What a BEAST needs

[Daniel MacDonald <danboid yahoo co uk>]

It's got to be said that the only reason that I can't
totally reccommend Linux or any other open source OS
to many of my friends is because there aren't really
any good (i.e powerful AND easy to use) open source
electronic music production programs available, EXCEPT
for the BEAST of course, but the Bedevilled one still
has a fairly long way to go before I can recommend my
friends dump Fruity Loops and Reason.

A couple of questions about 0.5.4 first:

Am I missing something or can you not get a constant,
real-time preview of the sound a custom synth is
making without switching to the song tab and pushing
play, after of course having layed down a track and
part using that synth? If not I'd say this is an
important feature that needs to be added as it can
take ages to get the sound you want doing it like
that.

What is the bottom half of the MIDI event control
strip for? It doesn't seem to do anything but take up
space at the moment so I'm presuming it is
anticipating some future function?

Reading 0.5.4's TODO list I'd like to add:

LOADING/ SAVING OF CUSTOM SYNTHS- I know Tim said this
would require big changes to the BEAST but something
needs to be done about this.

Customisation of keyboard shortcuts. Well, I wouldn't
be that bothered if the BEAST used the space bar to
play and stop songs and sounds like every other music
program ever (almost). Pushing Ctrl+p/Ctrl+s to
play/stop is a very inefficient way of working when
you are constantly starting and stopping the current
sound or song.

The piano roll editor should have it's own set of
playback controls. Both the piano roll and song editor
need to have a 'return to beginning' and 'return to
marker' button.

Currently BEAST only supports one fixed time signature
per song- it would be good if you could change it
mid-song. Of course this is all part and parcel of
seeing tripet/ tuplet support being added I suppose,
which is even more important.

A dynamic BPM varying feature would be great- dynamic
speed adjustment could well be implemented by adding a
speed control strip to the song editor window similar
to the piano roll MIDI event strip, but in the form of
a singular line or curve instead of multiple discrete
bars.

How about adding 1/32 and even 1/64 note values to the
piano roll?

Linking of Multiple parts (eg a hi-hat part, bass drum
part and snare rhythm) as one pattern. Suppose this
could present problems if you could change time sig.
mid song though.

Those are the main show stoppers for me. I'll consider
BEAST a 1.0 when all that is sorted out on top of the
other main ones listed in the TODO such a wave
previewing, playback of notes when placed on the piano
roll, filters and a mixer.

dan@transelement.co.uk


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