Vector Firmware 1.4.0

[jim]

Hi everyone!

This is the production release of the 1.3.X beta builds. This is a big
release which adds Drum parts, custom chords, and many other
tweaks and updates. There is a description of the new features in
the next post, as well as a full set of release notes from the beta builds.
But also, there is a newly updated manual, which you can download here:

http://45.56.118.96/VectorUserGuideV1.4.pdf

There are 4 completely new pages, two for Chord & Drum Parts,
and one each for the Dashboard and Tips & Tricks. There are also
some updates to the pages for Sequence Controls, Chance Ops and Sub-Sequencers.

Download:

http://45.56.118.96/VS-1.4.0/VECTOR.BIN.zip


Vector Sequencer Firmware Update Instructions

• Download and un-zip the Vector firmware file (VECTOR.BIN.zip).
• Press and hold the Shift button while powering up the Vector to enter USB Disk mode.
• Use a USB ‘A to B’ cable to connect the Vector to your computer. After a few seconds,
the SD Card for the Vector will show up as a new disk.
• Unzip VECTOR.BIN.zip. On a Mac, the Finder may do that for you. Do not double-click on VECTOR.BIN,
which the Finder will try to de-compress into something not useful.
• Make sure the filename is exactly VECTOR.BIN, and copy it to the root directory of Vector’s SD Card – Delete
or move any previous VECTOR.BIN firmware files.
• Now is also a good time to backup your Vector's PROJECT directory.
• Unmount/Eject the Vector’s SD Card from your computer, and power off your eurorack system.
• Hold down the Rec button on the Vector while powering up your system.
• Press Next to load the new Firmware, which takes about 20 seconds.
• Verify the Firmware is the correct version in Globals -- first page, 2nd OLED, top-left corner.

[jim]

NEW FEATURES:

IMPORTANT: This build has a significant behavior change in how chords are
stored in your projects. The Vector will auto-update existing projects as they are
loaded to accommodate the changes, but this is a good time to back up your
existing projects if you have not recently.

DRUM PARTS

You can now format any of parts 5-8 as a 4-track Drum sequence. As
when formatting a chord part, this can be done on the 2nd Globals
page, "PARTS". Turn encoder 1 until you are viewing part 5-8, turn
encoder 6 until it says "DRUM", then hold SHIFT and press CLEAR (the
white button for step 8) to initiate the change, then "NEXT" to
confirm it. All data that was in that part will be erased and
reformatted as a drum part.

A Drum Part has four voices (aka 'lanes'), each with its own velocity
level, which you can edit on the 'Pitch' page -- retitled Drum on the
display. The level values are indicated by vertically variable
columns, just like on the Velocity page, but here there are 4 on each
sequencer step, one for each voice. As you edit the level values, you
will notice that that the 'column' readout has a different graphic for
each lane, which helps when reading a pattern across several steps.

Below all the column values, there is a small gray box, slightly wider
than the column values. This is the cursor and indicates the current
drum voice to edit. Turning encoder 9 will move the cursor, so you
can edit a different voice. If you press Encoder 9, it will switch to
'selection' mode. In this mode, turning Encoder 9 will edit all steps
for the selected voice. If you also have some steps selected (by
pressing SELECT then one or more white keys on the mini-keyboard),
then only those steps will be modified.

In addition to editing velocity levels by turning the encoders, you
can set the edit sub-mode to MUTE (push the MUTE button, G# on the
mini-keyboard), and then add and remove steps by pressing the white
keys on the mini-keyboard.

There are a couple options for setting up CV output for Drum
parts. You can use any combination of Gate, Velocity and Trigger
ouputs, but two obvious approaches are to use 4 Gate and 4 Velocity
outputs on the Jack Expander module, or use 4 trigger outputs.
Another interesting approach is to use trigger outputs 1-4 on the
Expander in conjunction with the 4 Velocity outputs just above. That
setup gives you 4 voices of drums with CV control, while still giving
you access to 4 Pitch & Gate outputs on the Expander module for other
parts.

