Here it is everybody! Deluge firmware V2.0.0-beta. Thank you so much for waiting so patiently for this. I've been working around the clock on this firmware for several months, and some of the features (the new synth engine stuff) I quietly began work on nearly a year ago, so I'm really excited to have everyone start making use of this update! Here's the list of new features:
- Song arranger mode
- 30 - 50% or more improvement to CPU efficiency (i.e. more voices)
- Around 30x more RAM available for working on a song
- New analog-modelling synth engine features
- Effect tails may now be heard even after a track finishes playing (including outside of the new arranger mode)
- MIDI CC, pitch bend, and channel aftertouch recording, sequencing and output
- MIDI note outputs within kits
- Innumerable other bugfixes and improvements
PLEASE NOTE: any songs saved with this firmware will be unreadable by older firmware versions
Song arranger
When in regular old "song view", press the song button again. It will now begin blinking, and you are in "arranger view". (Press it again to go back.) You might like to try this for the first time with one of your existing song files, which will already be full of tracks for you to start arranging.
In arranger view, each row represents one *instrument*. That means one synth preset, or kit preset, or MIDI or CV channel. Each of these instruments may have any number of tracks belonging to it. Pressing an instrument-row's audition pad will sound a C note on the instrument (or it'll try to play the snare sound if it's a kit-instrument). You can re-order the instruments by holding an audition pad and scrolling vertically.
You can place an "instance" of a track onto an instrument-row by pressing a pad - similarly to how you'd place a note when editing a track. You can edit its length and delete it in the same familiar way - with the exception that if you tap a pad on the track-instance that's not its "head" (the first / left-most pad), you'll be taken into track-view for that track.
You can also drag a track-instance sideways by holding it and scrolling horizontally. In arranger view, horizontal scrolling takes place one square at a time, rather than a whole screen at a time.
Chances are, for a song you've created previously, you'll have already created more than one track per instrument. In arranger view, holding down on a track-instance and turning the select knob will flick between the different tracks for that instrument. This will be indicated by the colour of the track-instance changing - its first / left-most pad will always be the colour of that track's "section" (from old song-view).
There will also be a "white" option which you can flick to for a track-instance. This creates a new, blank track which only exists right at this point in the arrangement.
For tracks with instances dropped into the arranger, editing the track will update all instances. If you'd like to instead set an instance to be a "unique" one, which may be edited without affecting anything else, shift-press the instance in the arranger. It will turn white, indicating that it's now "unique" and exists independently of any other tracks / instances.
If you want to insert or delete a bit of "time" in the arrangement, there is a function to move all track-instances which are currently on-screen or to the right of the current screen: hold shift and turn the <> knob.
All arrangement editing functions described so far may also be undone / redone by pressing back / shift-back, respectively.
Another way to get a track from old song-view into the arranger is to hold down a pad on it (in old song-view) and press the song button. You'll now be in arranger view, and may scroll horizontally before releasing your pad-press to drop an instance of the track there.
And you can also drag tracks the other way - from the arranger to old song-view to be able to use them in a live session. You might want to do this if you've got a "unique" (white) track, which only exists in the arranger. Hold down on it and press the song button to take you into old song-view, scroll vertically if you wish, and then release your pad-press to drop the track there. It will now have been assigned a section-colour, which will be visible the next time you go back into arranger view too.
Pressing play while in arranger view, of course, plays the arrangement. Pressing <> + play will play from your current horizontal scroll position. If you've entered a track from the arranger view (by tapping a "tail-pad" on its instance), then pressing play will cause playback to begin in arranger mode, from the start of that track-instance.
While arranger playback is taking place, you may still go back into old song-view. You will notice that the right-hand columns of pads (the launch and section pads) are greyed out, but still indicate which tracks are currently playing. Tapping any of these pads will bring you back into regular ("session?") playback, where these tracks loop indefinitely until you launch something else.
And, you can also live-switch from old "session" playback to arranger playback: just go into arranger view, scroll to where you want to start from, and press <> + play. After the current loop finishes, playback will begin from there.
You can also change an instrument / preset to a different one from arranger view: hold down its audition pad and either turn the select knob, or press an instrument-type button (synth / MIDI / CV). (Changing to or from a kit instrument is not supported in arranger view.)
New synth engine features
There is a new LPF type - the "drive" filter. This is a 24dB per octave filter, just like the existing one, but with saturation. You can get it by pressing down on the "RES" gold-knob. It's got quite low headroom, so you might like to tweak the levels of the oscillators feeding into it - this will drastically alter the sound.
There are also new analog-modeled square and saw oscillator types - "ASQU" and "ASAW". These differ from the regular square and saw oscillators on the Deluge, which are mathematically perfect shapes.
These new filters and oscillators use a bit more CPU power than the old ones - but not enormously more, and especially with the general huge CPU improvements, you shouldn't run into CPU problems too easily by using them.
Another note - due to the huge changes to the synth engine, there is regrettably a chance that some of your existing songs may sound a little different with the new firmware. I've done my very best to minimize this, but the following cases may need slight tweaks to the parameters to sound exactly the same as before:
- Sounds with the filter resonance on full
- Sounds featuring both an LPF and an HPF
Other than that, if you have song files which sound different than before, please send them to me and I'll investigate - it might be a bug.
MIDI CC, pitch bend, and channel aftertouch recording, sequencing and output
In addition to being able to set a gold knob to control a CC number for a MIDI track, you can now set one to control "AFTE" (channel aftertouch) or "BEND" (pitch bend). And, when recording MIDI input to a MIDI track, these messages are now recorded - CCs too.
Unlike before, CC / aftertouch / bend automation may exist for parameters which currently don't even have a gold knob assigned. When assigning a gold knob to a CC / parameter (hold it down and turn the select knob), you'll see that CCs / parameters which do currently have automation stored have a dot next to them.
And unlike before, flicking through different CC / parameter assignments for a gold knob will not "move" the automation currently on that knob to the new CC / parameter number. To do that, hold down the select knob while turning it.
Kits with MIDI / gate outputs
Previously gate outputs were already supported, but the implementation has changed slightly to support MIDI too.
For a kit, to set a row to output on a MIDI note or gate channel, hold down an audition pad and press either the MIDI button or the CV button respectively. Now, that row is a MIDI or gate row. Each time you press its audition pad, the MIDI or CV LED will blink once to remind you of this. Additionally, the numeric display will detail the channel / note that that row is set to. For gate rows, this will show as "GAT1" through "GAT4". For MIDI rows, two numbers will display with a dot between them. The first is the channel, and the second is the note.
While holding the row's audition pad, turning the two gold knobs will change the channel and note respectively for that row.
There's also a new way to save the current synth / kit. Previously you had to enter the sound editor - but if you have a kit comprising of just MIDI / gate outputs, there is no sound editor for those! Instead you may now save the current track's synth or kit by pressing save+synth or save+kit.
And, since pressing audition+MIDI now creates a new MIDI row, and pressing audition+CV creates a new gate row, I also made it so that pressing audition+synth creates a new blank (square wave) synth sound within your kit. And pressing audition+kit creates a new blank sample-sound, the same as pressing audition+load.
Have fun!!
Vom Geheimtipp zur neuen Messlatte für fancy Grooveboxen ... ich gönn es den Jungs.
Macht halt schon sehr viel Spass das Teil!
