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MIDIbox SEQ V4 Beginner's Guide

MIDIbox - http://wiki.midibox.org/

Table of Contents

MIDIbox SEQ V4 Beginner's Guide

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1. The basics

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1.1. User interface

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1.2. Basic concepts

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2. Basic settings

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2.1. Track EVENT

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2.2. Track LENGTH

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2.3. Track DIVIDER and tempo

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3. Trigger layers and parameter layers

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3.1. Trigger layers

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3.3. Drum tracks

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4. Entering notes

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4.1. The Jam page

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4.2. Working on the EDIT page

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5. Working with patterns and songs

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5.1. Saving a pattern

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5.2. Phrase Mode and Song Mode

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5.3. Copying Patterns

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5.4. Measure

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5.5. Guide Track

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5.6. Track selection, Solo and Mute

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6. Some advanced features

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6.1. Using a bus to control a track

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6.2. Force To Scale

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6.3. Random generator

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6.4. Euclidean rhythm generator

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6.5. Mixer maps

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Appendix 1. Customising some button functions

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Function buttons F1–F4

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Button behaviour (momentary/toggle)

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Appendix 2. Bookmarks

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Appendix 3. The MIDI Router

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Appendix 4. MBSEQv4 CC implementation

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Summary of Contents for SEQ V4

Page 1: ...ge 28 4 2 Working on the EDIT page 36 5 Working with patterns and songs 41 5 1 Saving a pattern 41 5 2 Phrase Mode and Song Mode 42 5 3 Copying Patterns 46 5 4 Measure 47 5 5 Guide Track 49 5 6 Track...

Page 2: ...Last update 2018 04 30 18 00 mididocs seq beginners_guide start http wiki midibox org doku php id mididocs seq beginners_guide start http wiki midibox org Printed on 2019 10 22 16 44...

Page 3: ...ed and working unit at your disposal preferably with Wilba s frontpanel design Also this guide is based on the premise that you have a MIDI controller connected to the sequencer s MIDI IN1 and a polyp...

Page 4: ...l which is called the datawheel The displays are called the left LCD and right LCD The unit should have at least one physical MIDI IN and one physical MIDI OUT port and that s taken for granted in thi...

Page 5: ...track is currently selected though the information is often available on the LCDs as well most often on the left edge of the left LCD You can select multiple tracks at once within a group by pressing...

Page 6: ...his data is in trigger layers and parameter layers For details see section 3 In addition to the musical data tracks also contain settings data De ning the settings for each individual track is one of...

Page 7: ...ks one after the other a pattern is made up of four tracks and that is the smallest unit that can be chained A totality of tracks patterns songs and settings and a few other things like groove pattern...

Page 8: ...und on one synth and G1T2 to play a bass sound on another but it s ok if both tracks are playing the same sound as long as your synth is polyphonic If your synth is monophonic you will have to apply t...

Page 9: ...k needs to be initialised for the changes to take e ect Press GPB16 for a few seconds to initialise the track Initialisation erases all data in the track s layers It is important to note that even tho...

Page 10: ...in a chord track parameter layer A is a chord layer instead of a note layer The chord layer doesn t take normal notes as input but instead a value from A P to a p plus octave value from 0 to 3 each of...

Page 11: ...ords whether transposed or not Sustain holds each note chord until another one is played and this spares you the trouble of having to set the length of each individual note chord Given the disadvantag...

Page 12: ...several others the real availability of which depends on the hardware choices made when your sequencer was put together However if you scroll to the end of the value list you will nd values Bus1 4 Th...

Page 13: ...tches If this is causing problems Program Change commands can be sent also on a parameter layer dedicated for this purpose allowing you to time them more exibly so that your equipment has time to reac...

Page 14: ...FX settings etc See Appendix 4 for details 2 1 4 Setting parameter layer functions Finally the EVENT page allows you to customise your parameter layers Use GPK9 to select the layer and GPK10 to selec...

Page 15: ...for the purposes of this demonstration and despite the shortened length let s keep the notes on the right LCD Everything should now be ready Press PLAY on the front panel to start the sequencer If yo...

Page 16: ...r display 16 steps altogether represents a 16th note allowing for four note or other events per quarter note If on the DIVIDER page you select timebase 8 divider value 32 each of the 16 steps on the E...