To setup routing, navigate to the 3rd page of Globals: Press the
GLOBAL button, then NEXT twice, to the page titled ROUTING. To setup
a trigger out to work with a drum part, use Encoder 9 to scroll to the
sub-page for 'RUN, CLOCK, RESET' or 'J-EXP TRIGS', then hold SHIFT
while turning the Encoder for the trigger you want to map. Turn until
you see D5.1, about 4 clicks depending on where the trigger was set
originally. The 'D' is for drums, '5' is for Part 5, and '1' is the
first drum voice. From there, release the shift key and turn the
encoder to pick the drum part and voice you want the trigger to
output. All four parts (5-8) will show up regardless of whether they
are currently drum parts or not.

For setting up Gate and/or Velocity CVs, turn Encoder 9 to get to the
appropriat sub-page, such as 'CV OUT 3-4' or 'CV OUT 5-6'. Turn the
encoder for the desired output to pick the drum part, then hold SHIFT
and turn to pick the desired voice.

To map a drum part to a MIDI output, just pick the drum part to be
output for To set which MIDI notes are output for each drum voice, Go
to th Seq Ctl page for the drum part. Then turn encoder 9 untill you
get to the ‘DRUM MAP’ page. Editing the drum map here is similar to
editing PART stuff in Globals: Turn encoder 1 to pick the drum voice,
then turn encoder 2 to set the note, and encoders 3 & 4 to pick a 2
letter name.

CHANCE OPS:

For Drum Parts, there are several new chance operations. These ops
replace the pitch operations that normally appear. There are several
variations of 'mute one or more voices' as well as 'swap veloicty
values for a pair of voices' [ more detail coming... ]

DRUM EDITING TRICKS:

- most common drum patterns are 16 steps, but the first 8 steps are
generally very similar to the second 8 steps. So an easy trick is to
start with an 8 step pattern, then do SHIFT + DUP to copy the 8 step
pattern to 16 steps, then with just a few edit changes on anything in
steps 9-16 will give the pattern some 'space'.

- Of courses, chance ops are a great way to enliven a pattern.


Also note: You can now use Encoder 9 to scroll through pages in
Modulation and Seq Ctl sections — very handy.

CUSTOM CHORDS

All chords are now displayed with the 'base'(Bass) note to the left,
and the chord indicator to the right. For built-in chords, the
indicators are either semitones (for 2-note intervals, aka dyads),
or letters for things like major triad (M), minor triad (m), etc.
As with Drum parts, a small gray box acts a cursor to indicate which
value you are editing, either the base note, or the chord type.
Push Encoder 9 to swith from cursor mode to select mode, for editing
all steps at a time.

To convert any chord to a custom chord, hold the EDIT button and
push the encoder for the step you want to modify, or push Encoder 9
to convert all the chords in the sequence.

For custom chords, the base note is still to the left, but to the
right, you have up to 3 semitone offests you can edit. If no offset
is setup, no value is displayed.

Chord offsets can range from 1 to 60 semitones. After an offset
reaches one octave, a small 'up arrow' indicator to the right
indicates you are in the 2nd octave of offsets. At the 3rd octave, a
short line will appear below that arrow, and another for the 4th
octave.

Legato note handling in chord mode is now much smarter. When the
gate is tied between two steps, only notes that change between the
steps will be retriggered.

RELEASE NOTES:

1.4.0

Release version of 1.3/1.4 dev cycle

1.3.14

Fixed an issue with Drum Voice labelling

1.3.13

MIDI Clock Out: fixed a '1 tick' latency issue.

1.3.12

Drum Parts: Fixes some issues w/ mute behavior.

1.3.10

Increased 'inactivity time before sleeping' to 5 minutes

Drum Parts: Now show the current 'voice'/lane name next to the edit mode label. You can edit the
drum names on the 4th SeqCtl page of drum parts.

Drum Parts: Now when un-muting a drum step, the preivously programmed velocity level
is restored.

Generate : Generated patterns are now properly quantized to the current key/scale.

Generate, Acid 03 & Acid 04 : Fixed an issue where gates were not reset to 50% when generating a new pattern.


1.3.9:

Warm Reboot: If you push and hold encoder 9 for more than 5 seconds, the Vector will reboot. This
is handy for getting into (and ou of) SD mode w/o having to power cycle your entire system.

