It would be very helpful if VST Live allowed Layer/Stack changes to be offset by a user-defined duration. In live performance, a player might hit a note slightly early just before the bar where a part change occurs, and that note will still trigger the previous Layer/Stack, resulting in the wrong sound.
Also, this is not always just a tiny “human timing” offset. In many arrangements, certain instruments need to come in bars earlier than others even though the part itself hasn’t actually started yet (for example, a pad swell, riser, pre-hit, or pickup). In those cases, a simple small offset is not enough.
A good solution would be to give each Layer/Stack a free Pre-Activation and Post-Deactivation window relative to the part boundary, for example:
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Pre-Activation: activate this Layer/Stack X bars/beats/ms before the part start
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Post-Deactivation: keep this Layer/Stack active X bars/beats/ms after the part ends
This would be more reliable than moving the parts’ trigger points, which can break or complicate looping and jumping between parts.
I would also suggest that both Parts and Layers/Stacks have this control independently. Adding this control to Parts will allow this functionality globally for the parts’ Layers/Stacks. That way, the Part loop boundaries remain purely musical and structural, while the Layer/Stack activation timing can be earlier/later as needed either individually or globally, without forcing the part itself (and its loop range) to shift.
It would also be useful to add this functionality to Layers/Stacks sustain so we can control sustain individually on each Layer/Stack rather than globally. This is because some instruments might need less or more sustain than others on part changes.
All these controls should have the ability to be set based on various timing basis like bars, beats, seconds and milliseconds.