A new alternative note mode specifically to create monophonic melodies accent and slide: to enter this mode press Alt + Note (I think this does not contain an existing shortcut yet, does it?)
This expands the selected channel to the 4 channels rows of the Fire:
The first row contains the pitch and gate on/off information (lit = on, pitch is set like in step mode)
The second row contains slide on/off information (lit = on)
The third row contains accent on/off information (lit = on)
There should also be an option to set the gate (note) length, but it should be 50% standard, just like the TB-303 (and transistor bass!) Maybe use the fourth row for this (the brighter the pad is lit, the longer the gate length)
All data input on the Fire should be sent straight to the piano roll (as the step sequencer is not capable of containing these kind of information - the piano roll can "simulate" slide by using overlapping modes and accents by setting a velocity of 127) // alternatively the current step sequencer could be upgraded to contain this information (this would be even better!!)
Also, when the Transistor Bass plugin is selected, it would be fun to be able to program directly into the plugin using the AKAI Fire (only when the internal sequencer is activated of course!)
I'd buy 2 more AKAI Fires if this feature would be added! I'd use 2 of them permanently in this mode to sequence 2 transistor bass plugins, while using their encodes to control the cutoff, resonance, envelope amount etc.
And even better: I would use this to send midi to my hardware synths, effectively ginging any of my synths a nice 303 style hardware (hybrid) sequencer
