New track launcher view/Maybe also a mixer view can come from this
In the current song view, we can only see 8 tracks at a time, which is hell for improvising/arranging (especially since the grouped tracks are not notated visually to see what will cancel each other). I feel like the deluge could take a pretty good note from how Ableton works and make an alternative track launching mode. Each column would be a single midi channel/kit/synth, so visually we know what things are grouped, and horizontally, you have access to 16 different instruments with 8 different tracks for them each. We could also then use the horizontal and vertical knobs to access more tracks or instruments as needed.
The audition pads could be used to launch and entire row of tracks, and could be an alternative to song sections. With this though, it would be cool to have a way to make a long master arranger track (which isn't considered for the quantized track launching) that allows you to sequence or record clip launching so that we can live record an arrangement, and then still adjust it later instead of just sampling the output which would require redoing the performance each time.
This display could also maybe take a few ideas from the mixer functionality of a launchpad in ableton. When you switch to this mixer mode, each column could still be the same instruments and whatnot, but each of the 8 pads in the column acts as a quantized mixer level, which you could ten fine tune by holding a pad and rotating the gold knob.
The current song view would probably need to be kept so that everyone keeps their workflows, so maybe we could switch between the classic functionality and this on in the settings menu.
Comments
As much as I agree with the need for an improved launch mechanism for alternative tracks to better support pattern–based song structures, and avoid occupying multiple rows for mutually exclusive playing tracks (which is arguably the primary conceptual weakness of the Deluge) — rotating the arrangement by 90 degrees (like Ableton Live) would be confusing, and unnecessary. Bitwig, for example, supports a clip launch grid with horizontally oriented tracks — so could the Deluge. Sure, an additional row of pads above or below the existing matrix to launch scenes would be nice for this new „super“ view (maybe in a future hardware revision?), but launching entire column scenes could also be accomplished by holding Shift while pushing any button in a column. The standard orientation would also provide the benefit of keeping the mute buttons accessible! Maybe the audition buttons could provide a solo function in this new view, which would be occasionally desirable in a live performance.
From all the enhancement requests one could possibly have for the Deluge this is by far the most important one, imho.
This has been requested before:
http://forums.synthstrom.com/discussion/343/song-view-should-work-like-ableton-lives-session-view