh? I had a lot of problems initially until I figured out most of them were my mistakes, not the box. Maybe you guys have faulty boxes or something?
MY biggest problems and confusion usually arise from the fact that there's such disparity between editing screens, and if you're not careful it's easy to edit the wrong track. For instance, let's say I set the active track to Channel 4 while in the Pattern Mode display. Then I realize that I need to make a change to the Preset, so I go to edit the Preset by pressing that button (Preset under the display) and turn some Quick Edit knobs to make my changes, then save them. I then realize that track 10's Preset needs tweaking now. So I would press the Track/Channel select buttons up to get to channel 10, and make my change to the preset, all good so far. Now I decide that the Pattern needed some type of editing on Track 10, then I press Pattern Edit. BUT WAIT, if you're not careful, you won't realize that you're now editing track 4 not 10 like you wanted, since you didn't select that track/channel from Pattern Mode, but from Preset Mode. THAT was really confusing for long time, and caused me many mistakes in my early Pattern edits! Now say I'm still in Pattern Edit mode and I decide to go into the Note Edit Screen to fix a stray velocity or something on Track 10 (assuming I fixed the earlier issue, and the XL-7 really is Pattern Editing on Track 10 now) . So I scroll the data wheel until it says Note List, then press Enter to display the data. Wait a minute, now it displays that I'm editing Channel 1! This is the type of thing that will get you when you're not paying attention, and let's face it when you're deep in a groove, you tend to work quickly (so easy to do on the XL-7) so it's easy to miss stuff like this.
By and large this is my biggest complaint about the XL-7, it's totally designed so that you can move freely around and between the editing menus without interrupting your work flow, yet none of the channels match in the different editors initially (therefore interrupting your work flow). They don't update each other, which can be really confusing if you're not spot on watching for it. Now I understand why this is, Emu left the Command Stations very open ended in terms of track versus channels assignments to provide the greatest amount of sequencing flexibility (the sheer number of channels available IS staggering). But like I said before, I bet 97% of all users just stick with the default channel versus track assignments, so the flexibility is largely wasted on almost all their users. Not huge loss, except in terms of intuitive editing. It would be nice if there was a Global option to "Lock Track To Channel" or something. So that Channel 1 is always Track 1, Channel 2 is always Track 2, etc. That way they could code it so that the editing screens are always on the same active channel, no matter where that channel is selected from.
Does these drawbacks make the XL-7 unusable for me? Not at all, I'm dying to get out of work right now and go play with it some more in fact. Are these bugs? No, just a confusing editing interface that could easily be fixed. By and large I think the Command Stations are really user friendly and intuitive, this is the only thing that gets in the way of making it more or less seamless when switching between editing Patterns, and editing Presets. And the cool thing is, if this was a change that was made, it wouldn't require a huge manual addendum or anything. ;It wouldn't change the functionality of the Command Stations one bit, just make them easier to use for all. If any Emu techs want to pick my brain about this, I'd love the opportunity, I've thought about it quite a bit :)
rEalm
(whew, that was long, sorry!)
strange things happen with my MP-7 as well, I´m with you. I would love to love this beast (beautiful, but unfaithful, uuumh except the colour maybe ;-)), but the software gives me headaches. When it runs smooth, I fall in love again, I just can´t help it. It´s ruining my life. Next time its giving me problems I will ... I dunno...
Heinrich