Page 17: ...n buttons you will see they are running at equal speed It s good to be on the EDIT page for the best demonstration of this STOP the sequencer and select G1T1 then go to the DIVIDER page and quick sele...

Page 18: ...e EDIT page left LCD top row Px Name gives the active parameter layer where x is the layer A P and Name the name of the layer such as Vel velocity Len length etc Tx Name gives the active trigger layer...

Page 19: ...ave something in them Now use GPK1 to select Step 2 All the information in the steps stays the same only the gate ag is turned o o If you switch back to step view press hold EDIT you can t see anythin...

Page 20: ...kip trigger is on the step in question will be skipped This is not simply an empty step but the step will be jumped over and the track will e ectively become one step shorter than its length set on th...

Page 21: ...tons Or if you have only four parameter layers button C alternates between the 3rd and the 4th layer Note that all steps will have Note Velocity CC etc values in them by default but they are e ective...

Page 22: ...o the note layer value from the rst note layer The note layer value is merely displayed and cannot be edited when the velocity layer is visible and vice versa because the GP knob is used to edit the v...

Page 23: ...er you can set the number of notes played within the step their intensity range 0 15 and whether the intensity is ascending or descending D for descending U for ascending For example setting 3D03 mean...

Page 24: ...ger to trigger layer B on the TRIGGER page rolls don t get triggered anymore unless you explicitly set them to trigger on the RollG trigger layer In other words now the normal gate layer can be used t...

Page 25: ...hange patches in the middle of a track However this requires that your MIDI equipment can e ect patch changes quickly enough On the other hand if your MIDI equipment cannot handle the Program Change c...

Page 26: ...ion for both steps is mute and because the parameter is Nth1 muting starts immediately from the rst occurrence and then repeats every second for step 2 or fourth for step 4 time step1 step2 step3 step...

Page 27: ...ls on this For example you could use only one type of chord a major chord on the chord layer of a track and control whether it is a C major F major or G major with the Root note track 3 2 12 Scale The...

Page 28: ...rameter layers that are 64 steps long i e they repeat four times while track goes through its length of 256 8 di erent drum sounds can be played 64 64 16 Track length is 64 steps one trigger layer One...

Page 29: ...velocity value for each drum instrument layer can be set on EVENT page with GPK13 and GPK14 VelN for normal and VelA for accent velocity range 0 127 Only Accent layer has these extra settings You can...

Page 30: ...options and settings are available on the Jam page 4 1 The Jam page You can enter the Jam page by pressing UTILITY GPB10 Jam However as the Jam page is likely to be used quite often it might be useful...

Page 31: ...ctive track s output port and MIDI channel This is done regardless of the active track s bus settings on the track s MODE page see section 6 1 1 for details on the MODE page If Fwd is o the active tra...

Page 32: ...1 to control a synth that is listening to MIDI channel 6 The nal option on the MIDI Con guration page is Reset Stacks This is useful for special situations where e g a MIDI controller has become detac...

Page 33: ...s you to record as many notes simultaneously as you have note layers on the track you re recording on The number of available note layers depends on how you have set up the track see section 2 1 1 Bot...

Page 34: ...h layers for each recorded step If a step had several note layers with notes in them i e a chord and you record a single note in that step which always goes in the rst note layer all the other note la...

Page 35: ...the notes will be recorded in steps 1 4 8 and 13 instead of step 1 5 9 and 13 like you wanted The rst note will always be on time if you start live recording with the rst key press Quantize allows yo...

Page 36: ...one of 16 di erent live patterns for any of the available drum instruments Select the drum instrument that you want with GPK9 Ptn setting turns the live patterns function on and o for the selected dr...

Page 37: ...se while on the Live Patterns page you can paste the copied live pattern with GPB16 Paste or with the dedicated PASTE button on the frontpanel This means that the COPY and PASTE buttons won t copy or...

Page 38: ...rly brackets the display will ash EDIT RECORDING and you can enter a note or notes into the step while pressing holding the GP button Note that Edit Recording mode takes its settings notably Mode and...

Page 39: ...recording notes and other data in a track you can also copy paste and duplicate the data in each track Copy and paste have their dedicated buttons on the frontpanel while the rest of the editing opti...

