#164

it’s happening when i’m in clip mode. i’ll load a sample and pad through it with no slew, delay etc. just a freshly loaded cheat_codes session. i don’t think it’s happening because of a specific function or combination of pad presses but i do understand what your talking about in terms of certain loops, filters, slewing etc. what’s happening is different from that kind of behaviour. i’ll send you an example shortly:)

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#165

ha also not related to the current problem but i was playing around with that exact idea that you provided in the example above and thought being able record shortening and elongating the sample from the sample menu edit (with the encoder) via *alt on norns could be a nice addition?

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#166

for sure – arc does this, but technically a version of this without arc is already possible :slight_smile:

the “rad sauce” pattern recorder will record the current state of a pad, each time a pad is pressed:

  • enable “rad sauce” pattern recorder
  • press a pad
  • change its end point
  • press the same pad
  • repeat change / press
  • play back pattern

then, you’ll see the loop points change as the pattern plays back. it re-triggers the pad’s playhead, but is a pretty nice approximation.

but, yeah, i hear ya – recording encoder gestures on their own would be dope! i feel like if we’re able to accomplish overdubbing patterns, then this would be a logical next step.

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#167

@dan_derks well we should meet up just in general to Norns and or other.

I need to test the clicks pops a little more as I was doing it at work on some downtime. I have a feeling tho that it might be a overall Norns thing and it has something to do with me having it connected to madien and smb while using cheat code but I need to test and I’ll get back to ya. Something to note is that the sample I was using on the tape was over the 8 seconds.

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#168

eh, this shouldn’t matter – the sample import function just takes the first 8 seconds and truncates the rest. this convo did get me to revisit that function tho, to give a little 0.05 sec tail so the end of the file doesn’t clip off at the end :slight_smile:

the maiden/smb thing is an interesting note. thank you for the diligence + positive energy!! plz dm if you find some downtime and want to meet

#169

@Deru @ESC @dan_derks really appreciated these words, thanks so much for listening.

tape write bug:
@zebra @dan_derks
i have spent the last three nights trying to reproduce (well, actually just using the script and recording to tape) and have not been able to. i don’t recall it happening before that specific recording either. i’m assuming “norns tape dropped audio frames two times and never again” is not a super useful issue on github so i have not opened one. if this is bad etiquette, let me know and i definitely will!

pattern recording on arc bug:
i had a hard time reproducing this one, but i think i figured out what was happening to me. there must be a time limit on how long you can record arc changes? if i start an arc recorder and and wait a long time, sometimes when i press it again, nothing happens. but shorter recording times do still work.

so this can probably be attributed to user error, but it would be good to present how much time you have to record on arc in one way.

new bug?: adjusting overdub level in params enables the record playhead even if it was not toggled. hopefully this one is self explanatory, this post is getting so long.

yes, you correctly identified the problem, as well as the problem with my solution to the problem!

i know i’m late and the technical limitations have already been covered in depth but i have a hot take on this from a creative perspective–you don’t actually need stems.

or, said less hot-take-ally, in my experience, the value add of separate stems from “jams” is a lot more marginal than i thought it would be (i also have the compulsive need to turn “jams” into “songs”) when i made the jump from ‘totally in the box’ to ‘some out of the box things’.

what i have found is that once i start considering the jam-to-song pipeline, the urge to edit out performance mistakes, sessions running too long for what they actually are, etc, in ableton becomes basically insurmountable. and there are several difficulties that arise from this, with the lack of stem-per-voice being just one of many issues:

a) with softcut jams like the one you commented on, they’re really not necessarily in any specific tempo because of the ebb and flow between pads. even with quantization on, if you want to find the downbeat or whatever for the jam, i almost always realize that i am hearing the tempo in a way completely incompatible with the way the computer was conceptualizing it. regardless of how many stems or voices there are, this makes it difficult to edit.

b) the need to “mix” your electronic “performance” in the process of performing it by definition renders the mix part of the performance, which then has to be somehow undone when it comes time to arrange and then mix the song version. subtle seeming changes made in context can make it impossible to convincingly join the beginning and bar and the end bar of a section that in retrospect went on slightly too long.

