Hi,
been playing with mine now for a few days, and ran into several annoyances that can be fixed, with some effort. Would like to hear your ideas on this.
First, I use cubase. In Cubase, I can select the audio drivers I'm using but if I select the SH-01 then my main soundcard becomes unavailable. What I'd really like to do is use the audio over USB option in cubase, and not have to use up two inputs of my main soundcard. I reckon this is possible if a VSTi plugin is developed that can take audio in from the SH-01 and get it into cubase that way. Actually, this could be a feature of the tool Grauw ie writing maybe? That would make it very cool, and integrate nicely with the VSTi environment, bit like the Virus TI. Is this doable? And Grauw: great effort you're doing!
Even better would be to also then register all the parameters as VSTi parameters to allow full automation from any DAW! This would also enable total instant recall when opening a project in your DAW just like any other VSTi. I figure Roland had that in mind when designing the Gaia but has not followed through with it.
Second, the SHIFT-button is driving me mad already. Also. some controls are unusable, such as the LFO and Delay SYNC time settings. There's 20 of those, all on a rotary knob with no way of knowing which setting you've selected except you're ears but that's very difficult in many cases when you're listening to bouncing reverbs and artefacts. The solution I'm developing for this is an overlay for the entire front panel, lasercut and printed with everything necessary. So all knobs and faders will have their SHIFT-function also printed next to them and the SYNC options will have a 20-radial scale with the correct setting next to it. Same for FX Selection. Using a small font and utilising all available space, I think I can design a new faceplate overlay that will make it much easier to operate all features withough having to resort to the manual every 3 minutes.
All comments, additions, and ideas welcome. I'm pretty sure the faceplate thingy is going to work out. I have access to a lasercutter and stuff, and once its done, I can do a limited run at costprice for anyone else interested. The VSTi integration is another matter, as I can't program VSTi's but maybe Grauw would like to comment?
Cheerio!