Added self-checking to avoid lockups of the OLED display routine.


1.3.8:

MIDI Program Changes and Note Numbers can now be used to trigger scenes and presets.
To enable this option, navigate to the Global's GENERL page, subpage "PROG CHG IN".
You can enable reception of prog change or note numbers starting with note num 48 or 60
for any of the 3 available MIDI inputs on the Vector. MIDI channels 1-8 will affect
Parts 1-8, channel 16 will affect scenes. For best results, trigger the change *before*
the beginning of a bar.

- Preset Copy & Paste: Fixed an issue that was inhibiting copy from one part to another
- Preset Copy & Paste: Made sure to block copying to a part that is a different type or size.

- Chord Parts: when switching from a custom chord back to built-in, the new cord
will be a major triad.

- Chord Parts: All outbound notes of a chord are now quantized to the current scale.

- Quantization: Quantization for all 'church modes' has been altered a bit to
preserve the correct chord type when playing in-scale chords for all scale degrees.
For example, in the key of C Major, a D Major Chord, which has F# for the 3rd, will be played
as a D minor, with the F# lowered to F.

1.3.7:

- Sync : Fixed an issue with MIDI sync via the USB A jack.
- Sync : Fixed several issues with sync re-transmission for both DIN and MIDI.

- Run, Clock Reset & Trigger Outs: These prefs Now all feature a 'cue and latch' edit mode:
Turn an encoder to pick a new value, push the encoder to latch the change.

- Trig Outs: Fixed a lockup issue when editing prefs for Jack Expander Trig Outputs.


1.3.6:

- Drum Parts: now have Generator and Evolve algorithms appropriate for drums. Descriptions to come
in a couple days...

- Pitch Parts: There are two new 'ACD'/acid gen algorithms and one new 'BRL'/berlin generator
algorithms that don't make any changes to your settings from Seq Ctl -- in othere words, you can
now use these generators for sequences of any length (up to 64 steps).

- Global Prefs: Swing is now active

- Fixed an issue w/ USB H from version 1.3.5
1.3.5:
- Chord Edit: reversed the behavior of Enc 9 when moving the chord voice 'cursor'
- Preset Copy & Paste : there are now 'prompts' on the top of the 1st OLED
- Save Project : fixed the 'blank dialog' issue.

1.3.4:
- Fixed an issue w/ drum voice allocation when the drum part is not the current part
- Add support for Rev7 hardware (encoders)

1.3.3:
- Fixed lockup when formatting a drum part
- On reformat any part, that part becomes the current one.

1.3.2:
- Add Custom Chords and Drum Parts

[steve.turner]

YAY! Nice work!

[robotfunk]

Very nice. Drum programming will take me some time to get used to. The documented way of (un)muting triggers (IMO the main feature in a drum seq) felt so long winded I had almost given up on the drum thing entirely.
Then I discovered by happy accident that pressing encoders 1-8 works exactly as I was hoping for, ie muting/unmuting each step.

Very happy with it now, one minor niggle is the mute state of each step is barely visible, with hardly a way to discern a low velocity step from a muted one.

Still a great update, and will take me a long time to discover all the new bits. Thanks!

[adelag]

wonderful!

[MONKATOR]

Drum programming: Long awaited and creatively realized. Thank you!

[Lev]

I am unable to download the new firmware. Clicking on the file directly brings up a new window with an error that says "Error. Page cannot be displayed. Please contact your service provider for more details. (27)". If I right click and save the file as, then the zip file does download, but trying to unzip that makes it into a cpgz file and it never exports a proper .bin file. Any ideas?

I am on a Mac running macOS 10.14.5 Mojave and have tried to make it work using Safari, Chrome, and FireFox.

[blackdoors]

In the same boat here - Looks like five12.com is out of action. Hopefully Jim will be on it soon!

John

[jim]

Originally Posted by blackdoors

In the same boat here - Looks like five12.com is out of action. Hopefully Jim will be on it soon!

John

On it -- should be back up in a few hours...

Jim

[jim]

I've updated the links in the first post to be DNS-Drama-Free, should work fine now...

Cheers,
Jim