Ribbons (and Ghosts) MIDI implementation feature request

,
1

I’ve been spending quite some time recently building control presets for Ribbons and Ghosts on the magnificent Electra.One MkII controller, so I’ve been really deep and around all things MIDI control for both pedals. And while in general I can once again state that the MIDI implementation for both of them is truly great, there are two little things I’d like to post here as feature request for some (distant?)) future, when we see a FW update for either of the two.

  1. This one is Ribbons’ specific: dedicated MIDI CCs for Loop Clear for each of the 4 tracks, instead of a common “Current Track Loop Clear”. And (can we dream???))) even a dedicated CC command to Rec/Overdub for each of the tracks, in addition to the Touch Footswitch function for the currently selected track.

The beauty of a powerful MIDI controller like E1 is that in 4-Track Looper mode I have direct access to ALL loop controls for all 4 tracks at the same time. I can play with track loop volumes like you would on a mixing console, moving faders/twisting encoders) all at the same time, change speeds and directions of all loops with an easy to use and hands-on immediate control. This unlocks truly immense performance opportunities with the 4-track looper.

The only two things for which I still need to do the Track Select now is to Rec/Overdub and to Track Clear. Those two functions are not track-specific, and require you to be explicitely on the selected track in Ribbons.

If it is possible to add dedicated MIDI CCs for those actions on a per-track basis, so that I can Rec/Overdub or clear each individual track with a press of a dedicated button/footswitch via MIDI, without the need to actually select a track in Ribbons - this would be stellar.

  1. This one is for both Ribbons and Ghosts: a dedicated MIDI command for the action of double-tapping the Touch footswitch, especially in touch modes where we loop/overdub and record.

Double-presses in MIDI world are a bit less convenient, especially with timing-critical tasks, and I am not sure a sequence of two quick CC 127/0 pairs would work.

A dedicated MIDI CC command to perform this action would also be quite helpful.

Those may be quite “niche” requests, but I thought I’d leave them here.

3 Likes
2

Ribbons can only record into one track at a time, and recording is always tied to the currently selected track. So while I understand the idea of addressing each track directly, I think adding a separate record/overdub CC for each track could increase SDRAM write accesses 4x, which would likely become a bottleneck. I’m open to looking at dedicated MIDI CCs for clearing individual tracks, but I’d need to make sure it stays stable, especially when multiple tracks are being cleared at once (there are some fade envelopes applied to each track to prevent clicks and pops).

A simpler option I’m looking into is adding a separate MIDI CC for Record/Overdub on the currently selected track. This would be independent from the Touch footswitch and remove the need to switch back into Looper Mode just to record.

Right now, CC 80 controls the Touch footswitch in both Touch Modes and the looper depending on context. A dedicated Record/Overdub CC would let you stay in Touch Mode while still recording or overdubbing the selected looper track whenever you want.

What do you think about that? An additional looper record MIDI CC and a “clear specific track” CC?

I believe these situations are already covered by dedicated MIDI commands, so you shouldn’t need to simulate a double tap by quickly sending CC 80 twice.

For example, in Ribbons:
image

And in Ghosts:
image

Those commands perform the actions that would otherwise require double-tapping the Touch footswitch.

4 Likes
3

Thank you for the quick reply! Re. my second request - you’re absolutely right! I completely forgot that the double tap actually clears the loop, for some reason it was stuck in my head that double-tapping is doing something different. This request is dismissed, sorry.

Re. record/overdub - I got it, yes, Ribbons can play 4 tracks, but can only record one at a time. My idea was to avoid the track selection step at all when using MIDI, I was not intending to record two or more tracks at once. But you’re right, if there are separate CCs, how can the pedal prevent users from trying to trigger the record aciton for several tracks… Maybe, you’re right - recordin and overdubbing should require a mutually exclusive scenario, so I understand why the record/overdub aciton should be tied to the current track.

But for clearing a track it’s a bit less dangerous, isn’t it? I understand that if I want to “stop” the loop in an “inactive” track I can simply mute it, but it still requires one more step to do in performance scenario.

Let’s say, I am working with Track 1, my main looping canvas, where I record and overdub. And I have “auxiliary” tracks that play at the same time.

If I want to clear an inactive track, to prepare it for the next round of “fresh” recording, I have to switch to that track, and clear the loop, and then switch back to the “main” track. Then, when the moment comes, I switch again to that auxiliary track to record a new loop.

With dedicated track clear CCs, I can avoid the first “jump” into the track I want to clear. I can simply clear it from wherever I am in the RIbbons, and then, when I switch into that track later, I only need to start the new recording, because my loop is already cleared.

I hope this lengthy explanation conveys my idea with per-track loop clear commands.

4

Yup, got it. So we’ll add

  1. A dedicated Record/Overdub CC for the currently selected track, separate from CC 80 and usable without returning to Looper Mode
  2. Dedicated Clear Track 1–4 CCs that can clear any track without selecting it first

I’m currently working on some Ribbons firmware update stuff and will try to squeeze this in there.

4 Likes