STEPPER v1.6

Hello folks!

This one is quite an interesting update! I've been having a lot of helps from "catbeats" (https://www.instagram.com/catbeatsofficial/) to improve STEPPER's UI and a bunch of other features. They are also thoroughly beta-testing different builds and doing many nice demos that you probably want to check out!

The main changes are a renewed and improved UI for parameter adjustment, simplification of the Wave channel that gives access to a curated list of waveforms and variants (which could be expanded upon in the future!) and the addition of probability/conditional trigs and a per trig panning support in all channels.

The new UI is much more consistent between channels and the parameter cursor is much bigger for better readability. Custom waves shapes where interesting in previous versions but a hassle to work with, this streamlined approach will make it easier to get new interesting sounds by using or combining existing waves and wave variants.

The new probabilistic/conditional triggers are a great addition that can help extend your sequences and make interesting experimental tunes.

Note that panning is a tri-state option (left, middle, right, since there is no option to be more granular volume adjustment on the DMG channels and it can cause clicks and pops to appear, but that's the nature of the beast!

Apart from some minor bugfixes the other major change is that each bank stores the pattern chains and these are saved to the SRAM. Additionally you can now switch to different banks without stopping playback. Keep in mind this is a bit experimental at the moment and you would have to time it, as there is no bank change queuing right now, but I'm curious of what people think of it!

I would also like to acknowledge that when running STEPPER on the mGBA emulator, it seems at times sounds will cut off on the two square channels. This happens after the emulator has been running for a bit, and if you start playing again, the sound will return after a while. This bug doesn't happen on real hardware (GBA/NDS) or other emulators, like "ares". I've tried everything I could to fix this, but it doesn't seem to work so unless I'm doing something wrong it seems this is an emulator bug. I believe other handhelds like the Miyoo mini use mGBA for their GBA emulation so I would urge you to see if you can try a different emulator on these devices if you are having this kind of trouble.

JoeBleeps also was very involved in testing STEPPER for a while and he recently released an in-depth tutorial about it:

Some more exciting changes are coming in the future, stay tuned!

For a full list of changes in this version, see below.

Cheers!

BD

CHANGE LOG

UI Improvements

• New fixed grid (5x2) parameter adjustment UI
• Add prob/conditional triggers (% based or 1:2, etc.)
  
• Add panning support
• Change cursor drawing for new parameter pages
• Change cursor behavior for new parameter pages
• Display param values on the notification bar when editing parameters
• Change ch3 to only color the waveform that is selected depending on the mode/voice
• Grey out colors when foreground is also grey (global channel parameters)
• Bigger indicator for currently playing pattern in the chain
• Thick line cursor is now the default one

• Wave channel is simplified and now has a selection of different waves and wave variants
• Wave channel now stops playback if it encounters an "off" trig
• Make the channel parameters initialize to default
• Each bank now stores its own pattern chain
• Store pattern chains on the SRAM
• Banks can be now switched live without playback stopping

New features

• Per trig probability/conditional playing
• Panning support