The Pattern Editor is a great feature, however some missing basic functions make it a pain to use at times.
The lack of undo / redo almost puts me off using it.
I can’t try something different and then revert back to what I had?
I decrease the number of steps, then decide I want the ones I’d removed back… notes are gone, couldn’t undo, had to recreate the pattern from scratch.
I accidentally edited Pattern 1 instead of Pattern 2… Unlucky, my original Pattern 1’s gone forever.
These are just some examples that make it a bit frustrating to use.
Another function would be the ability to move patterns to other tracks / rearrange patterns. If I create an intricate pattern and for any reason want that same pattern on another track, I have to remake it step by step? The ability to move patterns / copy steps is another basic function that would make this so much handier to work with.
At the minute, I’m almost afraid to make any changes to my patterns in case I make a mess and lose everything. That puts me off wanting to use what is otherwise a fantastic feature.
I feel similarly. I think the pattern feature is a step in the right direction but I’m hesitant to rely on the workflow when I have other pattern tools with those features, such as Undo. I’m actually using UVI Falcon currently, which shockingly only added an Undo feature 3 years ago.
In some ways, I’m excited to see what it will be like in version 15, assuming they address the things you’re mentioning.
Agree with this 100%. The Pattern Editor is a step in the right direction… but it’s basically unusable for me in its current state for the reasons you outlined. Hopefully we’ll get some of these improvements in upcoming updates.
I’m totally excited about the potential workflow advantages of the new Pattern Editor – and the opening set of features is a delight. Just the absence of Undo is a bit puzzling as even very small developers of recent MIDI pattern editor plugins have typically implemented that in their first versions.
In the short term, I’ll probably use the “duplicate pattern” command an awful lot in an attempt to create a bit of a manual version history that I can return to. – I’m old enough to have worked with computers when manually keeping one’s own Undo history was the only way.
