Approaching: norns

Monome
3041

hey all, not sure where the best thread is, feel free to merge me.

I have a problem with accum/relative CC mapping. if I turn an encoder on my controller, then change the param on norns itself, then go back to using the external controller, the value jumps to where it was when I last turned the controller knob. This kills the purpose of relative control, so I hope I’m just missing something.

also, sidenote, i just put in a PR to allow any CC above 64 to increase, and anything below 64 to decrease, instead of just 65 and 63, which not all controllers support. :slight_smile:

thanks!

edited to not be so grumpy

2 Likes
3042

During the last drop early August I ordered a Norns and a Grid. According to UPS both should arrive tomorrow. I have to admit I am very happy :slight_smile:

Now I am wondering of course, where to start.
I do have some experiences with synths, eurorack and Ableton. Some gear I could imagine to connect Norns and Grid to include a Vermona Perforumer, Vermona DRM, Midi in to Eurorack, maybe even Digitakt or Syntakt. I also have a Polyend Seq, that might become obsolet now with the Grid. I also have a beautiful midi controller that I could imagine to hook up to Norns (the Midique KNTLR9 MK2 with 9 faders and 27 rotary knobs) if that makes any sense.

What would you do as a new beginner in this journey? What do I need to learn first - and how?

All help and pointers to tutorials and guides are very welcome.
Thank you!

4 Likes
3043

https://monome.org/

On the monome home page you will find the documentation for both.

This is as good a place as you can find to start onboarding.

I have had my norns for about a month now and have been working my way through this material.

Since you are getting them together it may be wise to focus on norns first, then norns plus grid.

Grid can do much more than just work with norns but keeping focus on norns would help accelerate your progress…

Just one opinion of course.

12 Likes
3044

i’ll update if I think of any more real standouts, but here are some of my favorites.

  • passersby for a mono synth engine @markeats
  • mlr for async looping @tehn
  • blndr for swirly delays @infinitedigits
  • arcologies for a whole world of abstract generativity @tyleretters
  • cyrene for oddball map-based rhythm sequencing @21echoes
  • otis for cocoquantus love @Justmat
  • and i’ll plug my script Sempra for melodic phrase sequencing

importantly: the whole point of norns is that it’s an open platform where people can make whatever they want. The question is what do you want to do?

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3045

I just got mine a few weeks ago and thanks to @fourhoarder i started with Buoys, just to watch the grid in interaction with the sounds.

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3046

You might find some inspiration in this thread, from earlier in the summer:

https://llllllll.co/t/my-current-favourite-norns-script/55964

I hope you enjoy your explorations of some of the amazing scripts so generously shared by other members of this community - please do let us know how you get on!

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3047

I think I would first ask what motivated you to buy them. Besides the basics which can be learned from the documentation, are you interested in any specific scripts or uses for it? Do you want to build something yourself (some people don’t have any interest in that and that is fine)? I would also browse this site to see what’s possible if you haven’t already:

4 Likes
3048

I highly recommend the gridkeys mod so you can instantly play any script with grid! Also just take some time with awake and going through the menus to build muscle memory.

My current favorite combo is grid+mx samples+gridkeys mod. Played a show with it yesterday and had a blast

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3049

Is it me or is this thread gone? It says not found here.

3050

it’s still there, i think seeing it is restricted by trust levels. it’s in the open category, so it’s only visible once you reach “member” status.

https://llllllll.co/badges/2/member

and some more on discourse trust levels:

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3051

I’ve wondered about this for two years now, since getting a norns shield.

It says, in negative terms, the following:

when the not-red light
stop blinking
disconnect power

RasPi 3B+ has green as the not-red light… so what color is it on the other kind of norns?

3052

It’s a perception thing - some people can see the same wavelength as yellow.

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3053

It doesn’t apply to factory norns which shuts off power. This is applies to all versions of the shield and as the post above says, takes into account color blindness.

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3054

Always found this message slightly awkward. Something like “when the blinking light stops, disconnect power” would also work I think :person_shrugging:

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3055

Thank you. I am looking mainly to have norms generate sequences with grid letting me modify parameters while performing. And from what I can tell, there a lot of options in that category. So I guess sending Midi to the Perfourmer for example would be my main path.

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3056

One of my favourites for this is Plonky, which can control up to 8 external devices via on their own sequences (or arpeggiations) as well as play internal sounds from Polyperc and/or Mx.Samples under quite intuitive grid control.

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3057

I keep running into various things I can’t see around lines and this discourse post keeps getting linked. I’m past the discourse requirements shown for “member” but am still at “basic”. I’m trying to just engage organically but something seems off with this and it’s a little frustrating to have various conversations dead end for some reason I don’t understand.

1 Like
3058

Norns and Grid arrived today. So the journey begins. Thank you for all the kind tips, tricks and links over the last days.

What did I accomplish today? Way more then I expected:

  • Managed to power up Norns (not so easy with just and US plug, for us europeans).
  • Hooked Norns up to my audio interface and listend to some beautiful Awake soundscapes
  • Connected Norns to my Wifi
  • Connected Grids to Norns. Need more beautiful short and braided USB cables
  • Added Audio In from my Audio Interface into Norns
  • Setup a return track in Ableton to send sound into Norns
  • Connected Norns to an old USB midi interface
  • Connected Midi to Perfourmer MK2
  • Discovered how to send Midi from Awake
  • Used Grids to interfere with Awake
  • Recored Audio back into Norns
  • Connected old USB midi interface to receive clock and transport from Syntakt
  • Now Norns is fully clocked and running within my overall setup. Great!!

What I did not achieve:

  • mangle with the recorded audio (time stretching, granular etc).
  • not sure if that is possible while Awake is running. Can we have more than one script?
  • get Midi via Ableton Link or Audio-Midi-Setip into the system (might be an issue with the Mac using Ethernet)

That was a very fun and not so complex experience. Looking really forward to explore the device further from here.

8 Likes
3059

Hi, welcome to norns!! :slight_smile:

Awake doesn’t provide capabilities for this—although other scripts, like mlr and many others do. Norns loads one script at a time.

3 Likes
3060

…however, there are interesting script combo’s out there. the orgn synth script and wrms looper/delay script combined as the super powerful orgnwrms, to give an example. :people_hugging: i’d highly recommend all three, especially to grid-owners.

7 Likes