Let's Not Talk About Square Waves Any More...

For some reason I thought that topic would be more interesting, but when you get right down to it, all square waves are, well, square. Point taken, and I’ll assume my initial instinct was correct.

So, new topic, and in this I’d like to hear from the people that own BigSeq. With the advent of several products that kind of follow the same path, albeit with much more sophistication, it has become apparent to us that BigSeq desperately needs a BigSeq 2. While Adam is either (a) coding Kombinat, or (b) prancing about the exotic Orient, I’ve been working on a complete redesign of this venerable product.

Things we’re going to include for certain:

1. New UI - The user interface for BigSeq is problematic in my opinion. It would be nice to, for example, swipe your mouse across all the filter sliders, rather than having to adjust them one by one. I’m going to do a modern non-hardware interface for this, and try out a new style. It will have a lot of procedural (i.e. “drawn on the fly, instead of PNGs”) stuff in it, and will be flat 2D instead of fakie-knobby. Rather than stacking all the sections (there will be several additions) we’ll have one pane that shows whatever engine you’re working on, and another pane that shows that engine’s sequencer. In this manner, real estate isn’t so cluttered.

2. Some additions to the randomization - One of the things I do, when I use BigSeq, is set it so one or more of the random buttons get ticked every measure, resulting in a new pattern every four beats or whatever. We’re gonna add this as an option on each possible randomization event, mainly to save me the trouble of automating it. You might find it handy too. There will also be a global randomizer, and some other randomization features.

3. Some more effects - Rather than just the VCA/filter (w/ distortion) combo, we’re going to break the distortion out in its own section and give it some more options. The filter will be replaced with the Dr. Device filter section, and we’re also going to add a bitcrushing sequencer and a “stutter” section which will do pretty much what you think.

So, those are the things on the docket at this point. If you’re a BigSeq owner, I’d like to hear any usability comments you might have, or maybe there’s an additional effect I haven’t thought of that might extend the usefulness. (Note that a global swing will be added, so no need to ask for that.) The extension of the product will naturally move it in to our $49 price bracket, but I’d rather not put everything and the kitchen sink in to it. Obviously, we’re not going to add every suggestion, but I’m interested to hear if there’s anything we haven’t thought of that wouldn’t be hard to add and would tip it over the edge.