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Hi!

I think I••™m one of the very people who bought their copes of the MX4 very early.
Without a demo to try out, it was a challenge to buy, but I••™m glad that I did.

I have a couple of things in my mind, that could make the MX4 even better.

1: More LFO shapes

The LFO shapes of the MX4 are still basic. I••™d like more interesting shapes that can be impossible to produce with analog synthesizers. Or a feature to be able to create the
7th LFO by oneself would be great.

2: Tempo

Right Now, if you want to change the tempo of the LFOs, you have to change it from the host application such as DP, I find this is a little limiting. I••™d like a tempo counter in MX4
to change the tempo of the LFOs.

3: Standalone mode

I play shows and would like to use the MX4 live!! I haven••™t used it live because launching the host application (in my case DP or Live) takes too much time. It••™d be great if I could
use the MX4 itself and didn••™t have to think about any thing else.

Does anyone have any suggestions, too?
Thank you.

Interesting suggestions. I'll jump in too. I wish MX4 had a third column in the mod matrix section called "Destination" As it is now, if you are tweaking a preset and you hear an LFO modulating the filter cutoff and you'd like to change it, you have to hunt for the correct one by mousing over the area and watching the mod matrix for the lights to come on.

It might make the interface "messy" but I believe it would make creating sounds much easier, and a little more "modular"

Nama,

Have you checked out RAX?
http://www.grantedsw.com/rax/

It's a lean AU host that takes care of the "standalone" dilemma.

Use MX4 live now.

Originally posted by thracks:
Interesting suggestions. I'll jump in too. I wish MX4 had a third column in the mod matrix section called "Destination" As it is now, if you are tweaking a preset and you hear an LFO modulating the filter cutoff and you'd like to change it, you have to hunt for the correct one by mousing over the area and watching the mod matrix for the lights to come on.

It might make the interface "messy" but I believe it would make creating sounds much easier, and a little more "modular"

I think that would cut down on the modulation capabilities, maybe if they listed all the mod sources for a parameter in the pop menu when you control click on a parameter?

Hi JR213, Thanks for the link. I'll try it out.

MX4 may have basic LFO shapes, but keep in mind two things:

1) you can use LFOs as shapers, so you can shape an LFO with another LFO. This can produce all sorts of whacky LFO shapes. Add the ability to modulate LFO rate and you have a party. Use the green 'NightRider' bar at the bottom of the modulation section to preview the action of the resulting LFO.

2) Each destination can be modulated by all 16 sources to some degree, so you can layer the output of six LFOs onto a single destination.

Here are a few wish list items I can think of with only having MX4 for a few days. Please excuse any redundancy:

1. How about a floating keyboard, on screen, so you can punch in a few notes to test sounds as you build them? The now defunct Bitheadz Sessions, allowed you to run an arpeggiator with different patterns to test sounds as you build them.

2. Would it be possible for MOTU to program in a drum kit builder, where certain sounds could be mapped to specific keys (like a base drum on C1; a snare on E1, etc.). Then one MX4 instance could represent a whole drum kit patch. This is another feature that other software synthesizer/samplers have.

Then the drum programming in DP4 could easily access the electronic drum kits built in MX4.

3. Maybe MOTU could create a sepate MX4 patch utility program (host) for creating new sounds without the need to launch DP each time. Banks and patches could be created and saved; then used later in DP.

bsantoro

Originally posted by Bob Santoro:
Here are a few wish list items I can think of with only having MX4 for a few days. Please excuse any redundancy:

1. How about a floating keyboard, on screen, so you can punch in a few notes to test sounds as you build them? The now defunct Bitheadz Sessions, allowed you to run an arpeggiator with different patterns to test sounds as you build them.

2. Would it be possible for MOTU to program in a drum kit builder, where certain sounds could be mapped to specific keys (like a base drum on C1; a snare on E1, etc.). Then one MX4 instance could represent a whole drum kit patch. This is another feature that other software synthesizer/samplers have.

Then the drum programming in DP4 could easily access the electronic drum kits built in MX4.

3. Maybe MOTU could create a sepate MX4 patch utility program (host) for creating new sounds without the need to launch DP each time. Banks and patches could be created and saved; then used later in DP.

bsantoro

HI Bob,

These are good suggestions. I especially like #2. As for suggestion #3, have you tried using a free AU host?

Synthtest

RAX

I don't use these personally, but I've heard they work well. You can just fire up the AU version of MX4 and tweak away. A standalone version would be nice. They are doing it for Mach 5, so who knows?

GarageBand 2 can act as a host also. You pick a built-in instrument....double-click it to open the instrument info window. You then pick a MX4 instance as a generator! Hit the pencil tool, and the MX4 panel comes up.

Does this qualify as a host for editing MX4 patches?

bsantoro

Originally posted by Bob Santoro:
GarageBand 2 can act as a host also. You pick a built-in instrument....double-click it to open the instrument info window. You then pick a MX4 instance as a generator! Hit the pencil tool, and the MX4 panel comes up.

Does this qualify as a host for editing MX4 patches?

bsantoro

Yes.

One quick wish:

I hope MOTU ships MX4 version 2 today (end of quarter 1, 2005) like they stated in their press release.

bsantoro

picking up this thread after a few months... but, just got MX4 yesterday.. fantastic synth..

one for the wish-list: CLOCK DIVIDER. have a Shaper option be a clock divider.. this way you could route the gate or sequencer to multiple destinations, yet have each one being clock-divided so you could have one patter, but multiple speeds....

Think of shapers as a post-processor for the control voltage output of the modulator.

If you want to continue the modular synth analogy, the clock divider would take an input from the clock source and output to the step sequencer.

The step sequencer itself has a clock divider built-in - the pulse menu. And, like all modulators, it can be assigned to multiple destinations.

The pattern gate, even though it is on the mods page, is actually an audio effect. If you want individual amplitude shaping of each osc, you can try routing an envelope to the level slider of each osc output. You can use the trigger sequencer to fire one of the envelopes. But, there is only one of these.

What you're really looking for is multiple step sequencers, and, sadly this is something MX4 does not currently do.

ahh.. yes, of course.. forgot about the sequencer's built in clock divider (just got MX4 2 days ago..).... but, yes, i was looking for multiple step sequencers... but, not even going that far...

for example, you assign step sequencer twice in the SOURCE menu each leading to different destinations.. but one of them is being modified (Shaper) by a clock divider so, in effect, you have 2 different sounding sequencers...

anyway.. just a wish... back to programming...

stretta wrote: The step sequencer itself has a clock divider built-in - the pulse menu. And, like all modulators, it can be assigned to multiple destinations.

What you're really looking for is multiple step sequencers, and, sadly this is something MX4 does not currently do.

How about the ability to remember controller mapping!! MX4 wont remember any controller mapping you "Learn" if you close the file no matter how you save the patch.