Cool. If you’re recording 12 tracks, does that consume A1-D3? The ER-301 can otherwise just carry on doing what it does with whatever jacks you’re not using for recording?
cubis
1107
Cool, I’m getting a comparator soon. I was actually getting it for playing with the idea of creating random gates (S&H noise into comparator’s positive input, threshold will set the amount of gates created). For EOC, did you mean like mult the output of the envelope and set the threshold to 0 or something?
cubis
1108
Oh that sounds cool! I’m actually building an MU format system, which is why I was kind of vague about asking for specific modules. Noise Engineering has 4 of their oscillators in large format, but none of their other stuff. Still, this is an interesting technique to think about and I’m going to see if I can mimic it.
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You can also use an attenuverter and offset along with your comparator to do this. Set the offset to the same voltage as your threshold and use the attenuverter to invert your envelope. Now whenever the envelope is high the voltage will drop below the threshold of the comparator and whenever it is finished the comparator will go high again. It takes a bit of finessing to get the voltages exactly right, but I’ve gotten it to work with my System X ADSRs which lack a EOC output.
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Ok, let me ask this a different way: how many external (physically patched in) channels of audio can the ER-301 record simultaneously?
Twelve channels total, shared between your arbitrary selection of internal and external sources. ER-301 has sixteen audio-capable inputs, but only four of them have anti-aliasing filters.
Ok, in practice, the lack of antialiasing filters means what?
From ER-301 wiki:
you will experience aliasing if your audio contains substantial energy above 30kHz
Since those inputs are all sampled at 60kHz.
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simka
1116
looks great, will definetly refer to it if I ever need better setup!
one thing that you probably know about (and I am not sure is worth including, since it falls into option 1.) is simple padded line out module, like Ladik P-520 - for me DB25 was too many channels and space and while P-520 is basically a passive attenuator with a fixed attenuation level, I like having a fixed point, conveniently located at the edge of the case that is always connected to the same channels on a mixer, so I don’t have to constantly check which attenuator I am using as out and similarly there’s no confusion which channels on a mixer/interface have to be padded or turned down because they accept modular levels (which is helpful if you have other line level instruments). it’s probably also easy to DIY.
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Excellent omission—I will add more info about attenuator options. Thanks!
I have three small cases and there are a few quality of life tools I’d like to have available to all of them. I’m thinking of a super small case that includes external audio ins, outs, headphone, and MIDI. (Specifically with 5 pin DIN for Octatrack stuff.) Basically this:
What else would you include in a “helper” system?
(Side note: I would pay for a standalone, not-needing-to-be-racked box that had audio in / out to modular levels, headphone jack, and a MIDI interface.)
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I’d probably put in a mixer/vca/panner kinda thing? As a personal matter of whats useful for my systems: I’d swap the Ears to something with stereo ins, and shrink the XOH down to a ALM HPO to compensate
I’ve started something kiiiinda similar, but it’s my I2C pod (crow, ansible, teletype, just friends)
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Good thinking, and I’ve always liked the blurb on the HPO:
Give loved ones, friends and acquaintances a break from your musical ‘genius’, the HPO offers a solitary cell for focused creativity impregnable from undeserving non believers.
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You couldn’t record audio to gate or CV inputs though, right? So for strictly audio, you would be limited to the 4 audio inputs and the 4 audio outputs, or can you use the gates/cv as audio ins as well?
If you’re talking about recording signals in the human audible range to an audio file format then you would be limited to the 4 audio inputs and the 12 cv inputs (may alias above 30kHz).
If you’re talking about recording the signal from any of the inputs to an audio file whether it’s audible by humans or not then you can include the gate inputs also.
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a773
1125
The 301 has 16 audio inputs, I and a lot of other users use it like this all the time it sounds great.
On very important thing to realize about the 301 is that Brian is deliberately under-selling it…
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I’m intrigued by this comment. As someone who has been searching for a 301 for a month and checking the store daily, I’m curious in what way Brian is underselling the device!
I’m not the OP but I think they’re getting at a good point, that Brian isn’t looking to give a large list of its myriad capacities and use cases. But rather (like monome) selling the product’s strength as an interface with open software configuration and a large amount of user definable function.
So underselling in the sense that all of the potential isn’t being shouted at you – instead it is yours to discover/create. Also he can only make so many because of the realities of small scale operation so underselling avoids inflating demand too far past what can be made.
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Ornament and Crime or Pam’s New Workout might be a little robust for a helper pod, but are undeniably helpful modules!
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a773
1129
Brian is just such a cool guy, always gentle, humble and polite! He’s really caring about users and taking bugs very seriously. Before I bought one, a friend of mine said “The 301? I think it’s very unstable, did you see the list of bugs?” Looking around at the forum, I didn’t see users complaining about bugs, so I bought one, just to learn that it’s extremely stable, and I’m always running latest firmware (marked unstable).
Obviously I can’t find right now, I seem to remember Brian saying something to the effect that “I’d rather have users buy an er-301 and discover how good it is rather than being disappointed because it won’t do this or that, and they feel they had been promised that”.
Here are a few snips from the website, that I did manage to find:
there are a few things that you should note before purchasing:
- There is no manual (yet).** Why? See next point. However there is a very active forum where you can get help and ask questions, as well as a wiki which is slowly growing with new content.
- The software is still under heavy development** which means frequent updates and bugs. The good news is that typically any bugs found are fixed within a few days.
Please do not purchase the ER-301 only because of something(s) on this list because there is a risk that I might not get all of these features implemented in a time-frame that is useful to you. I will work hard (but not to the point where I destroy my health or my love for modular) and hopefully the upcoming SDK will alleviate some of this time risk but it is still a very real possibility that some of the items on this list will never be realized.
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