#116

the thing that would help with bees dev would be to get any bugs with arbitrary op deletion / insertion characterised, so I can pin down malfunctioning code in gdb/linux environment…

I suspect there are still some glitches with preset system under certain corner cases. If someone could come up with repeatable test case for any outstanding bugs on my grid-refactor.merge.net-use-malloc branch on github (pretty sure that’s the right branch), might stand a fighting chance to get things all straightened out…

Btw other goodies in there, such as bfin module flash over serial, ping bees net from a computer over serial, repatch bees over serial, arbitrary op deletion/insertion, more flexible grid-oriented ops. Many potentially awesome things are cooking in there but I need to develop host software (aka beaglebone glue code) in tandem to realize the integration into a working setup…

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#117

I’m intrigued… is this a way to connect a single grid to multiple devices or a multiple devices to an Aleph?

#118

Well here it is, maybe I should post it somewhere else though?
The long-time promised track I made with Grains. Basically one guitar, one Aleph+grid, one distortion unit and one reverb/delay, all recorded live at my studio. This just to show how amazing this module is, and how much can be done with it, and to thank @rick_monster for his amazing contribution to the Aleph community!

Hope you like it.

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#119

Ah well, the upload didn’t function so here it is, sorry!
Yann Coppier - Grain Rain

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#120

Amazing, I really enjoyed that.

#121

Absolutely stunning @Yann_Coppier! I am listening on my RCF Mytho 6. Sound is very detailed and well distributed in space.

#122

Thanks, glad you like it. I never tried the RCF speakers, but I did a slight bit of mastering and listened to it on some Genelec 8351 and Neumann KH310 to cover for the strange things happening around 16 kHz, as detailed above. No spatial change though, it’s all part of Grains. Interesting enough, I have only scratched the surface of this thing, I started to make some feedback between the grains and it can really go wild!

#123

certainly - the aleph serial protocol is pretty useful already. With the grid-interaction-as-bees-bangs paradigm, I could jerry-rig something quickly to enable a type of ‘grid-forwarding’ from host to aleph, leveraging the monome-osc server. Having said that I’d prefer to crack the monome serial protocol & have lisp directly drive /dev/monome serial, as I’m doing with /dev/midi & /dev/aleph or whatever.

My beaglebone project is codename serial-hub - that’s all I really aim to do in the first instance. Routing some midi & metronome signals etc through the beaglebone usb hub, down the aleph serial tubes to ‘special’ inputs/outputs on the bees net. The metronome signal provides bidirectional, tap-hinted boomerang sync.

Then I want to resurrect & extend my midi sequencer inside the ‘serial-hub’, at which point it gets a more exciting codename…

#124

absolutely wild - I am amazed you manage to make sense of the mess of parameters & choices with this module to make a coherent piece of music! I was so sucked into the code with this project, I only managed to find the time so far to play enough to test for really heinous audible glitches & faff around with some FM-textured corny dr-who things on the boomerang…

I’m curious, and hope you don’t mind me prying into your creative process - is this roughly an improvisation, or do you compose & plan the different sections & sounds before beginning the performance? Does this piece have any kind of visual notation? Do you methodically collect scenes/sound-gestures in a notebook or similar, or just using named presets or something? Also wondering which bees version you are using to such devastating effect?

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#125

Ah well it wasn’t so difficult after spending a few hours on each parameter haha. I deliberately chose to restrict my use to some distinct parameters in this one, using the matrix a lot with the 128 grid. And in this case it is full improvisation, no overdubs nor cuts afterwards - just a bit of equalization, as explained before.

I would add though, that even if there is no visual notation of any kind here, I always try to tell a story when I improvise. I usually find a starting point, and then I listen a lot and work on the duration. No presets either, but I did make a special version of Bees to add some elements I wanted. Nothing crazy, just to ease my programming. Can’t remember which version it was based on actually so I’ll have to look again.

Anyway thanks!

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#126

Are you planning on using devicefs and the device USB port on the BBB to talk to the Aleph’s AVR32?

