synack

It'd be nice to have a way to see the strength of the input signal so it can be set correctly. The primary use case is catching clipping before you record.

I switch between a number of input sources: guitar, bass, analog synths, digital synths, etc. The levels are all slightly different and some will clip on the deluge. There's currently no way to catch this until after recording. Right now, the Deluge is clipping on signals that aren't clipping anything else in my setup.

A simple approach (used by the Boss RC-505 looper) is a clip light and an input gain knob. That was always sufficient to tweak things in real time.

Two UI ideas for this on the Deluge:

1) When an audio clip is selected (not necessarily recording), flash "CLIP" in the display if the signal saturates the input.
2) Use the LED bar to show the input signal strength along with the CLIP message.

In both cases, one of the knobs could be used to attenuate the signal. If the hardware can't do it with a hot signal, the warnings will still be helpful and the user could adjust their levels at the source.

(see my FB thread for the source of this recommendation - Deluge LOOP causes SOLO)

It would be helpful to have a visual indicator for the currently "selected"/"targeted" clip/track in song view. That is, the clip that will start recording when the LOOP message is received. I know the visuals are already a little overloaded, but maybe have a bright red button the ends of the clip grid or something similarly obvious.

As I learned the fun way, not knowing which track is the current target can lead to very unexpected results (in my case, the target, unbeknownst to me, was a kit track and starting a loop muted that track, and confusion ensued).

I'll note that the Boss RC-505 suffered from this as well - you have to hold town a button for 2 seconds to see the current track. When you're in the heat of a session, anything that requires hands and time is not fun.

I'd be great if there was an option to have clips automatically "record" from their MIDI channel without having to do the learn step. This could be a global option so the current behavior could be preserved for the other (useful) reasons.

My use case is pretty simple: I have a keyboard controller that I switch channels on to control different synths (Edirol PCR-500/800, they have knob for changing channels easily). It's running through the Deluge. When I setup a MIDI clip, it will almost always be "recorded" via input from the controller, not the Deluge pads. Having to play a note to "learn" the input breaks the flow and, at least in this use case, a superfluous step that leads to unwanted notes played. Every time I do it, I curse the Deluge (in a loving way, of course).