Page 40: ...target track e g pasting a 16 step section into a 24 step track 8 steps of the target track will not be overwritten Which 8 steps won t be overwritten depends on your paste operation s starting point...

Page 41: ...ter 4 2 2 Clear move scroll undo Clear has a dedicated button on the frontpanel while move scroll and undo can be found by pressing UTILITY CLEAR clears all layers of all steps in the selected track e...

Page 42: ...ther than the one in the current cursor position the sequencer will generate a descending or ascending ramp between the present cursor position and the knob you turn This way you can generate e g velo...

Page 43: ...atterns A single pattern can be saved with MENU SAVE GPB14 The source pattern to be saved is always one of the four active patterns each group has one active pattern With GPK1 4 you can choose the sou...

Page 44: ...ase mode and don t do anything the pattern will play 16 steps over and over because that s the length of the tracks If you turn a knob on the PATTERN page or SONG page to switch to pattern 1 A2 when t...

Page 45: ...n A H and the GP buttons 9 16 to choose the actual pattern 1 8 within the sections A H Also on the PATTERN page the group and track selection buttons on the upper left of the frontpanel have a special...

Page 46: ...time group 3 will be playing 3 A1 all the way from the beginning This is because now there is a previous song position for the in G3 for song position A1 namely position A5 from the rst iteration wher...

Page 47: ...pasting and clearing the active track they perform the operation on the current song position If you re in Song mode pressing holding the SONG button shows an extra entry on the right display Guide Tr...

Page 48: ...depends on your settings on the Options page UTIL Opt option 3 17 In a nutshell S ToP allows you to start with four patterns e g 1 A1 2 A1 3 A1 4 A1 jam to your heart s content and when you have somet...

Page 49: ...rn structure and settings you can copy the rst seed pattern with the right settings into several other pattern slots which otherwise would have the sequencer s default settings like this rst copy x A1...

Page 50: ...16 steps every track that is sync d to measure will be reset and started from the beginning at the time when the measure count resets back to the beginning no matter how long the tracks are and where...

Page 51: ...ack function by setting it to However as by default no track is sync d to measure this will result in behaviour that is unlikely to be as useful as the more predictable ways that are available Guide T...

Page 52: ...guide track For easily predictable results the track set as Guide Track should have its divider value set to 16 normal the default setting on the track s DIVIDER page Smaller divider values i e faster...

Page 53: ...ayers similarly While on the MUTE page the ALL and FAST buttons have special functions First if you have sync d mutes unmutes to measure with Options 6 and or 7 activating the FAST function allows you...

Page 54: ...sending track to control the arpeggios on a receiving track The chord data can be either chord parameter layer data or it can be data from multiple simultaneous note layers For example if the sending...

Page 55: ...the latest note or chord played on the track until another one is played or the sequencer is stopped This is useful for tracks that play long notes or chords so that you don t have to set each note s...

Page 56: ...rst receiving track has just C 3 notes in it and the second receiving track has only E 3 notes in it changing the sending track s note from C 2 to C 2 will transpose the receiving tracks notes half a...

Page 57: ...track s currently playing chord C 3 transposed up by one octave so the nal note played by the Arpeggiator track for this step is C 4 See also the options Hold and Sort in section 6 1 1 6 1 5 Using a...

Page 58: ...you want that all the notes in a track are in a certain key and mode you can force them to a chosen scale This is useful e g in combination with randomly generated notes see section 6 3 which would be...

Page 59: ...yer selection button C Likewise trigger layer assignments can be checked by pressing trigger layer selection button C Parameter layers are randomised by setting the intensity of the randomisation Rand...

Page 60: ...length of the loop repeating the pattern over the whole track For example if the loop length is 16 steps and the number of pulses is 4 a pulse will be placed each four steps In principle any number of...

Page 61: ...ERG will leave the Note layer values untouched but will switch the gates on and o based on the loop length pulse and o set settings you make For track length normal accent velocity settings and their...

Page 62: ...rb Page 7 Chorus Page 8 Modulation wheel Page 9 Freely assignable CC CC1 Page 10 Freely assignable CC CC2 Page 11 Freely assignable CC CC3 Page 12 Freely assignable CC CC4 The freely assignable CCs fo...

