As the Hydra was a beast with many heads this could be translated as a tool with many uses. In fact it does already have many uses, in being able to take an input and then allow you to treat this in various ways before sending on to the parameter you wish to control (scaling, flipping, curve etc.)
Well having discovered a way to use it as the long desired Doofer Device ™ ( Doofer(Tm) Device Realised ) this has brought a very useful wish to my attention. The ability to rename individual parameters. In the above example it is OutX Max I want to be able to rename, as this is becoming the level to external devices.
And while we’re on the subject. Hydra is great for adapting control signals. I have at times felt myself wishing it would also have an Inertia amount control though, so input signals with sharp edges can be smoothed for sending to certain parameters, rather than all outs working with no inertia. Any chance of, at some point, having inertia options for all outs?
That is quite different to inertia and I do use them quite often, especially if the source is a Signal Follower but at some other times I have found myself going to them too.
Imagine a square wave as Input. No matter the Scaling Curve you’re going to get a square wave output. With inertial this would change shape on the edges in both directions. So you could have a sharp change going to one parameter and a ramped change going to another, based from the same source (and if you think of Random levels from LFO rather than even square you see where it becomes a bit more useful.)
+1 !
Yes, we’re now able to “group tracks” and now it’s time to improve this *Hydra device so that we’re able to “group params” more easily in a more flexible interface.
How the *Hydra device can be improved :
When adding a new *Hydra Device we don’t need 9 Out X params by default, let’s start by 1 Out X param.
On the top right we could be able to add a new Out X param with a “+” button for example.
And we could also have a “-” button in front of each Out X line that removes the parameter from the *Hydra.
The Out X param label could be edited when you double-click on it.
This label should be readable within the mixer view.
You could also find another button like “edit mode” that allows you to switch between 2 views,
when edit mode is ON you can see all the infos, i.e. : the target track, the target device, the target param, min max scaling…
when edit mode is OFF, you’ll only see the mini view (just draggable sliders with the editable label, nothing else)
Nothing can be removed nor edited while in edit mode OFF
To be fair I think renaming parameters is a bit of a pie in the sky suggestion and I doubt to see it implemented. In part I hope this shows how simple such a “Doofer Device” may be as it can be taken as a variation on the Hydra.
I could even see it argued that it should be identical to the Hydra but with an input per output, rather than all coming off the same output, with the inertia option mentioned in the first post.This has obvious advantages when connecting to a MIDI device where you may want to limit min or max and have it more sensitive to a certain range (using the sensitivity slopes.)
You could just load masses of Hydras in one Track but it feels messy! In fact currently better off using XY Pads if you were going to go this route.
In fact I though about a doofer™ device that would be able to act like a *hydra device and would eventually supass it so that the *hydra as it is would be deprecated. Maybe, as you said, when adding a new parm line, the ability to choose between an “input-per-output” instead of a “min-max-range” would be necessary for that.
And btw we both noticed that the hydra device could be improved, since we need to artificially refresh it (for example, via a dummy LFO device) so that the Hydra senses it and always keeps its outputs active. The doofer™ device would not need to be refreshed like that and would simply be 100% active by itself.
That is actually a very useful little tip to know! That way you can have One Shot LFOs feed a parameter and then not force it to forever be the value at the end of the cycle (allowing you to automate or otherwise control it again.) There are many devices that would be better than a Hydra if you were happy with a device per parameter. LFOs always give you the output locked to it (may be desirable at times) and as you name the Device itself at least you can name it after what it controls. Well from the point of external control anyway. Still doesn’t help tidy things up in the manner of a Doofer™ Device though.
Yeah would be a good one. Been playing a little with offset (delayed) automation going into the new Meta Mixer and you can get some funky effect that way. A device allowing delay of control/meta data in 1/256th line divisions (same resolution as automation) is something it got me thinking at the time
