#350

ah right, i remember now. it wouldn’t solve the issue with overlapped notes though, as you’d have to switch pages for different voices (unless it provides a way to split the keyboard between voices).

#351

yes, it doesn’t solve it for poly use. but sometimes i have this issue exactly when i want to use earthsea monophonically.
if instead we had a mono version the issue would not be there for mono use. you’d end up choosing the normal,poly earthsea when you need polyphony or the mono version when you want 1,2,3 or 4 mono lines.

imagine how great it might be to have 4 unrelated (when not clocked) or related but polyrhythmic (when clocked) gesture recorders\loopers!!! instinctive sequencing heaven!!!

7 Likes
#352

Want a retrigger on note change? Just patch your pitch cv into a quantizer with trigger output on note change and subtract that trigger output from your gate signal.

1 Like
#353

sorry, still not following… are we still talking about resolving the issue of unintentionally overlapping notes when using 1 voice only? even if there was mono mode how would it solve it? so you have 4 separate pages, each corresponds to a cv/gate output pair. you can switch between the pages. so you’re on page 1, playing a mono line which goes to voice 1. you overlap notes, same issue here, no?

#354

With regards to legato/note overlap, I too run into this, but personally I see this more a problem with my playing rather than with AEarthsea. It operates just as a monophonic keyboard would work. I wouldn’t suggest changing it. However, the option to have triggers instead of gates is a good compromise. I’m just forcing myself to practice (keeping my time consistent when recording phrases needs work too).

I too really like the idea of 4 separate mono sequences, that would fit a lot with how I like to work, but I realize it’s a lot of work to implement. Right now I’m forcing myself to just get better at poly mode and work with that as best I can.

#355

I’m into adding a choice between gates and triggers

#356

Would be nice addition:)

#357

i thought with a mono version you’d always retrigger when a button is pressed and that this is not the case with the poly version because this “always retrig” behaviour is useless and creates problems on a poly (the software never knows if that note is intended as retrigger of the same voice or as a new voice)

#358

Sorry. I was being a little loosey goosey with my verbiage there. By expression, I meant a trigger doesn’t allow for held notes which strips variable “time” from performance with the grid. Unless I’m not answering your question? In which case, my apology!

As far as discerning the difference in intention, my orginal thought was for a setting toggle that enabled such “monophonic” performance. If you decide to implement multiple sequencers, it could be a per output “solo” on the Voice Alocation page that restricts the channel to it’s one CV/TR output. This could tie into the multiple sequencer ideas noted above.

A midterm step in this direction might be having a single “solo” channel that allows a 3 note sequence to run using the other voices while allowing for the monophonic performance behavior on top of the existing sequencer. (So enabling on a voice would disable other voices from “solo”, and could be toggled off by pressening the enabled channel button.)

A simpler solution still might be: the toggle could be exclusive to voice 1 or 4 so you don’t have to manage which voice is the solo voice. Then it’s just an on/off dim button next to the existing voice channel buttons for the chosen channel. :thinking:

Food for thought! :blush:

#359

Wwwwwow and many likes everywhere for this.

A quick few questions as I’m new to earthsea!

  • How does overdub work - and do you copy an empty pattern over the one you just did if you fumbled on a recording?
  • The top progress bar - how do I best understand it? I quickly added a reset to the input, but looking at this that doesn’t seem necessary for my basic learning earthsea needs?
  • It seems easier to record with no clock in, tempo is elastic to the clock?
  • Is there any quantization going on, to tempo or scale?
  • When using more sound sources, is it best to just let the bass note be the last one in the chord, provided the sound intended for bass is patched to one of the bottom outputs?
  • Do you have a patreon? How do we contribute to your efforts?

Thank you! Really happy for this.

1 Like
#360

When you record on a pattern, it is cleared. There’s no overdub that I am aware of, but you can play on top of it and between notes if a voice is free.

I’m not sure what you mean, but it’s just a progress bar. It shows how far along through the sequence - duration when unclocked, step when clocked. If you enable looping, it will loop. A manual restart is optional. Earthsea can be a looper, an appagiator, or both.

Both have their quirks. Earthsea doesn’t keep a clock. On a clock pulse it just plays back the notes in order on each pulse. Without a clock, the timing of the sequence is only as accurate as you are. The sequence ends when you end record or hit play, so that has to be part of your performance timing. This can be tricky when performing with looping against other things that are clocked. It depends on what you’re doing. The clock doesn’t have to be regular, again there is no internal clock, so there’s no lag for tempo sensing. It just spits out notes on triggers.

