Roadmap: help us decide what to build next

[Patrick]

v2.5.1 is the “make the tree something we can keep developing” release. The interesting work is what comes after it.

The public roadmap is here:
https://github.com/ZeppelinDesignLabs/quaverato-firmware/blob/main/ROADMAP.md

It is a statement of intent, not a promise. No dates. Priorities will move based on what people actually ask for — which is why this thread exists.

First up is not a user-facing feature. It’s a rewrite of the LFO engine (DDS phase accumulator, wider fixed-point depth maths, 9-bit PWM on the optocoupler LEDs). That’s the foundation that makes the features after it cheap instead of impossible. Sweeping depth with an expression pedal zippers today; that is the single most impactful change for how the pedal feels, more so than PWM resolution.

After the engine, these are on the table. Three of them have a real decision attached, and I’d rather hear from people who play the pedal than guess.

1. Continuous phase offset between the high and low bands

Harmonic mode currently does lightIntensity = 255 – lightIntensity. That’s amplitude inversion, not a phase shift. For a sine the two are identical. For a saw or ramp they are not — the low band gets a reversed ramp rather than a delayed saw, which is not what the manual describes. Reading the second channel from the wavetable at an offset index gives a true 180°, fixes saw/ramp, and makes every angle in between available. Around 90° the two bands sweep through each other instead of alternating. That’s a sound this pedal cannot currently make.

The compatibility problem: splitDutyCycle() doubles the period in harmonic mode, which is why the manual tells you to set MULTIPLIER to double-time. With a continuous offset there is no single correct compensation.

Should we:
(a) keep the period-doubling and live with the documented wart,
(b) drop it and fix the docs, or
(c) scale the compensation with the offset?

2. A second bank of wave shapes

There’s roughly 17 KB of flash free. Each table is 256 bytes, so the ceiling is somewhere around sixty additional shapes. Which ones are actually worth having? Don’t say “all of them.” Pick three you’d use this week.

3. A shift layer on the TAP footswitch

There is no spare knob. Holding TAP for over a second would put the six knobs onto a second set of parameters, with the bypass LED indicating the mode. BYPASS is already taken (five-second hold saves a preset), so TAP is the free control.

Proposed initial mapping, kept deliberately sparse:
• HARMONIC MIX → phase offset
• WAVE SHAPE → second wave bank
• RATE → inter-band drift

Is that the right three? What would you put on the other three knobs, or would you leave them alone so the layer stays trustworthy?

Also worth saying out loud, because these come up and the answer will never change without a new pedal:

The ATmega328P never sees the audio signal. It only drives two optocoupler LEDs. The entire signal path is analog. So: no envelope following, no pitch tracking, no delay, no reverb.

There is one output jack, so no true stereo. Two Quaveratos can already be run in stereo using CC 35 to invert one of them.

There is no MIDI out or thru. The UART transmit pin is wired to the bypass footswitch. The pedal can receive MIDI. It cannot send it, and it cannot report its version or presets back over MIDI.

Comment here. Commenting on a GitHub issue is fine too, but this thread is the place I’ll actually read. Feedback before something is built is worth far more than feedback after.

— Patrick

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