I hope you're doing well and you all had a good start into the new Chinese year recently.
Having spent some time in Maize Sampler again lately, I thought it's time to compile a list of things that should or should not be going on. Call them "feature requests" and "bug reports" if you will.
I don't want to sound entitled, like I'm here to FORCE you into working on any of this.
I just think these things would be worth while implementing or improving, they'd certainly make Maize Sampler more flexible and easier to work with.
If any single one of these things actually makes it into Maize Sampler, like the trigger button functionality I repeatedly suggested ages ago, then your support and effort would already mean a lot to me. But here's hoping you implement a few more.
For the record: I'm working on OSX El Capitan 10.11.3.
I'm using the latest version of Maize Sampler currently obtainable from the Website: v2.31
I'll start off with the ugly things, no specific order.
1) when deleting a sample that's highlighted in the mapping view, the red/blue markers on the keyboard stay. They shouldn't.
2) when quitting the application, a dialog will ask about saving the document: Yes, No, Cancel. Yes will save, No will quit without saving, and Cancel should return to the document but also just quits the application without saving.
3) the Group Overlap mode "Random Robin Trigger" doesn't play single samples that are not overlayed by other samples. "Stack" and "Round Robin Trigger" modes do. This means that if I have a group of samples that I want to trigger by Random Robin, but there's one note in that group which only plays a single sample, I will have to switch the entire group to "Round Robin" or move the single sample into its own "Stack" triggered group.
4) when two GUI controls (like a knob and a fader) are mapped to the same action (e.g. group gain or pan parameters), they should sync with each other - but they don't. Turning one control will not update the value of the other control, so while you're turning e.g. the group gain knob up, the group gain fader will stay where it is instead of following along.
5) the action "toggle group disable state" (and others) are somewhat mistakably named, the word "toggle" misleads to think that the action would already affect the toggle state - but it doesn't, not without remembering to set the button that calls the "toggle" action to "toggle" as well. "Toggle" means "press once for on, press again for off", it does not mean "hold for on, release for off", which is what happens with the "toggle group disable state" action if the button isn't set to "toggle".
6) knobs on the GUI don't center! With an uneven number of images, maybe 31, the 15 to the left and 15 to the right should go to the extreme values of the parameter range, and the 1 in the middle should always be in the straight up position. "Dead center". But it isn't, it's always slightly off by a degree or two. This means that no matter if I give a knob even or uneven numbers of stitched images, the controls will never center accurately. This makes it impossible for users to correctly center, say, a Pan knob into its original position again.
Now for the workflow candy:
7) please give us a function to "create new Group from selected Samples". I often find myself prototyping a plugin inside one group, and then decide to split it up into more groups later on. This means a LOT of sample deleting from the old group, sample re-adding into the new group, value re-adjusting and value re-entering... *sigh* often hours of my time are wasted on something as trivial as this. If I could just select a bunch of samples and then click on some menu item that creates a new group and moves those samples into it, that would be SUCH a relief.
8 ) if you don't do a "create new Group from selected Samples" function, then please at least give us a "Group" property for samples to work with. You know, a textbox in the sidebar, like where all the other sample properties (key range, vel range, sample ADSR etc.) can be set. Just add a textbox "Group" and let users define if samples belong to Group 1 to Group 5 in an instant, without losing hours of time.
9) I would also welcome (and love a lot!) a Copy/Paste function for selected Samples.
Example scenario: General MIDI has Acoustic Snare on #38 and Electronic Snare on #40, with something in between on #39... I think hand claps or rim shot or something. Having 2 different keys trigger the same sample can make editing of especially drum rolls etc. a LOT easier in a DAW's piano roll. So for a purely acoustic drumset that doesn't have an electronic snare, #40 is pre-destined to act as a "duplicate trigger" for the snare sample on #38.
But let's say my snare has 8 velocity layers with around 10 samples each, that's not too far fetched. The only way to get #40 to trigger the Samples of #38 as well is to re-add by hand EVERY ONE of the ~80 samples that are on #38 as well onto #40 and set each of them up by hand again. Takes ages, that's just silly.
