DVB

As I don't own an Elektron, I'm not sure if this is the same as the much-vaunted p-locks those heads keep going on about but it would be nice if recorded parameter/knob modulations were given their own tracks vs being embedded w/ in track they affect. The parameter tracks could be placed directly below the track they are intended to affect instead. When you go into the parameter track, all of the parameters that have shortcut buttons could flash so you know which ones are active ... if you choose one, that parameters value could be continuously displayed as the sequence steps through & with a little bit of thought (which I haven't given), you could probably even implement editing values by step rather than the current knob turning as it steps, which I find clunky.

Why this might be useful:

1) You could actually see the parameter automation written in the track. Right now, it's hidden in other tracks.

2) Parameter tracks could be different lengths than the music track they affect so the various filter sweeps, etc don't have to hit on the same note, beat every measure if you don't want them to.

3) Conditional/probability could be implemented for parameter automation independent of note.

4) Parameter tracks could be quickly cloned & applied to other tracks.

I have to say ,the behavior of clone tracks is a complete clusterf*&k, especially with kit tracks.

TL:DR version ... clone track behavior & Deluge inconsistency in general really kills workflow. These problems become more apparent the more you use the Deluge & while limitations can foster creativity, these are the opposite ... they kill productivity. What strikes me about this thread is that it's not Alien Brain whining about it but some hardcore Deluge acolytes sharing some disillusionment.

Long-winded version below.

Imagine a scenario where you're developing a song, starting with a beat. I don't know about you guys but I use clones to further develop the beats. The 4 bar intro has its own clip + a fill clip going into the main beat + various fills & a different beat for the bridge, more for the outro ... let's say 8 different drum clips (I'm pretty sure it was more for a simple 4 min song but there's no quick way to count them). Great, got basic drum tracks laid out in Arranger mode.

Deluge still doesn't bounce down separate audio tracks so I have to live with drums stereo mixdown in the Deluge or bounce kit sounds panned hard through multiple passes (13 kit sounds total = 7 passes X 4 min means at least half an hour of bouncing just drum tracks). Eh, I'll live with a stereo mix & punch in any additional tracks later if needed, to balance the kit.

Drum kits are samples so a little static. Let's run a tiny bit of LFO or random into the filter, volume, attack etc to humanize it a little. WTF ... changes made in one clone don't affect the others?!?!!!!?!?!! I have to go through each clip separately & make these adjustments to the kit, let's call it 1A. But I've been making adjustments as I go along, assuming the changes would hold across all "1A" kits. Nope. Many of my 1As are different from each other. Turns out the snare has different levels of reverb across the different clips, as just one example. Never would have imagined begging for the sweet merciless behavior of Elektron kits but I was on my knees at this point.

Painful yes, but this is only just the beginning. Bounce the drums to a stereo mix means I have to get all my levels & panning mostly right before I record the audio. Turns out these changes won't hold across clones so I have to do the mix of drums EIGHT TIMES, once for each "1A" clip. If you finish & want to make any tweaks, it's another 8x through all the clips.

Fine then, how about I just save 1A as a preset & make the changes propagate that way? Nope. 1st clip where I save 1A is fine but the following clips are then incremented to 1B. And it seemed like I lost some of my modulation settings too but I was very frustrated at this point, in full tilt mode & ready to go all-in w/ 2,7 off suit so may not have been seeing clearly.

After several wasted hours, let's just bounce the tracks down separately & mix ITB.

Clone behavior doesn't make this straightforward anymore either. For each kit sound (bass drum, snare, hihat, etc), I've got to go through each clip & hard pan + affect all to turn off all reverb for the 2 sounds I want to bounce plus turn off the volume for every other sound. That's 13 kit sounds * 8 clilps ... 104 times making the same tedious adjustments. Perhaps there was a better way to do it but I was in full-tilt mode at this point, ready to go all in with 2 7 off suit & FML, you know?!?

But wait there's more, turns out affect all is misleading. If you added reverb separately to the snare, then changing reverb using affect entire track doesn't actually affect the snare's reverb. I'm guessing there's 2 separate reverbs, one for the track & one for the sound. So after making all the adjustments & bouncing down the snare only to still hear reverb, I realized I had to check each kit sound's gold knob parameters individually to make sure I didn't get any unintended processing.

In the end, it took the entire night to pull 4 minutes worth of drums off the Deluge. As an aside, I did try to pull the samples off the Deluge & sequence/record them through the Analog Rytm 8 line outs but turns out the Deluge preset samples aren't trimmed ... their start points are adjusted as part of the kit & I didn't know how the groove would be affected by using samples with different start points.