Earthsea is mapped to fourths and semitones. Read the manual for the original Earthsea. There’s an Ansible Earthsea manual image further up in this post. Keep in mind there are no shape runes, and there are no plans for adding shape runes, so you can ignore those parts of the original manual.

Someone else can answer here, I’m away from my modular at the moment. I’m not sure how notes are prioritzed per voice when multiple are played.

He should! :blush:

5 Likes
#361

I’m trying to figure out why the progress often moves at a pace greater than one led per step

Apologies for everything evident from elsewhere! Being able to post about it is a great addition to the manual and cheat sheet. Thanks for all your answers.

#362

The progress is the total time if your recorded phrase. So if you recorded a phrase that took one minute, it will take one minute for the progress bar to fill up. It’s really there to let you know roughly where you are in the phrase that was played back. Since there’s no time limit to the recording (just a maximum of 64 notes), sometimes the phrases are long and it helps to know if the phrase is halfway done, or almost about to loop, etc.

The above is super helpful if you’ve recorded a phrase on one voice, and are live playing along with it on the other voices.

3 Likes
#363

The one cool thing with switching to triggers though is now you can instead modulate the envelope’s decay time and thus modulate the “hold time” that would have otherwise been statically recorded. Even though @scanner_darkly 's original purpose for this idea was to address the ‘overlap’ legato, I kinda like this idea in general. … @scanner_darkly - I haven’t played with “Fixed” mode enough yet, but would setting the gate time really short in Fixed mode essentially be the same thing?

@grey - I like where you’re going with those other ideas, because I think deep down I too would really like 4 separate mono channels each capable of recording a separate phrase. But it’s both a significant departure from the original Earthsea and probably a pretty significant implementation change to the code. But at the same time those ideas seem like compromises of what you ultimately really want.

FWIW, I’ve been getting pretty good at hoping back and forth from the voice allocation page and selecting one voice at a time. I still need more practice, but it’s getting better. Start with one voice, record a phrase, switch voice allocation, play the other voices… rinse, repeat. One thing I haven’t quite figured out is getting all the notes together (in unison) quickly.

#364

@grey and @jamescigler answered already (thank you!), i’ll just add a couple of notes…

no overdub right now but i’ll consider adding it in the future (together with the ability to copy patterns and/or the ability to commit/cancel an edit)

the clock is not used while recording, only for playback. right now there is only very crude quantization where it basically ignores your timing completely and just steps through the notes you entered. i might add something more flexible in the future, but i see free timing as one of the strengths of earthsea as it frees you from the typical grid.

i’ve been considering it but haven’t made my mind yet…

re: mono/poly/voice allocation - will gather my thoughts and post in a bit!

5 Likes
#365

yes this very much so. sometimes you gotta just kill the quantization

1 Like
#366

I personally really love the current implementation. You either get completely free, or clocked.
Sometimes I wish there was a pulse that occurred at the end of the recorded phrase, but then you loose a gate out for one channel. At some point, too many little features = a mess.

2 Likes
#367

I forgot I came to the thread this morning specifically to share a very fun patch/setup:

Start with 1 voice allocation for live play and record. Patch the 1v/Oct and gate to at least one voice (I mult’ed cv 1 to 4 voices and mixed them at different levels manually).
Patch Gates 2-4 to envelopes and/or random voltage generators. Patch CV 2-4 to VCAs or other things that go along with those envelopes/generators.

Now, record a phrase on Voice 1. Once looping, turn off Live Play for voice 1, and enable live play on 2-4.
At his point, now playing additional notes will trigger envelopes/modulation which modulate the main voice. Depending on where you touch on the grid, you increase/decrease that modulation.

Before you ask - nope, I forgot to turn the recorder on. I will make myself a todo note to eventually do that.

6 Likes
#368

this actually seems very useful and beneficial for earthsea free timing. and could be fitted in easily by adding a way to switch the clock output to trigger on each note or at the start (end?) of a loop (could probably put it on voice allocation page)

5 Likes
#369

So long as you could choose which output you end up using for the “start/end of loop” output pulse. i.e. use output 4 and the loop was recorded on output 1.

Also, grain of salt, this feature seems really useful in my mind, but I haven’t tried simulating it. My initial ideas were feeding some kind of clock multiplier, but maybe that doesn’t end up with great results since there’s no guarantee the free-played notes are going to be aligned with a tempo based off a time multiple of the loop length.

I’m happy to try something out though if you end up with an implementation idea.