Improve Beat+Bassline UI

[xsleonard]

Issues with the Beat+Bassline editor UI:

• Only one beat can be viewed at a time.
• Removing a sample removes the sample from all beats. This will be less catastrophic when undo is implemented.
• Muting/soloing a sample applies it across all beats. This feature is fine, but in the wrong place.
• Minor beat modifications require a new beat and new track in the song editor.
• Moving a sample's notes in a beat to a new beat is tedious and error prone.
• All samples are displayed in a beat regardless of whether they are used.

The solution to some of these is having a global samples panel separate from the beat+bassline editor.

As for viewing multiple beats at a time, I'm not sure it would be needed if Beat+Bassline tracks could be heterogenous, nor do I have an idea on how the UI should be.

For non-trivial beats, I find myself needing a Beat+Bassline for each sample, with 5-10 samples, and a Beat+Bassline for each variation of that sample. This often leads to 10-30 beat+basslines that are difficult to navigate both in the beat+bassline and song editor.

[unfa]

Maybe implementing pattern's version would be a good thing. In the pattern editor you'd have an option to "Add new version" or "Delete version". In the Sequencer one could then place several version of one pattern on one track - saving a lot of space. Also every pattern (a beat) could have it's own set of instruments (or at least could hide away unused instruments for this pattern and all it's versions. A hide/show unused instruments in the Pattern editor would keep things accessible while not bloated.

Versions of a pattern could form a tree and be numbered automatically like "Beat 1", "Beat 1.1", "Beat 1.2", "Beat 1.2.1" etc. There should also be an easy way to change the pattern's version in the sequencer (maybe a drop-down list opening after you right click on a clip. Also a context-menu option to "Make a new version in place" would be great - this way if you want to make a change in the beat, you just right click on one clip, make it a new version (it gets a different color and caption), then you switch to the Pattern Editor, where you have it already selected and ready to make some changes. Color-coding different versions of a pattern and/or displaying a version number inside the clip should be done.

Also a feature to detect if any version are unused or redundant (you sir have two separate versions of a beat but they are unchanged or identical) could be good with an option to "Clean up unused pattern versions" and "Merge identical pattern versions",

[tresf]

Closing as duplicate of #453. Please reopen if you feel this was closed in error.

[xsleonard]

Close enough; another approach is to separate the instrument list from the editor entirely, similar to renoise.