Page 63: ...n 3 F4 is located at SR M1 Pin 2 SR Pin this line begins with a so it s commented out not part of the code BUTTON_TRACK_SEL M3 3 this line defines button F1 as the Track Selection button BUTTON_LIVE M...

Page 64: ...s BUTTON_MUTE_ALL_TRACKS 0 0 Button behaviour momentary toggle In the HW setup le it is possible to change the behaviour of a number of buttons so that they do their function while the button is press...

Page 65: ...lect the bookmark you want A bookmark can be stored by going to the Bookmarks page and pressing holding a GP button for 3 seconds The page that was selected before entering the Bookmarks page is store...

Page 66: ...ction won t be stored but it will always be what s written in the bookmark le in this case this bookmark will always select tracks 1 4 no matter what the track selection status happens to be at the mo...

Page 67: ...Port options If you select Def as the Port it will refer to the Default Port setting on the MIDI Router page Note that the router settings might overlap with the Jam page note live forwarding option F...

Page 68: ...ke this IN Chn P OUT Chn P Node 2 IN2 1 Sel Trk Node 2 contains the settings for the keyboard synthesizer which is connected to IN1 and set to send on and listen to exclusively channel 1 This way you...

Page 69: ...which should be modified via NRPN See list below o CC 99 0x63 NRPN MSB Selects the Track which should be modified via NRPN Allowed values 0 15 for Track 1 16 127 to modify the current selected track...

Page 70: ...18 0 99 0 LFO Phase 0 0 1 1 2 2 99 99 0x13 19 0 127 15 LFO Interval in Steps 0 1 Step 1 2 Steps 2 3 Steps 127 128 Steps Note range is 1 256 steps if edited from CS 0x14 20 0 127 15 LFO Interval Reset...

Page 71: ...d 0x1c 28 0x1d 29 0 128 0 Pattern Bank Change Low Byte 0 off 1 128 Bank Selection Low Byte 0x1e 30 0 128 0 Pattern Bank Change High Byte 0 off 1 128 Bank Selection High Byte 0x1f 31 0 128 0 Pattern Pr...

Page 72: ...ff 0x25 37 0 3 0 Transposer Arpeggiator Bus assignment Bus1 Bus4 0x26 38 0 15 0 MIDI Channel of Track 0x27 39 0 127 0 MIDI Port of Track 0x00 Default 0x10 USB1 0x11 USB2 0x12 USB3 0x13 USB4 0x20 OUT1...

Page 73: ...1 128 Range is 0x00 0xff 1 256 steps if edited from CS 0x2f 47 0 3 0 Clock Divider Flags Bit 0 Synch to Measure Bit 1 Triplets Bit 2 Manual Clock the next step only on manual requests or via Step CC 0...

Page 74: ...0 Groove Style 0 off 1 Shuffle 2 Inv Shuffle 3 Shuffle2 4 Shuffle3 5 Shuffle4 6 Shuffle5 7 21 Custom Grooves 1 16 0x33 51 0 15 0 Groove Intensity 0x34 52 0 1 0 Morph Mode 0 off 1 on 0x35 53 0 128 0 Mo...

Page 75: ...Layer Assignment for Gate 0x41 66 0 8 2 Trigger Layer Assignment for Skip 0x42 67 0 8 3 Trigger Layer Assignment for Accent 0x43 68 0 8 4 Trigger Layer Assignment for Glide 0x44 69 0 8 5 Trigger Laye...

Page 76: ...44 10 2T 11 2 12 1T 13 1 14 Rnd1 15 Rnd2 16 64d 17 32d 18 16d 19 8d 20 4d 21 2d 22 0 0x52 82 0 40 15 Initial Velocity Level 0 0 1 5 2 10 20 100 40 200 0x53 83 0 40 15 Feedback Velocity Level 0 0 1 5...

Page 77: ...Echo Taps 3 Forward to Random channel 4 7 reserved bit 4 Forward CCs PitchBender Channel Pressure Program Change to all Fx channels 0x59 89 0 40 0 Fx MIDI Port 0x00 Same as configured for track 0x10...

Page 78: ...iki midibox org doku php id mididocs seq beginners_guide start http wiki midibox org Printed on 2019 10 22 16 44 0x7f 127 From http wiki midibox org MIDIbox Permanent link http wiki midibox org doku p...

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