#127

ummm probably, though only think I know what you mean by devicefs. On my linux box I open /dev/ttyACM0 as a binary stream from common lisp, after invoking some magic stty command to set the right baud, parity etc…

My branch of bees implements a binary serial protocol based on:
http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2009/08/12/framing-in-serial-communications
which enables the following features:

  • externally stimulate bees net or DSP params from host software
  • load bfin DSP prog over serial
  • re-patch bees net from host software
  • very limited host callback functionality
  • makes cups of tea (as-yet unimplemented arduino-controlled robot arm also required for this feature)

there are no docs, only a common lisp testbench including stress tests etc… There is a C program for bfin flash over serial, which lights the way…

#128

Hello all. I just started playing with Grains again. Any chance we can discuss it again, or is it definitely dumped? It’s such a fantastic module, really I get wild each time I’m on it (although it does take half a day to understand it again)…

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#129

Sure I’d love to discuss - still hoping to eventually incorporate scenes based on this module into my own performance practice. The sequencing aspect is the most difficult for me at the moment - very little interest myself in performing ambient, though I love that there are people out there doing it!

Still trying to find a way to do groove-based stuff incorporating some experimental sounds & interactive guitar ‘synthesis’ in such a way that grooves can continuously evolve, flip between different song sections etc. Unfortunately trapped into full-time work for the forseeable - but yeah would love to hear about your experiences with the module, suggestions etc. You’re almost certainly the main user - even myself I’m not familiar with the ins & outs of actually using this software for music-making…

#130

Well I am getting into it again, and although I haven’t still found all my marks back, I have discovered some interesting other parts to it. And yes, sequencing would be nice but probably complex here, and I would love to contribute. Right now though I am still mostly wondering about the length of the buffer, which seems to repeat itself 8 times when set to the max. You wrote somewhere that it was a very long one, but I feel like I am missing something there as with a value of 4096 I seem to get the full length of it, one time. Was that on purpose? Also, why put an 8000 Hz limit on the Lowpass filter (it does feel like it needs some resonance sometimes, but well).
…
Damn, I do have a million questions. I am doing a two days session from tomorrow on with a Norwegian trumpet player and I intend to use Grains as a starting point, just to see where it brings us. I’ll try the CV out thing as well for the first time, and will let you know about the results!

2 Likes
#131

Think it’s broken - sorry! Feel free to raise an issue on my github (rick-monster), remind me to really get round to fixing that…

Love to hear something from that!

pretty sure not - raise an issue on my github!

iirc, that’s a non-resonant (first order) filter, done in such a way to save a few cycles (but sacrifce the accuracy needed for high frequency)

#132

I’ve been spending some time trying to learn grains…I’m doing ok but feel I am lacking a clear understand of what grains actually is and what it’s doing. I’m hoping I can get a clear summary from some of the long time users.

I believe I have a good grasp on the routing, inputs, and auxiliary portions of the matrix.

Is grains a delay module? Or is there just a delay module in it? I can’t figure out what the scrub parameters are versus echo, and how they interact. Is echo min and max the buffer size?

I’ve read all the above posts where the parameters are outlined but still don’t feel like I have a good grasp.

I’ve been trying to make a scene where one grain is an octave up and one is an octave down from what I am playing (guitar or synth input) and the echo times seem to change. Also it seems when I make changes to some parameters I have to reset the values of other parameters, like echoTime.

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#133

The thinking behind it is each playback engine has an ‘echo time’ & two ‘scrub heads’. The scrub heads are ‘scrubbing’ around the echo time to give ‘granular’ pitch-shifting effects. There’s some rudimentary pitch detection which allows the ‘scrubbing’ to lock on to the frequencies around the ‘echo time’.

Because the ‘echo speed’ doesn’t have to be 1, the ‘echo time’ won’t necessarily stay synced to the input. In this case the echo min & echo max come into play. They also come into play if you disable writehead, in which case the perceived playback speed (‘echo speed’) stays the same, but now it’s operating on a pre-recorded buffer, rather than functioning as a purely realtime effect.

This document may or may not come in handy https://github.com/monome/aleph/blob/dev/modules/grains/grains.org
in the section ‘grain anatomy’ I really tried to describe all the features, including all the easter eggs & tricks that can be achieved by switching different features on/off. For example the different types of ‘FM’ processing effects…

2 Likes
#134

Thank you. I was hoping there would be a page like that…I wouldn’t have guessed a .org file! I’ll keep experimenting and seeing what I get. It seems that’s how most people have really learned anyways.

#135

I will post a scene I made for Grains, using the grid as a matrix. Very useful for understanding how Grains work if you ask me.

6 Likes