Quantized preset changes

Switch presets from a MIDI controller in the middle of a set without breaking the groove. A new PrCh Quant setting on TOOLS › Clock holds the change until the next musical boundary, so the new preset comes in on the bar instead of mid-phrase. While it waits, the header turns red and shows OLD>NEW; outside a switch it shows the current preset name instead of "Seq N".

Set it up

1. TOOLS › MIDI: set Global In to the channel your controller sends on (or Omni).
2. TOOLS › Clock: set PrCh Quant, e.g. 1 bar. It is saved with the other settings and kept across power cycles.
3. Press PLAY, then send a note-on from the controller:

Presses add up while a switch is pending: 110 three times jumps three presets ahead. With the transport stopped the boundary never comes, so the switch waits for PLAY; set PrCh Quant to None to switch immediately.

8 × 10 clip launcher

SEQS becomes a clip launcher: 8 columns (instruments) of 40 px tiles across the full width, split by 1 px lines, with a header row for the column names. The Blackbox boots straight into SEQS instead of PADS.

Each column is one instrument and plays one clip at a time, like a track in a session view. Tap a clip to launch it: it waits for the clip's Quant Size boundary (a white frame while pending), then plays with a white frame and a progress bar along its bottom edge. Launching another clip in the same column replaces the playing one; tap the playing clip, or the column's header, to stop it. Empty clips only get selected.

Five rows are visible; the bottom-right knob scrolls to rows 6–10, and small triangles at the right edge show when rows are hidden above or below. The top-left knob moves the selection between rows, the top-right knob between columns.

• boots into SEQS
• 8 columns × 10 rows
• full-width 40 px tiles

Chances and conditional trigs

Every note can carry a condition that decides, loop by loop, whether it plays: Elektron-style trig conditions on the Blackbox. Open a clip in the piano roll, tap Event, select a note and turn its PLAY: value.

Notes with a condition or a chance are drawn in bluish green in the piano roll, so you see them at a glance. Loop counters start when the clip is launched. In one-step clips conditions are off (chances still roll).

example // kick on 1, 5, 9, 13 always; off-beat hats at 1:2 (every other loop); a ghost note at 50%; a crash at 1ST so it only hits when the clip comes in; a roll on steps 14–16 at FILL.

Stored in the note's stock condition byte: presets keep their format, and stock firmware plays these notes always.

FILL

FILL switches the FILL / -FILL notes of a clip: with fill on, FILL notes play and -FILL notes rest. Use it for drum rolls, breaks and turnarounds that only come in when you ask for them.

Fill acts only on a clip that is playing: BACK on the highlighted clip, MIDI on the clip of the selected (cornered) row. While fill is on, a clip with FILL notes turns bluish green. On SEQS a long BACK no longer turns the screen off, so you can hold it through a whole fill.

example // the SHOWCASE preset's CLAP › ROLL clip plays the backbeat always; its snare roll on steps 11–16 has the FILL condition, so it comes in only while BACK is held or FILL is latched.

CLEAR / UNDO on a long press

Hold a clip for 0.4 s: it gets selected (without launching) and two buttons open next to it. CLEAR empties that clip only, including the copy that is playing. UNDO is the stock undo. Any tap closes the menu.

Column headers and settings

The header row is a row of STOP buttons: a tap stops the column and selects the header (it flashes yellow, then stays blue). The top-left knob moves from row 1 up onto the headers. While a column is playing, an amber line runs above its header.

A long press on a header, or INFO while it is selected, opens the column page:

Name your columns

On the Name row, press INFO or turn the bottom-right knob and the stock on-screen keyboard opens with the current name. Enter saves the first 6 characters, Cancel keeps the old one. Names are stored in the preset, so every set keeps its own labels.

example // long press header 2 → Name → type BASS → Enter → the header reads BASS.

A colour and a label for every clip

The clip page (INFO twice on a clip) has two new rows under Step Count. Colour fills the clip's tile on the grid with one of 10 muted colours. Label writes a short name in white at the tile's top-left, typed on the stock keyboard. Give every instrument its own colour, name the variations, and the whole set reads at a glance from across the stage.

Colour and label are saved in the preset and survive CLEAR. Editing them (or a column name) marks the preset as modified, so PSET Save is enabled. The selected clip still shows blue, and a clip in FILL still turns bluish green. Older presets load with no colours and no labels.

example // the SHOWCASE preset: one colour per instrument, from Clay on KICK to Rose on FX, and two labelled variations per column — 4FLOOR / BROKEN, ROOT / WALK, HOOK / ARP.