10) an alternative might be "key aliases". Instead of moving the entire sample content of one key to another, one would just insert an internal "dummy sample cell" onto the 2nd key and define a "key alias" for it. When a note with such a "key alias" on it is played, it will not play anything itself but trigger the key that it's an alias for. Example: I have a snare Sample on #38. I create "key alias" on #40 that links to #38. Whenever I play #40, this will re-route the key to the "key alias" target, which in this case would be the note #38 that contains the actual Samples.
11) GUI Group selection drop-downs should be able to display multiple Groups - but only those selected (while creating the GUI). Call it a "Group switcher" if you will. Imagine I have Samples of 4 different kick drums and 4 different snare drums. Each one goes into their own dedicated Group, so 4 Groups with kick Samples and 4 Groups with snare Samples. I want a Group selector drop-down that's not just dumb and displays ALL the groups there are, but I want one where I can check the "kick groups" for the first and the "snare groups" for the second dropdown. That first dropdown will then show the user only the 4 Groups that contain kicks, and the other dropdown box will only list the Groups of the Snares. This would enable "interchangeable kit parts" without switching plugin or instrument file.
12) new group overlap mode: crossfade. When I only have 2 or 3 Samples of the same thing, and each one is in a different velocity and timbre, then playing with the Sample ADSR and velocity curves will only get me half the way. If there was an overlap mode "crossfade", one could let two Samples of different velocities overlap and fade in and out of each other, the amount of A/B mix depending on the overall overlap and the triggered velocity. Pretty sure this would make transitions between dynamically "jumpy" material easier!
13) I'm sooo often switching between Group tabs, PLEASE implement a keyboard shortcut that makes it possible to skip through open Group tabs, like CTRL+TAB (next) or CTRL+SHIFT+TAB (previous). This could save minutes in an hourlong session!
14) many countries use the comma "," as a decimal point, like for example here in Germany. I'm a coder, I enter numbers on the num keypad while not even looking at it. It would be such a great relief and workflow speed-up if your value boxes started listening to the "," comma symbol as a decimal separator as well, and not just the "." point.
15) in the keyboard that's at the bottom of the Sample/Group assignment window, I see that certain notes are written on the keys, like C1 and C4. I'm just now working on a project that uses ALL of the 32 outputs Maize Sampler now offers (thank you so much!) and every single sound is in its own dedicated Group to be routable to its own dedicated output... I REALLY don't have a clue of what's where at this point, I just blindly click around on the keyboard until I hear what I was looking for. It would be such a great help to have labels on the keyboard keys that can be edited somehow, maybe with double-clicking or a dedicated "name to key" assignment dialog. ("Load name assignment automatically from text file" instrument property maybe? It would be SO great to see "kick" and "woodblock" down there instead of "C1" or looking for "C2 plus one, two, three, four... this one".
16) please allow re-sizing and moving multiple selected Samples. If you currently select a bunch of samples and drag the resize handle of one, then only that one sample will resize, but all the others stay the size they were before. If at all, most times the selection will just "drop" everything and leave me with no selected samples.
17) a switch for mono/stereo/mono sum on Sample level. Some loaded samples are mono, some loaded samples are stereo. So do I really have to fire up an external editor, batch-process all the samples and replace them in the Maize project's source directory, only to have to re-start Maize Sampler again in order for it to accept the updated samples? ... Would be much more convenient to just highlight a bunch of stereo samples and set them to "mono" or "mono sum" by clicking a property box instead.
18) a WIDTH control for groups. Sometimes a Group contains stereo material that is perfectly alright in stereo, but it's juuust that little bit too wide if you route it into a reverb next. Or the other way round, the Group contains several overhead cymbal Samples that are spread across only 30% of the stereo field. So having a possibility to squash or expand the stereo field of individual groups would be such a great addition. And just think of the GUI knob action "stereo field"... Just to clarify, by Width I do NOT mean L/R Pan.
