setting up op-z
we’ll need to make some adjustments to OP-Z’s MIDI settings, so grab a screen and navigate to the OP-Z’s MIDI SETUP menus:
for globals, make only the following active:
- MIDI IN ENABLE
- MIDI OUT ENABLE
- CLOCK IN ENABLE
- CLOCK OUT ENABLE
then, you’ll want to choose three tracks to control the three banks of cheat codes. how you set that up will depend on your end-goals, but make sure you take note of the midi channels for each track. if you’ve never edited the MIDI channel assignments for the tracks on your OP-Z, they’re likely set up as 1-16 – double check in the app, though!
depending on your goals, you may also want to disable the OP-Z feature where changing tracks make a little “preview” sound of the instrument. if you connect to OP-Z using disk mode, there’s a config > general.json file you can edit. change "disable track preview" to true !
plug your op-z into norns using the USB-C charge cable. you should see OP-Z in your SYSTEM > DEVICES > MIDI list. please take note of which port it’s on (1/2/3/4).
setting up cheat codes 2
in cc2’s PARAMS, go to MIDI setup :
- enable MIDI control? yes
- MIDI control device whatever port your OP-Z is on
- enable MIDI echo? yes, this allows the encoders on OP-Z to be used like arc!
from there, you’ll want to set the bank MIDI channels to match the tracks from the OP-Z. they’re defaulted to 1/2/3, which on a factory-set OP-Z is the first, second, and third tracks. leave the pad MIDI base at 53.
start
if everything’s set up correctly, you should be see OP-Z in the top right corner of the cheat codes main menu screen.
on the OP-Z, press the +/- buttons until you see the “5” light up – this means you’re in the right octave and that “note 53” will be the very first key on the keyboard.
head over to the [loops] screen to try it out!
on the OP-Z, the 16 keys up to the button marked “7” are the sixteen pads of cheat codes. pressing them makes the loop window move.
you might not know, but if you press+hold key1 on norns while you’re on [loops], you’ll access a secondary edit screen which lets you re-assign pads to samples or live input. press button “7” on OP-Z to jump to pad 16, which changes all the pads in a bank – this means you can quickly assign all the pads in a bank to the same clip:
encoders
OP-Z’s onboard encoders are mapped to some of the same functions as arc.
1: start point
2: end point
3: filter cutoff
4: level
if you have enable MIDI echo set to “yes”, then every key press should be changing the brightness of the LEDs on OP-Z’s four encoders. their values are being adjusted to the values of the selected pad.
mod key
the very last button on OP-Z’s keyboard acts as a modifier. if you hold it while pressing other buttons on the keyboard, it’ll change parameters instead of triggering notes.
looking at the top keys of the OP-Z keyboard (which are conveniently numbered), these will change parameters for all the pads in the bank…
1: halve playback rate
2: reverse playback rate
3: double playback rate
4: toggle pad looping on/off
5: toggle recording on/off (or trigger recording if in 1-shot mode)
6: random pad start point
7: random pad window (distance between start and end points remain constant, but move )
8: random pad end point
9: slice all pads to 1/16ths of the recording buffer’s length
0: clear the live audio between the recording buffer’s start/end points
each key left-diagonally under the top keys perform the same functions, but they adjust only the currently selected pad.
so you can think of the numbered keys as global modifiers, and the key diagonally under the numbered keys as local modifiers, eg:
1 2 3 -- global
. . . -- local
where next?
feel free to use any of the OP-Z’s onboard sequencing and pattern recording and all that – the MIDI FXs do some incredibly cool things to cheat codes.
