#573

No question is too obvious, I’ve found.

The Norns will accept midi clock perfectly, but you might have to enable midi in etc in the settings of each script, depending how they are set up. I’ve been able to clock various scripts to external midi clock via a USB to DIN cable with no problems so far.

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#574

Ah, that’s brilliant news. I want to ally it with the iPad and hopefully create a fully integrated system which also incorporates hardware synths that are sequenced via the iPad.

I’m ridiculously excited to explore it all!

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#576

hi :wave:
i want to get a usb to midi din adapter. looking at roland um-one mk ii and esi midimate ex. could anyone confirm if any of these would work with norns?
thanks.

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#577

love the roland um-one! works a treat :slight_smile:

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#578

I use a midimate ex and it works perfectly, just plug and play.

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#579

i read up in the topic that you were referring to mk i of this. theese are not sold any more. also, it’s the more expensive option. might go with esi then. it’s orange, which is nice. :pray:

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#580

oh! i definitely have the mk2. unsure how that got miscommunicated, apologies!

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#581

I use the midimate ex as well, works fine, I chose it because it’s effectively just a cable and not an additional box :slight_smile:

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#582

Also great that it auto configures as 2 ins, 2 outs or 1 in, 1 out when you connect it to something.

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#583

this is a controller, not a synth: http://sound-force.nl/?page_id=3728

IMG_6455_front_v3d
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all standard synth params, so it would map to engines sensibly.

of course, a DIY something-like-this would be great. 16n-like “open” controllers are great, but there’s a ton of value in feature-specific custom controllers.

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#584

Can monome please sell a 16n with eink programmable labels?

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#585

Been talking to @RPLKTR about similar ideas. We were wondering why motorized faders aren’t more common? Would solve so many UI issues when managing a ton of synth parameters. It would allow for “pages” in a hardware controller.

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#586

circling back to this - sometimes when i switch the pluggable (but also unplug the data USB of the ground loop isolator, hotswapping usb) from norns to ansible, it seems to make norns hang for a minute or so, accompanied by some harsh noise. i’d probably not recommend this route unless there’s something wrong with my hardware causing it, but i doubt there is.

#587

something like this for softcut would be great, especially since so many softcut scripts use similar parameters (rate, panning, vol etc).

#588

i think motorized faders are relatively expensive which is why no one has really used. consider that a standard build of a 16n costs about $250. motorized faders would raise the cost significantly. there is also more chance that things will break and need to be repaired. also this type of position recall can be done much easier with rotary encoders (midi fighter twister, norns itself). most affordable motor fader controller i can think of is the presonus faderport, and that only has one motor fader and buttons at around 200 dollars. i was very interested haha which is why i was looking into them. would be really cool for ableton faders to “follow” automation.

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#589

Would you need a dedicated power supply for the motorized faders? If they can’t run off the USB power, I guess that could be another reason why they are not so used, besides price.

But I also have considered DIYing a motorized fader controller thing :slight_smile:

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#590

That would be my apprehension as well–standard non-bulk linear slider pots cost around $3, a motorized version is around $20. That’s a huge cost to pass onto the consumer (and the designer who’s prototyping multiple boards).

#591

Two additional points (edit. reading more carefully, these were touched already, but just to state again):

  1. Bidirectional communication for smooth update of the fader positions is not always trivial unless you’re talking about software that specifically has support built in or allows for extensive programming. Eg. many of the DAWs have something like Mackie Control protocol implemented, and Norns with its custom scripts can naturally do whatever the hardware allows. It just might not be a very “generic” solution, which I suppose isn’t a problem.

  2. Motorized parts may pose other additional troubles for firmware developer - eg. if an user grabs at a moving fader and tries to move it to the other direction the firmware would probably need to recognize that and release the fader instead of trying to wrestle with the user and cause damage to the fader / motor.

FWIW, The Uli Company -tm- does have several inexpensive controller models with programmable mapping and motorized faders, eg. BCF2000 and the X-Touch series. So if one wanted to experiment with a motorized fader bank with eg. Norns, and had no qualms about buying B* products, there’s already hardware one can buy and try to adapt for the purpose.

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#592

I’m just going to have to DIY this thing. The cost isn’t a blocker for me. Time, unfortunately, is.

The use case I had in mind was a dedicated controller for a software synth built from scratch. Full stack DIY.

I definitely have qualms about Mr B and his company.

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#593

FWIW, just remembered that the good old Midibox platform does also have a motor fader module available: http://www.ucapps.de/index.html?page=mbhp_mf_ng.html

If you’re looking to (at least initially) make something very much custom for yourself, I suppose eg. a Midibox STM32 core (with the required STM32 proto board) + one or more motor modules + possibly some additional MIDI and standard analog / digital IO boards (depending on if you want just a bank of faders, or some buttons, LEDs etc. as well) might prove to be a big time saver.

1 Like