Device Management

The device screen allows you to manage settings for the Advance device hardware itself.

Note: the Advance saves its device settings to the sdcard, so if you replace the sdcard in your Advance, the device configuration will reset to factory defaults.

MIDI

The MIDI section contains settings for MIDI input and output.

• Output Device: Selects the MIDI output interface. Available options are:

  • Off
  • TRS
  • USB
  • TRS+USB

• Ctrl Surface: Enable or disable automatic MIDI control surface input handling. Available options are:

  • Off
  • Auto

• Transport/Sync: Controls whether the Advance sends MIDI clock sync messages. Available options are:

  • Off
  • Send

• Input Device: Selects the MIDI input interface. Available options are:

  • Off
  • TRS
  • USB
  • TRS+USB

• Clock in: Selects whether playback tempo follows MIDI clock received from the selected input device. Available options are:

  • Off: Playback uses the project tempo.
  • On: Incoming MIDI clock adjusts the playback tempo. Sudden tempo changes settle smoothly without skipping song positions. If MIDI clock stops arriving, playback smoothly returns to the project tempo.

MIDI Start, Continue, and Stop messages from the selected input device control playback whether Clock in is Off or On.

The current playback tempo is shown immediately to the left of the battery display, followed by I for the internal clock or M for MIDI clock. The value is averaged so that small timing variations do not make the display difficult to read.

Remote UI

This setting enables or disables sending commands to a computer attached via USB to the Advance running a "remote UI" application that can mirror the display from the Advance.

The official picoTracker remote UI web application is available here.

NOTE: The remote ui webapp ONLY works in Chromium based desktop browsers.

Instrument Audition

This setting enables or disables automatic instrument audition when you edit sound-changing parameters in the Instrument and Voice screens. It is On by default.

See Auditioning Instruments for the complete behavior.

Import Resampler

This setting allows the selection of the sample rate converter used during sample import. Available options are:

• None
• Linear
• Sinc
• Sinc HQ

Check the sample instrument section for more details.

Display Brightness

The display brightness setting allows you to adjust the backlight level of the Advance's LCD display. The brightness value is shown in hexadecimal and can be set from 0F (minimum) to FF (maximum). The default value is FF (maximum brightness).

Adjusting the brightness can help with battery life (lower brightness uses less power) and visibility in different lighting conditions.

Output Volume

The output volume setting controls the master audio output level. The value ranges from 0 (muted) to 100 (maximum). The default value is 40.

Battery Health

The device screen displays the current battery state of charge (State of Health) as a percentage on the right-hand side of the screen. If the battery reading is not available, NA will be shown instead.

Theme Settings

The Theme Settings screen allows you to customize the appearance of the Advance interface, including fonts and colors. To access the Theme Settings screen, select the "Theme settings" option on the Device screen.

See the Theme Settings chapter for more details.

Updating Firmware

First copy the new firmware file you want to install to the top level directory of your sdcard using your computer and then insert it back into your Advance.

Then go to the Device Screen and select the Update firmware menu item. You will be prompted to confirm that you want to reboot and lose any unsaved changes. This will reboot the Advance into its "bootloader" mode.

If the sequencer is currently playing, the update will be blocked with a "Not while playing" message — stop playback first.

Once the Advance has booted into the bootloader mode, you will see the bootloader user interface on the screen:

You can now use the arrow buttons to select the .bin firmware file to install from the sdcard and press ENTER to install the firmware.

Once installation of the new firmware is completed, you can use the arrow keys to move the selection to the Reboot on screen option to reboot into normal mode and be running the newly installed firmware.

NOTE: If for some reason you cannot boot into the normal mode on your Advance, you can also boot the Advance into its bootloader mode by holding down the boot button, accessible through a small hole below the sdcard slot as you keep pressing the power button for approximately 8 seconds to reboot into the bootloader mode.