PREAMBLE: If you think this is a good feature request, as much as a “+1” comment is appreciated, hit the “vote” button! This is how the devs can decide which features get implemented.
Can we have more than 4 groups for expression maps? I’ve written a quick script that can generate an expression map with more than 4 groups, which is supported in the lane UI, however it doesn’t seem to actually work past group 4.
When creating more complex expression maps for instruments with multiple state switches, this would be a vast improvement.
For a concrete example, I’ve created two expression maps for Ilya Efimov’s Accordion. In the VSTi there’s 6 groups of state switches I can identify as useful, so I would create groups like this:
Group 1: Sustain OR Staccato OR Crescendo
Group 2: Piccolo switch on OR piccolo switch off
Group 3: Concertina switch on OR concertina switch off
Group 4: Clarinet switch on OR clarinet switch off
Group 5: Bassoon switch on OR bassoon switch off
Group 6: Detuned OR not detuned
This looks like this in the UI having created the expression map via the script:
However, the bottom two groups, whilst displaying - do nothing.
I can work around it but it means the number of combinations I have to have in a group is large! So the workaround is this configuration:
Group 1: Sustain OR Staccato OR Crescendo
Group 2: Detuned OR not detuned
Group 3: All possible combinations of timbre switches (piccolo, concertina, clarinet, bassoon) - which is 16 in total.
As such the number of articulation lanes goes from 13 to 21 - which is not too much of an issue for a small instrument.
That looks something like this:
HOWEVER now take an instrument like Organteq by Modartt. This has 10 stops, which can be on or off, and a tremulant stop, for a total of 11 two-state switches.
If more than 4 groups were supported, I could have 22 articulation lanes to fully control the state of the instrument. However, to accommodate the instrument otherwise I would need every possible combination in 4 groups, and as there are 2^11 = 2048 combinations, this is unfeasible for that number of articulation lanes!
I don’t know how many other people work this in depth with expression maps, so I suspect this is pretty niche - but its still a big shortcoming of expression maps in my view.