Rev 2 firmware is it just me?

MPM

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Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #60 on: June 19, 2021, 05:25:49 PM »
I keep detailed records of every event where an employee tells me something similar to your response (Continuous performance monitoring). I always tell them that it's my fault for employing them, and so my solution to the problem is to replace them. But, if they can find a better solution then they're welcome to stay. They get two warnings. And if anyone ever mentioned "retiring a product" because it was too difficult to rectify, they would get booted out the door immediately. We don't take the cowards way out. If it was a problem that was impossible to rectify then a product recall is policy. And we have never had to do that because we have something that may be foreign to you, which is called "Quality Control" and "Quality Assurance".
It sounds like you have been working under very relaxed management. And don't play the virus card, because we're all in the same boat, and the Rev2 bugs stretch back way before 2020.

I understand it is frustrating. I have the same reaction with every single synth I have ever owned (and there have been lots) and not a single one of them is bug free. Every single piece of software I’ve ever used has bugs. Even when we reach bug free states we find new one because our users push the boundaries of what is possible on the instrument and in new combinations. It’s the only constant i know of in product development… there will always be another bug to fix, another improvement to be made

So when is the right time to retire a product? If you have to spend 20 hours to fix a bug only 2 people out of thousands have mentioned it, is it worth it? How about 25 hours and 1 person? What if you spend 10 hours and realize it will take more and may not fix it? Where do you draw the line? How do you balance that when you need to make new things to survive as a company? I ask myself those questions every single day. I hate disappointing people and I hate leaving bugs I know frustrate our users, even just a single person, but sometimes we have to make difficult choices.

We do learn from our choices and we are adding resources rapidly to do better in the future but, as I said, this was a profoundly difficult year for us, our customers, our suppliers and everybody we know.

I can’t make any promises right now because so much is up in the air. What I can say is we do not take this lightly and the amount of chaos and extra work due to the rippling effects of the pandemic has hit us hard. Balancing work and life and trying not to burnout isn’t easy, as I’m sure many people on here can understand right now. I’m even here posting publicly not because it is in my job description, but because I believe in what we do and open myself up to exactly that sort of criticism because I know how it feels and I want to do better than what I experienced with other companies.


Not trying to say any of the bugs aren't important, just giving some perspectives from the things we're dealing with. I try very hard not to mislead you guys and will try and chime in periodically here but you probably would rather I keep fixing bugs and adding features =)

So your perspective is that it's okay to waste time adding "vintage" modes to the perfectly operational OB~6 and P6, but not spend time fixing Rev.2 BUGS?
Personally I'm completely happy with the features the Rev.2 originally shipped with, but it's completely lame that it still has bugs today. That is completely unprofessional.
Remember, I am the customer. You at DSI/Sequential are a provider. I am paying your bills and sending your kids to school.
I hope Focusrite make some long overdue staff changes and find people who can make bug fixes, not excuses.
OB-6  Prophet-6  Prophet.Rev2/16  no kids

Sacred Synthesis

Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #61 on: June 19, 2021, 05:53:52 PM »
To be clear, I was referring to the retirement of the Poly Evolver Keyboard, when I was trying to add another unit to my set up.  The retirement of the Prophet '08 caused a similar a panic.  The Rev2, being now five years old and still possibly on the bench for an update, will be retired perhaps only three or four years after its completion.  That's where the problem is.  This period of waiting for the update has consumed at least half of its life span.

What I'm suggesting is that we be given fair warning about the discontinuation of a product.  I would prefer at least six months, if that's reasonable.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2021, 09:05:48 AM by Sacred Synthesis »

Pym

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Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #62 on: June 20, 2021, 01:29:58 PM »
You aren't alone in that; the forum is a microcosm of specific types of people with specific usages of our instruments, so you see a lot of sentiments and issues echoed here that we barely hear when talking to people face to face. It's difficult to determine what is the most important thing to look into due to that. If you look at our YouTube comments, Facebook, other forums, every single place will have their issues that are absolutely make or break for them. We do our best to address them but, like every company, we have to prioritize as best we can.

One of the big issues here is we are in an industry where innovation and creative improvements is essential to continue to compete, and those types of things are dramatically more difficult and risky than evolutionary improvements. We try and do both at the same time, incrementally: innovate through simplicity and cutting back, then by adding and pushing ourselves in other ways.