Per-clip Duty, Quant, Step Len, Step Count

In stock firmware these belong to the whole cell. In the mod every clip has its own. INFO on a clip opens the piano roll; INFO again opens the clip page:

example // a 5-step hi-hat clip against a 16-step kick: on the hats set Step Len 1/16, Step Count 5 and Quant Size 1/16. They loop every 5 steps with no gap, drift against the kick's bar and line up again every 80 steps. Set Quant Size back to 1 bar and the hats wait for the bar after each 5 steps.

Old presets are converted once on load: each clip copies its cell's pattern-A values.

Jump between columns while editing

On the clip and column pages the top row becomes a 1–8 selector: tap a number to jump to the same row's clip (or the column page) of another column, without going back to the grid. BACK still returns where you came from. A pressed button lights sky blue.

The piano roll's top row becomes one gapless toolbar: MIDI, Edit, Event and FILL (plus the pad miniature in KEYS mode). The stock sequence miniature and pattern letter, which don't apply to clips, are gone.

MIDI clip launch

Notes 111–118 on the Global In channel launch or stop the clip of column 1–8 in the selected row, exactly like a tap on that clip. The selected row is marked with yellow corners at both ends of the grid, so a foot controller or a pad controller can fire a whole row of clips.

MIDI-in indicator

A green M lights up left of the bar counter for 150 ms each time a Note On, Note Off or CC arrives. A run of notes or a turning knob keeps it lit. It is the quick check before the first launch of the night: is the controller plugged in, and is it really sending?

Because clock doesn't light it, a DAW that only sends clock keeps the M dark. The M works in every view and with the transport stopped.

While a preset loads (about 1 s) the stock firmware drops incoming notes, so the M stays dark then.

FX send page

The FX button now opens a send page first; press it again for the stock XY FX and EQ pages. All 16 pads are on one screen, each with two small marks for its delay and reverb send, and the two effects run as full-height DLY and RVB bars down the sides. You see the whole send mix at a glance and change it without opening every pad.

The sends are the stock per-pad values: presets keep their format and play the same on stock firmware.

MIDI CC on the sends

Throw a pad into the delay or the reverb from a knob on your controller. Each pad's send row has its own MOD page whose source list is reduced to none and CC, with Learn.

Set it up

1. FX, select the pad, INFO: the pad page with DLY amount / RVB amount.
2. Select a row, INFO: its MOD page. Turn Source to CC.
3. Tap Learn and move the knob on your controller: the controller and its channel are stored.
4. Set Amount for the range, then BACK twice: the bar on the send page follows the knob.

One CC can drive several pads and both sends: learn the same knob on the hats' reverb and the snare's delay and one turn opens both. The mapping is saved with the preset; MOD pages of all other parameters keep the full stock source list.

example // learn one knob on RVB amount of the clap and the hats with Amount 100%, and on DLY amount of the lead with −100%: turning it up washes the drums into the reverb while the lead's delay dries out.

Known limits: only CC as a source; the CC writes the send value itself, so it and the knob on the page overwrite each other; Amount 0% sets the send to 0 on every CC.

Steps down to 1/128

Step Len and Quant Size on the clip page get two shorter values at the end of their lists: 1/64T and 1/128. A 16-step clip at 1/128 lasts half a beat (one 8th note): ratchets, buzz rolls and granular stutters straight from the sequencer, and with per-clip Step Count, very short loops against the rest of the grid.

example // a 4-step hat clip at 1/128 and Quant Size 1/16 plays its 4 hits in the first half of each 16th, then waits for the next one: a tight ratchet on every 16th.

Colour-blind-safe palette

The UI colours are replaced with a scheme based on the Okabe–Ito palette, which stays distinguishable with the common types of colour blindness, and the scheme passes the mod's contrast checks. Dark gaps between cells, a separate lane grey for the piano roll and meters, and no more pink.

Sharp large text

Stock draws its large text by doubling a 6×8 font, which gives blocky 2×2 pixels. The mod draws the same 12×16 cells with the native Spleen 8×16 font instead. Every width and layout stays identical; only the letters get sharper.

Version on the splash

The boot splash shows 3.1.9(70): the stock version plus the mod release number, so you always know what is flashed.