I fully understand that Playbeat 4 is designed for sequencing primarily through its internal keyboard section or via a MIDI controller.
I have tested this approach, but I found it to be overly cumbersome and inconvenient. These days, even melody and chord generators tend to offer direct MIDI export rather than relying on such an indirect workflow.
While this approach is undoubtedly beneficial for users who focus on live performance or finger drumming, it feels extremely limiting (and, in my case, nearly useless) for those like me who prefer editing MIDI notes to refine and modify drum patterns. While I recognize the uniqueness of this design choice, it’s difficult to support an approach that completely disregards a widely used workflow among producers.
Additionally, the 3 expansion packs I purchased separately contains a wealth of high-quality MIDI patterns. However, the fact that they can only be effectively edited within Playbeat 4—or through cumbersome workarounds—feels like a significant drawback. If I have to go through the tedious process of manually exporting MIDI as audio each time I want to make adjustments, it defeats the very purpose of using a sequencing plugin. Furthermore, this contradicts the inclusion of MIDI export functionality—if sequencing is intended to be done via the keyboard, under what circumstances is MIDI export actually meant to be used?
For me, plugins are meant to enhance workflow efficiency and convenience. Unfortunately, Playbeat 4 feels like a disappointing upgrade because it removes features I appreciated in version 3 while prioritizing uniqueness over practicality. This disappointment is further compounded by the various issues I outlined earlier. I believe Audiomodern could have mitigated much of this frustration by providing more in-depth video tutorials to properly explain these changes to users.
I already understand that I won’t be able to work the way I prefer, so at the very least, I just hope the stability issues and bugs get fixed.