c) Limitations Are Good, Actually. outside of the newer softcut scripts, i use a script i cobbled together to learn norns to sequence the norns molly-the-poly synth. i had an melody/harmony idea i was really happy with and wanted to turn into a song, but the recording was a 15 minute loop of that melody with various adjustments to timbre. now, i really am not enough of a code person to have any business writing scripts, and it turned out instead of being the perfect harmonic loop i tried to make, the motif was actually in some weird odd number of measures, which i did not want. but instead of needing to carefully cut and crossfading the extra bar for the duration of the recording, i was able to solve this problem by hard-panning the recording and having the right channel come in a few bars behind the left channel, which made a super cool stereo effect that i otherwise would have never thought to do.

d) there’s also generally something really freeing about the process of finding a song from a sea of noise, noticing it, and then letting it move on. it becomes a kind of meditation. i have like 200 6 minute AIFs from my op-1 that i could probably get rid of without even noticing they were gone. having to be intentional about what is worth trying to preserve, and in what level of detail, is really good i think.

don’t get me wrong, i still love making songs. but i basically reject the ideal of a song as something which is performed, and prefer to construct the song in the daw from elements. in practical terms, this means if i am setting out to make a song, i am recording the entire norns session into ableton until it’s time to shut norns off. or, if i am jamming and coming across an idea that i like so much that i’d want to “finish”, i will use mute groups to record the loops with no attention giving to performance.

that’s it that’s the whole post

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#170

I hear you on all of that, and thank you for three detailed response! It’s good to know your thinking.

The only thing I’m not sure I agree with you on is the idea that limitations are good and therefore options are not. Both are good and both are valid, but if I could only pick one then I’d pick not having limitations as they tend to limit flexibility. I get that limitations can lead to creative solutions to problems (that those limitations created), but sometimes being able to solve a problem simply and quickly to move on to something else is also great, and they’re not mutually exclusive in my eyes.

But anyway this is all getting philosophical and probably far away from this script. Which is great as it is :wink:

Also nice song… I just followed you.

2 Likes
#171

! my cheat codes cheat sheet !

(with clip 1 loaded, all banks set to clip & buffer = 1)

bank (a):

bottom ziltch
ALT + X X - -
ALT + - - X X
ALT + - X - X as desired

middle ziltch
ALT + X X X

in [levels], K1 + E1 to turn the volume down real low

P to record & mash away!

++ sprinkle in some X - on top & X - X X for variety

bank (b)

bottom ziltch
ALT + X - - -
ALT + - - - X
ALT + X - X X

and a couple ALT + X X - in the middle for separation

this will be your long slow loop to keep things centered.
gells v nice with some slow resonant filter sweeps

bank (c)

P to stop the pattern running in (a)
pick yr fav loop from up top
ALT + that pad + a pad on (c) to copy it to the bank
we love this one so much that we’re gonna keep it running all by itself
ALT + - X X's for panning seperation
P on bank (a) to get your pattern back

take it away from here !!

I like to change panning & filters on different pads for (b) and (c) but keep the loop points and pitches mostly the same. It’s easy to get carried away with async stuff on cc but I’ve found this to be a great recipe for keeping things nice n mellow

<3 u already knew I was gonna love this one dan - it’s huuuuge for helping me put years of loose piano sessions to use. never vibed w/ a program designed by another person so much before ! expect some theft in my next softcut script hehe

14 Likes
#172

I made a weird one with cheat codes out of an old loop pulled off my loop pedal. It happens to be the 45th thing I recorded to the norns so I kept it simple and named it norns 0045. I quiet enjoy this script and in the past couple years I have found great enjoyment taking other works I made and finding bits and making new works.

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#173

finally had the right combination of time and energy to dive into this script this morning. oh my goodness, what a generous tool! a sample playground is the perfect descriptor. also want to echo what folks said upthread about how brilliant the zilchmo/pizza slice thing is. this thing is big and powerful and so much damn fun. amazing work :grin:

i’m currently rollin’ grid-less and was thinkin it would be cool if you could access the Clip buffers similar to how you switch between buffers 1 and 2 in cranes: just a long key press on the [loops] page would switch between a Live page and a Clip page. idk if it’d even be possible to implement it that way, but i just thought it was a cool/intuitive idea! :man_shrugging: thank you again for all of your hard work :grin:

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#174

I too got a chance to start digging with Cheat Codes yesterday.
It really looks wonderful, and I can see a lot of promise in the idea and the design.

however

my experience went a little differently:
after a couple of hours of noodling around, mainly using loaded sound files (so no recording to buffers), I experienced a weird “freakout” where the arc and the grid flashed on of for a bit, the sound got scrambled, and both external devices wen dark. The Norns froze: as in the physical interface became unresponsive even though sound continued to play. Pressing the reboot button on the back brought the Norns back, but it does not recognize arc or grid at all now.

