When trying out the Bloom sequencer I was immediately disappointed that I couldn’t do the following:
Switch between pages while the sequencer is running when I want to change notes. I found myself having to wait for the sequencer to start playing the page that I wanted to make changes to. Why is it like this? Is it because of the branches/path system or is it just overlooked in the programming? You should be able to have the sequencer running at all times and easily edit any note on any page.
Shift the sequence forwards or backwards. When you have endless encoders there’s so much you can do! Why not implement a shortcut that controls the offset of the sequence?
New value every time an encoder is turned and you feel that little mechanical click. Turning one “click” doesn’t always change the note. But that’s what I expect it to do, so I can turn an encoder one click and know it’s going to play the next note in the scale I’ve chosen.
Back and forth mode should repeat the first and last note or give the user the choice to do one thing or the other.
Hey @propell, welcome to the forum! I’m sorry your initial experience with Bloom was not the best! I have a couple suggestions that may solve some of the issues you are having with the module:
You can achieve this by entering the Per-Step Note Editor Mode. To enter this mode, hold the Shift button and click the Notes encoder. The first time you enter this mode, the sequence will stop. If you want to loop the sequence, press the Channel button. Bloom will now loop the page you are on, letting you change notes while the sequence plays. To advance to the next page, press the Reset button. Bloom remembers the looping setting, so you can jump in and out of this edit mode if you want to incorporate Branches after changing some notes.
By forwards and backwards, do you mean the pitch offset? If so, that is what the Root knob/v/oct CV input is for. It is a diatonic transposer, which transposes your sequence while staying in key. If you do not mean pitch, I’d love some additional clarification on this feature!
This could be do to the voltage values of the encoder turn and the values of the quantized notes not always aligning. I would need to dive further into this to see what’s going on, and maybe a chat with the engineers behind the module could shed some light here.
Unfortunately Bloom does not have this as a configurable option. The workaround would be to double up the first and last notes in your sequence, which would create a pseudo repeat of the two notes. We’ll keep this in mind for any future Bloom revisions though, as it would be a great option to have!
I hope this helps clarify things, and let me know if you have any additional questions!
Regarding the Per-Step Note Editor Mode. I’m aware of this feature. It involves stopping the sequencer and is therefore useless to me. “Every” operation on a sequencer should be possible while the sequencer is running, in my opinion.
Clarification on the “shift sequence forwards and backwards”: I mean changing the timing of the whole sequence. Moving the sequence one step to the right would make the last note your first, the first the second and so on. It’s a simple but powerful tool when jamming. Sometimes you can use it to discover new things in your sequence. Sometimes you just want to align your sequence with other instruments.
BTW: How do I read the firmware version lights? Is there an explanation somewhere? And why is there no change log for the Daisy Blooms in the firmware zip file?
Shifting the sequence steps up or down (@propell says “right to left” because musically, that makes sense as time is played forward(moving right). So step 1 would shift Down/“Right” be on step 2 in the sequence, pushing all the following steps (making step 8 or whatever the last step of your sequence is now step 1)
I came on here today to ask about this feature as well. I’m having a hard time putting to words what the issue is… I find that as I play with bloom get to a sequence I like while it’s freerunning. Once I hear a melody I like, I look down and the start of that melody is actually on a step that isn’t 1. Let’s say for this example, it’s on step 3. So, at that point, I can’t use the reset feature when I start building the rest of the patch. I’d have to let it run for a while and sounds weird, until my ear has accepted that step 3 is now the beginning.
There are other sequencers that can shift the entire sequence Up, moving step 3 to step one and the rest follow.
Hope this helps and is something easy to implement.
Intellijel’s Steppy has this feature. They explain it better in their manual:
“Each track can be shifted (or ‘rotated’) forward or backward by a number of steps. So if you’ve
created a pattern that ‘feels’ like it has its downbeat on step 3, you can shift that pattern two
steps backward, so that the downbeat sits on step 1.”