Moral of the story, uhh ... don't use the Deluge for drums?!? Or in the studio?!? Hopefully, Rohan addresses the inconsistencies.

I propose that the screen flash a track's synth/kit/midi/cv info when you press/hold one of the grid buttons in SONG view, which is exactly how edit a track's parameters while in SONG view without having to dive into the actual track (which is pretty cool). However, screen remains blank so there's no info about the track you're editing ... unless you know exactly which tracks are what, you wind up having to go into Track view anyway to make sure you're editing the right track.

It's always been a workflow issue for me that I have to dive into each track re-aquaint myself with a song anyway so this would kill 2 birds with one stone.

In Arranger view, pressing a track's audition button will flash that track's synth/kit/midi # at you which is quite helpful & would be helpful in Song view as well.

Saw the 2.1 demo teases ... stoked to have this additional improvements. But in the interest of inches & miles and all that ... graphic waveforms & multisampling is great for us Deluge users but it brings us to what ... late 80s into the 90s in terms of hardware capability? Watching Rohan demo the start/end points, I couldn't help but want to play the waveform itself, like you can on Samplr. One of my favorite things about that app is being able to tap out a beat from portions of a mangled sample but the iPad sucks for studio integration. Doing this on the Deluge would be even better with the tactile experience. For a hardware device, this would be some next-level shit:

• Bottom row is reserved for markers, setting start/end/loop points, etc.
• Touch any button & it plays that specific segment of the waveform at the current zoom view. If your sample is 16s long, one button would play a 1 sec sample & if it's 16 min, each press would be 1 min. For vertically aligned buttons, playing the upper buttons play the same slice with increasing volume & vice versa.
• If you've found a really nice sound, hold that pad while pressing one of the far-right audition pads to manually assign that "slice".

Having not actually messed with 2.1, I don't know how easily this can be accomodated in the UI but this would blow my mind.

I know it's a bit churlish to ask for improvements on an update that's not even been released but that's the price of being a genius, Rohan!!!!

Can't say I disagree with any of this. I was looking to get a sampler & drum machine & bought the Deluge figuring 2-in-1 & get another synth & sequencer as bonus. Knew going in that it had a less advanced sampler than the Oktatrak & I haven't spent much time with it in part because so far, it's the weakest & least flowing part of the machine for me. Even things like just launching long-playing samples isn't much fun, much less mangling it. Hope Rohan decides to spend more time on it later. The piano roll sequencer is the reason I'm keeping it & the synths are surprisingly serviceable but limiting external midi CC to 12 makes it far less tweakable friendly & the presets are meh.

I was bemused by your posts during my pre-purchase research but having lived with the box for 3 weeks now, I see what you're getting at. Right now, it's pretty damn cool. Coming from an AKAI MPC Live, I like the Deluge much much better. It has the potential to be a classic but there are a few limits that prevent it from being mindblowingly awesome. Excited to see how 2.0 changes the equation.

The OP-Z is a rad device for sure, looking forward to seeing what modules they release, it's an exciting format.

In my opinion, the coolest competition of the Deluge are the Elektron machines.

Lot of great machines out there for sure. Monomachine is a desert island box for me but I've always thought of Elektron as hardcore nerd machines ie not cool but none of them can directly challenge Deluge as an all-in-one box & none of them are portable.

TE products look like hipster magnets. They're like the Apple of music gear (or IKEA ... I can't figure out which). I'm not a hipster but aesthetics are still important. If/when the OP-Z gets a sampler module, it will do the same things the Deluge does ... sampling, sequencing, synthing & portable at a fifth of its size as well. On nearly every level, the Deluge is a deeper machine but that comes at a price.

@mbang said:
Edit over USB is in my opinion a low priority update - sure it would be easier to just connect a cable between deluge and a computer, but just for moving samples and doing file structure changes i think it qualifies as a "luxury" update and there are many other things that i´d rather use the dev´s time for.

Just pulling out the SD card and insert it into a computer is quite simple.

I hope Rohan & staff don't agree with this ... workflow & user interface are 2 of the most important things a device needs to cater to. The Deluge risks being a device that looks really awesome at first sight but kills your flow once you go from just "messing around" to trying to get shit finished. IMO, this is the biggest problem with the Deluge ... it's getting stuffed with features but logistics like filenaming or sample management is being ignored & this shit will kill your workflow.

The USB problem was such a pain in the ass that Jamie Fenton wrote Downrush to deal with it & I & others bought a wifi SD card to work around it. Unfortunately, uploading over web browser is nearly as tedious as pulling the card in & out.