It’s been a while since the last diary!
The 1.4 update is out now! This update adds MPE support, a classic-style arpeggiator and 18 new presets showcasing these. There’s also lots of little usability improvements such as multi-part edit and loading individual parts from a preset, which replaces the planned part copy paste, since it’s more immediately useful and can be used as a workaround to copy paste parts too.
One thing that was left out for later updates is assignable CC / NRPN as mod sources, since this update was already dragging on longer than we’d liked. It’s currently not scheduled for any specific update, but if this is an important feature for you (or you want to discuss anything else, of course), do join our Discord or drop us a line via info@supercriticalsynthesizers.com.
Speaking of which: this update took much longer than anticipated. One reason was of course summer vacations (well, that was anticipated), but the other was that the feature set was very much a celebration of corner cases. First, MPE is an after the fact standardization of the simple idea that by setting the same patch to several channels on a multitimbral synth you could achieve per note control. Because of that, the standard is mostly of the form “you should do this, but not all synths / controllers do that correctly, so you should also be prepared for anything”. We believe we’re now following the standard precisely, but on the way we learned that not many controllers do. A special shout out to the Linnstrument, which so far is the only controller we’ve tried that implements all the required details. We also did do our best to make the Redshift work well with the other controllers we tried (Exquis, Linnstrument, Osmose, and various DAW’s) in all the corner cases. Of course, if problems arise with other controllers, we’ll do our best to fix them.
Then the arpeggiator: from a coding point of view, implementing all the classic features of an arpeggiator is in principle dead simple. Well, remember MPE, and that our synth is multitimbral with dynamic allocation of voices to parts. So now the mapping between incoming MIDI notes and playing voices is broken by the arpeggiator, and that interacts nastily with both of these. Well, after a bunch of bugs (huge thanks to our beta users on Discord!), it works now, and we’re actually quite proud of how it combines with MPE: MPE expression is inherited by notes played by the arpeggiator, so for example you can bend the note (or notes, if “Octaves” is bigger than one) corresponding to a single voice of the chord, or aftertouch them individually etc.
As a slight heads up, we’re going to be rearranging how we communicate the roadmap, and because of that things have moved around or disappeared. No features have been canceled or anything like that, this is just a visual rearrangement that is currently a work in progress.
Now that these are all done, we’re already working on the next udpate! The highlight in that one is of course the digital effects. There will be chorus, delay and reverb, one of which can be active at a time. At this point, we’re not promising anything more for this update cycle, but if things go well and the effects are completed quickly, we do have a couple of nice treats planned. In the meantime, have fun with your Redshift 6!