19) FFS... "double-click to reset to default value" or something like that. It's such a PITA to constantly have to drag GUI knobs around until they look like they're back in the position they were initially set to... please give us what every bog-standard Sampler/Rompler/Synth/Effect can do and implement a way to easily reset a control to the value its connected action parameter was set to out-of-the-box. This is such a no-brainer, I can't believe why this is not yet possible in Maize Sampler.
20) make the Reverb "sendable". Right now, it's just a room on the master track. Which is good for... hm, hardly anything really. While it doesn't bother me on the master, "just don't use it", I think it should be made directly accessible to Groups somehow. So that you can opt to not send the Kick Group to the Reverb, maybe a little of the Snare Group, and lots of the Cymbal Group. You know what, you could even ACTUALLY give Groups a "Group level Send Gain" action that will send an amount of the Group to the Instrument level Reverb effect, and then use the "Instrument level Reverb" action to control the overall volume of the "Instrument level Reverb fed by Group level sends" mix.
21) GUI knobs should have settable boundaries to specify useful ranges of the actual parameter value range, e.g. for ADSR. Adding a knob to the GUI that will control the ENTIRE value range of the Attack time of a Group, and then using it to fine-tune a percussive thing like a triangle or wooden drumsticks... that gives the user about 2-3 pixels of effective and sensible range to turn the button on the GUI, everything else is just wasted. If one could optionally specify "this GUI button controls the action Group Attack for minimum value 0ms and maximum value 5ms", or if one could specify that the knob controlling the Instrument level Reverb should not range from silence to 100% Reverb - but only from silence to +10% Reverb, that would be a HUGE upgrade for the flexibility of basically every controllable thing in Maize Sampler, especially the various Group/Instrument ADSR dynamics sections.
22) a fine-dial hotkey for faders. It's currently only possible to fine-tune knob values by holding down a keyboard modifier, but faders will always move at full speed. Faders should get the same amount of interfaceability love, please add a keyboard modifier that will slow faders down.
23) labels should get an action "value readout" with specifiable sources, so that this sort of information (Attack ms, Gain dB, etc.) is presented directly from the plugin. At the moment, all I can do is guess while designing the GUI, then make changes to my ranges and scales and try and listen and re-adjust and listen and try and re-adjust... until someday I find out how much of a change is going on and I can "bake" those values onto the background. Not desirable!
24) level meters, like 'em or not, should be able to display the output volume of certain Groups, not just plugin outputs. Sometimes several Groups will go to the same stereo plugin output pair, but it would still be great to have feedback about what the individual Groups are doing without having to re-route them to plugin outputs. It would make them kind of useful, I figure, because it would allow for gain-staging while still inside the plugin.
25) GUI dropdown boxes need access to an action "send group X to output Y" (or similar) that can be assigned to selectable Groups. Typical scenario: you maybe have your overheads on outputs 5+6, but my plugin sends its overheads through outputs 8+9 where you maybye have the room or trigger tracks... just requires a lot of tedious matrix routing outside of the plugin, some hosts aren't even capable of dealing with that.
Instead, it would be great if one could have a dropdown box on the GUI, link it to Group 1 and let it switch to which plugin output channels the output of Group 1 is sent... and wouldn't it be even greater if next to it, one could place a dropdown box that is linked to Group 2 and that controls the plugin output channels to which Group 2 is sent...
This would be a HUGE improvement, because it would eliminate the need to create separate "2-output" and "32-output" projects. Just one Multi-Output project with one GUI that lets people pick their outputs for everything, they can basically put together their own stereo or multichannel setup as they desire.
26) This is probably the most annoying of all... PLEASE, I implore you, make the BACKSPACE key delete things. At least on OSX. It's standard on OSX, I find myself swearing all the time because I instinctively hit BACKSPACE in order to delete something... but my computer just boops at me for having pressed an unassigned key. Aw, such anger, many hate.
I guess that should keep you guys busy for a while...
And now, after all the bickering and nitpicking, here's the most important sentence of all:
Thank you guys so much for making this great piece of software, I really do appreciate your work.