For every person who prefers simple instruments (like yourself) there are a dozen more who prefer other ways of interacting with an instrument. That's the beauty and the curse. We could easily make a DOZEN different instruments with exactly the same code and voices, just changing the way the interface is presented, and a dozen groups of different people would be very happy, but we'd go out of business trying to maintain them all: different parts, different boards, different code bases... it takes a lot of investment to get there and by the time you do, everything has changed.

Even since I've been here the instruments have gotten dramatically more stable and solid, even though they have gotten quite a bit more complex. I remember the Poly Evolver and the P'08 and how many things we'd find. Way more bugs, but way less visible because we sold far less AND because our users weren't pushing the boundaries of what the instruments could do quite as often, to a large degree we learn along with our users what is fun and exciting and important. To me this all just feels like normal growing pains. Every time a musician or company gets past certain points, you have trouble scaling to meet the expectations and desires of your fan base. You have to keep enough of the past, you have to push into the future.

I'm here trying to communicate. I'm not here officially, which is why I'm not giving you any promises I can't personally keep. I'm here because I actually do care about you guys being able to make music and I know when I get wrapped up in anger or resentment to my gear, I just stop. I hate that feeling.

I will look over the Rev2 bugs soon and hopefully be able to give you a better idea of if and when certain things will be fixed, but I can't give you any hard dates right now and I can't give you any promises beyond that.

My response to all of this would be the same as always - contrary, I realize, to what everyone else here wants.  If I could have it my way, I would prefer simpler instruments, fewer features, not pushing things to the brink, and with an emphasis on maintenance.  Make instruments that are strong in the fundamentals of synthesis, purged of known flaws, rock-solidly reliable, and kept in production for longer periods of time. 

I know, I know....   
Sequential

Sacred Synthesis

Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #63 on: June 20, 2021, 02:46:03 PM »
I will look over the Rev2 bugs soon and hopefully be able to give you a better idea of if and when certain things will be fixed, but I can't give you any hard dates right now and I can't give you any promises beyond that.

Thank you, Chris.  If all the week's heat and anger has convinced you to reconsider the update, then it has been worthwhile.  But if the final answer is "No update," then please tell us outright, rather then risk someone's personal email seeping into the forum with the long-awaited answer.  That's largely what caused the sudden outrage.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2021, 05:01:59 PM by Sacred Synthesis »

CCrow

Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #64 on: June 20, 2021, 04:02:45 PM »
I will look over the Rev2 bugs soon and hopefully be able to give you a better idea of if and when certain things will be fixed, but I can't give you any hard dates right now and I can't give you any promises beyond that.

Thank you, Chris.  If all the week's heat and anger has convinced you to reconsider the update, then it has been worthwhile.  But if the final answer is "No update," please tell us outright, rather then risk someone's personal email seeping into the forum with the long-awaited answer.  That's largely what caused the sudden outrage.

I agree with what Sacred Synthesis has said, and I too appreciate the posts you have been making and communicating with us. Thank you

And yeah I may still be hoping for a feature or two as well as fixes, but the fixes are more important, and in general I try to be optimistic so we will see.

Sacred Synthesis

Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #65 on: June 21, 2021, 07:35:05 AM »
UPDATE: Guys and gals, it's not over yet!  Sequential has expressed renewed interest in fixing the Rev2 OS bugs, and they've asked me for a master list of them.  Note that this is not about new features, but only bugs.

I think the best way to handle this is for all of you to Private Message (PM) me with the bugs you've found.  This is our last chance, so list them all, even if we've discussed them many times before, and describe them accurately so Sequential can find them.  I'll then continue to update the list and post it here or on another thread. 

There are no promises or time estimates, but this is our last real chance to advance a superb instrument towards a condition far more acceptable to its users.  We've bitterly complained, and Sequential has listened to us and responded.  Now it's time for us to be good sports and do our part to help the company.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2021, 10:53:30 AM by Sacred Synthesis »

Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #66 on: June 21, 2021, 09:52:47 AM »
i think this sounds like music in someone's ears  ;)

while i am fully satisfied with the rev2 for my needs, it's nice to see that there is something going on referring to this topic.


Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #67 on: June 21, 2021, 05:50:49 PM »
For me, the one thing I want out of an update is the fine tune as an internal modulation destination. I don't understand why its possible to assign it from an extrernal source, but you can't mod from an lfo and or through the mod matrix.

CCrow

Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #68 on: June 21, 2021, 06:27:43 PM »
For me, the one thing I want out of an update is the fine tune as an internal modulation destination. I don't understand why its possible to assign it from an extrernal source, but you can't mod from an lfo and or through the mod matrix.

I am hoping they consider feature updates as well, and not just bugfixes, and this seems like a good and useful candidate for being added, but I don't know if it truly is easy or not. It certainly seems easier and like it would take up less space than say... vintage mode or something.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful for the bugfix part of all of this though
« Last Edit: June 21, 2021, 07:26:06 PM by CCrow »

Sacred Synthesis

Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #69 on: June 21, 2021, 06:59:19 PM »
This is not about added features, but only bug fixes.

Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #70 on: June 21, 2021, 10:25:27 PM »
This is great news!  Thanks @pym for committing to at least take a look, and @sacredsynthesis for helping to expedite.

I honesty don't think there are even that many confirmed/repeatable bugs left... Hopefully one more quick pass over the firmware could squash whatever is left, and leave us with a very stable final release.   I imagine the Seq support ticket system probably has the best accounting of any existing, confirmed bugs with step-by-step actions... but yeah, everyone, speak up now if you've got a repeatable bug, and let @sacredsynthesis know!     

The Gated Sequencer Stepping Issue with stacked patches is the one big issue that I know of that significantly hampers sound design / capabilities.   (Ticket #48090 describes it in detail, with an example patch setup)   It's easily repeatable from an init patch... and things get really jumbled up when you start changing the Seq Reset step too... the sequencer skips many steps and repeats others... but I think it's probably all just related to how key/voice steps are counted when in stacked mode)   

The 1.1.5.9 Bug Report Thread is a mixed bag... it actually pre-dates the 1.1.5.9 release (Released Feb 4, 2019), so you can skip forward to around page eight to see anything reported after that. 
https://forum.sequential.com/index.php/topic,2805.140.html   

There have, of course, been many requests for fine tune mod destination, a global/mono LFO switch, and other misc items, however those items would be considered new feature requests / improvements... so it's understandable if they are off the table.     

But, yeah -- I would be thrilled to just have the modulation sequencer fixed... that alone would justify a final release for me, and allow a lot of sound design options that the Rev2 should be capable of based on its design.         

OB-X8, Pro 3, P6, Rev2, Take 5, 3rd Wave, Deepmind, PolyBrute, Sub 37
Sound Sets:
https://sounddesign.sellfy.store/
Free Patches:
https://www.PresetPatch.com/user/CreativeSpiral

CCrow

Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #71 on: June 21, 2021, 10:59:05 PM »
   
The Gated Sequencer Stepping Issue with stacked patches is the one big issue that I know of that significantly hampers sound design / capabilities.   (Ticket #48090 describes it in detail, with an example patch setup)   It's easily repeatable from an init patch... and things get really jumbled up when you start changing the Seq Reset step too... the sequencer skips many steps and repeats others... but I think it's probably all just related to how key/voice steps are counted when in stacked mode)   

The 1.1.5.9 Bug Report Thread is a mixed bag... it actually pre-dates the 1.1.5.9 release (Released Feb 4, 2019), so you can skip forward to around page eight to see anything reported after that. 
https://forum.sequential.com/index.php/topic,2805.140.html       

Thank you for providing more info to report for the layer gated sequencer issue.

Also, I appreciate the heads up about the bug report thread. I was planning on going through that thread and repeating/testing the bugs before sending them on to Sacred Synthesis in the next few days.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2021, 11:01:26 PM by CCrow »

Sacred Synthesis

Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #72 on: June 22, 2021, 06:46:43 AM »
Thanks, guys.  You know I don't have a Rev2, so I'm entirely dependent on you for the information.  I'm just the middleman.

Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #73 on: June 22, 2021, 02:58:49 PM »
For some reason my rev2 only has every voice on in unison mode my other dsi instruments don't have this bug.  :p

Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #74 on: June 22, 2021, 04:39:57 PM »
For some reason my rev2 only has every voice on in unison mode my other dsi instruments don't have this bug.  :p

I meant to say poly unison /me rolls eyes at self

CCrow

Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #75 on: June 22, 2021, 05:46:55 PM »
I have been testing some of the bugs, and can't reproduce this bug in ableton but multiple users seem to have this issue. If anyone has the daws mentioned (or any daw for that matter) in this bug report and can test it, please let either me or Sacred Synthesis know if it is still an issue. I want to confirm it is a bug and is still present in the current firmware. Thanks


I just tested this in Logic. The Rev2 sequencer does not send note off midi commands. Therefore all recorded notes are stretched to the end of the region. It seems to be a bug. The only workaround I see is to manually shorten the recorded notes in the DAW. Logic has a nifty tool called Midi Transformer.


Hello

Apologies if this is the incorrect place to post, I've looked everywhere and I can only see one other mention of my issue very early on in this thread and could not see a fix.
The below user seems to have suffered the same issue where basically the notes played out the sequencer just hold and do not end. It happens when recording in Cubase, leaving one long note and also when just triggering other devices. I'm on 1.1.5.9 USB connected but have tried MIDI and have tried every setting one at a time but cant seem to figure this out?
 
Has anyone else come across this as I can't find a workaround. Thanks.

CCrow

Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #76 on: June 22, 2021, 05:48:58 PM »
For some reason my rev2 only has every voice on in unison mode my other dsi instruments don't have this bug.  :p

I meant to say poly unison /me rolls eyes at self

I'm not sure I understand what you mean exactly. If you mean that poly unison does not work, that is because it is not a feature of this instrument. It only has mono unison per layer.

Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #77 on: June 22, 2021, 08:10:51 PM »
You can set the amount of voices used in unison mode, from one voice to max voices on your Rev.   

Also, you can copy Layer A and use a Bi-timbral Stack to emulate Poly-2 type of behavior with eight voices (on a 16v Rev)... I do this often... with some hard panning to layers it sounds huge.   

It would be nice if there was a dedicated Poly-2 and Poly-4 mode where you could play polyphonically per layer with set unison voices per key, but that would definitely be in the realm of feature requests, and is probably unlikely for this instrument.   

------------------------

Distortion Effect Pop When Loading or Navigating Through Patches
When navigating through patches, if you pass through a patch with Distortion enabled, you will hear a POP sound through speakers.   If the gain is set medium-high, the pop can be fairly loud.   This is more of a mild inconvenience type of bug, as it only happens while navigating to (or through) a patch with distortion enabled.     

OB-X8, Pro 3, P6, Rev2, Take 5, 3rd Wave, Deepmind, PolyBrute, Sub 37
Sound Sets:
https://sounddesign.sellfy.store/
Free Patches:
https://www.PresetPatch.com/user/CreativeSpiral

Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #78 on: June 23, 2021, 10:11:19 PM »
Modulation Sequencer Key Stepping Bug when Stacked
I uploaded a short vid that documents the issue with the Sequencer Key Stepping.   The ticket submitted (#48090) to Support has all the vital info and example patch, but figured a video would make the issue more clear.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdoGSE6qUTQ

It seems like it might just need to not count voices on the other layer as key steps when stack is enabled.  Perhaps just a simple Divide/2 in the math might do it when stack is enabled, or maybe there's a more holistic way... but I'm guessing its probably a fairly easy fix.    I'm happy to do additional alpha/beta testing as well...

OB-X8, Pro 3, P6, Rev2, Take 5, 3rd Wave, Deepmind, PolyBrute, Sub 37
Sound Sets:
https://sounddesign.sellfy.store/
Free Patches:
https://www.PresetPatch.com/user/CreativeSpiral

jok3r

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Re: Rev 2 firmware is it just me?
« Reply #79 on: June 24, 2021, 01:30:05 AM »
That describes it very good, Creative Spiral. Just out of interest: what happens to the sequencer of layer B? Is it mocked up, too, or does it work fine, when running simultaneosly? What about Split mode? Is the bug there, too?
Prophet Rev2, Moog Matriarch, Novation Peak, Arturia DrumBrute Impact, Korg Kronos 2 88, Kurzweil PC 361, Yamaha S90ES