Did anyone experience anything like this?
If so: what’s the fix?

I tested the grid with other modules, and it seems fine, but when plugged into Norns: id does not even show up in the “Devices” list as an option. On startup I see the little LEWD animation showing it’s waking up, but that is all. The same with arc.

As always: any advice will be very much appreciated.
Thank you!

#175

Try a norns SYSTEM>RESET with the devices unplugged, then plug them in again (maybe unplug/plug once or twice if needed)

#176

Ok so once again learning to Cheat last night and I may have a feature request (unless this is here, but I didnt find it yet).

I found my playing last night was totally crap for timing when I tried to record a pattern, so I figured it’d be cool if the Cheat could do it for me.

So… It would super rad if you could have the pattern banks play automatically (quantized) in-order or randomized. Then for the for something extra - be able to set the pattern length.

So for example, I slice up some samples, get those prepped in various pattern slots and then want to play those in order 1-8, then maybe changing that length. Then perhaps randomizing for extra fun.

I should poke at the code to see if I could actually suggest ways to do this, but sadly no time at the moment. :frowning:

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#177

i literally just broke solid ground on a ton of timing linearization and quantizing stuff today, lol. v1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1 will have it! it’ll be based on pad entry still (that input is super fundamental to the script’s personality), but will open up pattern manipulation and timing adjustments / wild card durations. it’s particularly lovely when MIDI synced for a generative beat-driven party. also super useful when building beat-less scapes.

@okyeron, were you playing with external time or internal only? if internal, try the quantize 4x4 pads + quantize pattern button options and set em both to 1 – you should be able to lay down a pretty straight quarter note loop at the current bpm. lmk!

@laborcamp, please lmk what happens with your situation. never run into that while playing, so i’m super curious :confused:

2 Likes
#178

Internal, and (pretty sure) i had those set but maybe it was the drum loops I was playing with being at a different tempo. Was going to try again later if I have time :+1:

#179

oh gotcha, it might not be worth it, honestly – some relevant tricks coming in the next update :slight_smile:

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#180

dan what’s yr thinking for limiting buffer size to 8s ?

for loading clips specifically it seems like you could just scale all the relevant ranges to the clip size without losing any playability. maybe I’m forgetting something tho

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#181

it was just a nice starting point – there’s a surprising amount of depth to be found in that short period of time and I just wanted to begin folks there.

some stuff does get a little wonky when you try to represent more than 24 seconds without introducing any workflow changes – I really like being able to bring the gap between the playheads within 0.1s w/ the encoders which becomes a lot harder to show on the screen when a ~2 inch line represents 60 seconds, for example. i know this could be addressed by switching the line for numbers, like on cranes, but i kinda like the line – it’s cute :slight_smile:

i’m looking into addressing this in a few ways, though, cuz i think for clips it’s becoming a bit necessary – the approach i’m most keen on would be keeping the on-screen [loops] display an 8 second view but presenting a small set of counters be able to scroll through 8 second segments across a 64 second sample. or maybe if we want cross-segment loops it’s just an “offset” number that pushes your view deeper into the sample.

so, immediately a fun performative gesture might be to keep the same loop size and jump across these buffer segments, etc.

q: are you driven by wanting a pad to play more than 8 seconds or wanting more of a sample to chop up?

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#182

personally I’m down with something as simple as a param that scales the 8s buffer size up to x seconds with the expectation of less resolution on the encoders/arc/screen (which *sounds easy to implement)

my use case is having a " " bar " " I want to play with that just happens to be longer than 8s (but never longer than 24). I’ll probably keep some pads that whole length and others super short random segments.

a complicated solution would be scaling window controls non-linearly once that loop size starts getting small but I honestly don’t even need that cuz I usually use use the combos to control the window which wouldn’t be affected the same as the encoders

I can easily make it do this myself tho in a separate script that inludes cheat codes if u don’t want to implement it though, lol. realizin it’s a bit of a pandoras box request as many things are

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#184

yeah, this sounds pretty solid – it’s definitely something I am going to implement, but i think there are a few snakes in the grass when it comes to other bits + bobs. it’d be super worthwhile, i agree. adding to the 1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1 roadmap. thanks for rubber ducking!

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