Approaching: norns

definitely get the latest.

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the parameter presets should work if you have the latest firmware, and i fixed the earthsea pattern record function with earth+polymolly.lua (got the stars working too).

edit: updated all the gists on my page using earthsea with a new grid-controlled octave shift function too, hope it works ok :slight_smile:

thanks - thats great - much appreciated :pray:

The only issue i have now is with @markeats Loom. Its lost all the patterns i saved since the update. Everything is still there in the data folder but doesn’t read. The synth presets work but no patterns.

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I noticed the exact same thing on my nornses.

this has the unfortunate side-effect of smashing existing presets. if you want to convert old presets to the new system you simply need to run a find-replace on the whole file for each parameter type. for example, in playfair i converted some old presets by running fine-replace on "1: filter cutoff" , replacing it with "1_filter_cutoff" . highly suggest some fancy macro-ing for this task.

from here Norns: update 181002

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all presets id’s had to be converted in the update to accommodate the new more flexible parameter system.

i describe how to “update” your presets by hand: Norns: update 181002

i apologize for the trouble.

edit: thanks @speakerdamage!

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Hi - apologies in advance if this is not the right thread. Some background: I am looking hard into buying a Norns, but would love to keep my current grid setup: 256 + 64 + arc 2 (all early walnut, monobrights). I have owned every grid version, including the latest, and find myself coming back to these. In short, I want to know if there is any real reason to trade back up / down to a varibright 128. I’d specifically like to know:

  • Are there plans to expand the use of channels beyond 6 in mlr? I am not a coder, so I depend on the good people of this forum.
  • Is anyone currently using a 256 with mlr?
  • Is the varibright function critical to the workflow? Meaning, are you truly missing out on the music making experience on this device without this function?

Some on here have made educated guesses on what the experience would be like, but no real-world use cases that I’ve seen, unless I have overlooked them.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I see this too. Just opened up an issue: https://github.com/monome/norns/issues/601

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Wanted to give a shoutout to @markeats and @instantjuggler for Loom. been using it this afternoon to make ‘eccentric’ rhythms driving Madrona Aalto synth via midi for my new EP. Superb. This is the whole thing I love about Norns - a little toolbox of “not your usual” gadgets for making music - so easy to just create and not need to be messing about configuring or programming during music making time (although of course it does take up coding time :wink: but that’s another story…)

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the more-final version will be compatible with the 256, though it will be similar to the old mlr where mute-groups are assigned.

the current mlr doesn’t use more than 6 rows. so there’s no point really for using a 256

in general i’d say yes, variable brightness is critical as nearly all applications are designed with vari-bright in mind to make apps intuitive. mono will translate sortof but it’s likely a inferior experience. that said, all sorts of mono interactions can make sense (as they did for the first 5 years of monome) but largely you’d need to write your own scripts.

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i was plugging a similar grid setup into norns upon launch, albeit with a varibright 256.

there wasn’t any issue, but after trying out a friends production 128 i promptly upgraded—it just made the overall experience next-level elegant.

Thanks, Brian. This is very helpful. Question: is the version with 256 support something we’re likely to see in the next year or way later? Trying to figure out what I should do in the short-term.

Thanks for the info!

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How does everyone plug their guitars and other instrument level devices into norns? Any recommended instrument preamps? I have a piezo-type pickup for my upright bass and I need something to boost the signal going into norns. I’m avoiding using an amp in this case as I’ll send the output of norns directly into a PA.

I still have backup copy of my sequences loom.data file that I want to retrieve as it has 5 days worth of stuff I was working on. Does this file need editing the same as .pset file to get it to read? I copied it and replaced the new loom.data with the old one, but it didn’t show up.

No it shouldn’t need any editing, is it full of stuff or are there just a couple of lines of text in there?

its full of stuff like this

– Table: {3}
{
[“root_note”]=59,
[“name”]=“Aug 16 00:31”,
[“scale_notes”]={16},
[“pattern_height”]=8,
[“custom_scale”]=false,
[“notes”]={17},
[“triggers”]={18},
[“pattern_width”]=16,
[“bpm”]=56,
[“min_velocity”]=80,
[“max_velocity”]=100,
[“step_length”]=11,
[“scale_type”]=44,

OK - i just copied the whole “mark_eats” data folder over instead of just the one loom.data file and its working!

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great, glad you got those back!

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pheew - i had a lot of half decent stuff in that file! Panic over - thanks for the help :slight_smile:

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