gridkeys mod (now w/ q7 layout, crow & jf outs)

eigen · October 10, 2021, 8:12pm

gridkeys

mod for monome norns, use grid as midi keyboard anywhere.

UPDATE: now support for scrollable chromatic & in-scale layouts from gridstep

to get to know how to activate a mod, read this.

can send midi notes towards currently running script (in), external hadware (out) or both at the same time (in+out).

additionally, can now output on crow 1+2 CV ports and towards just friends through ii.

midi out is on by default when no script is loaded.

midi in mode uses the virtual midi device which you’d need to bind in the SYSTEM > DEVICES > MIDI menu.
it is ideal for synth scripts such as:

icarus
mx.samples
mx.synths
drum_room
lissadron *
sines *

*: those script only listen for the first midi device, so you’d have to have virtual in first position in your global midi config.

automagically detects if a script uses grid (at script load time) and will not activate in this case. can sill be toggled on/off from the params menu (will take over / release grid ownership).

credits go to @Quixotic7 for initial idea & @dan_derks for take over feature suggestion.

Requirements

norns w/ at least update 210927, grid (any size)

Documentation

Download

from maiden type:
;install https://github.com/p3r7/gridkeys

glia · October 10, 2021, 8:15pm

amazing work!

thankyou @eigen

Klinik · October 10, 2021, 10:27pm

Great!! Would work with Midigrid???

coreyr · October 10, 2021, 10:28pm

Yes! I’ve been waiting for something like this for exactly your example scripts! Time to go give it a try.

EDIT: @eigen shouldn’t the install directions read “;install https://github.com/p3r7/gridkeys” ?

JaggedNZ · October 11, 2021, 3:48am

I suspect not yet as it will load before any midigrid includes. I’ll try remember to look at this when I create the midigrid mod.

Jensu · October 11, 2021, 5:50am

Yes yes yes! Awesome work.

eigen · October 11, 2021, 7:29am

@coreyr well spotted, thanks.

@Klinik & @JaggedNZ yes, you’re right.
i assume it should be trivial to add a conditional import of current midigrid to the mod, right?

Clashley1 · October 11, 2021, 2:00pm

yessss I needed this, for I have no midi, only a 64 grid.
I’ve been able to use plonky pretty well with mx.samples, but this is what I really wanted. Curious how it fares with scripts like drum room. Excited to get into a bunch of midi scripts and sounds that I’ve been missing out on. Mods seem fun and exciting

Edit: works well enough with drum room

zbs · October 11, 2021, 2:58pm

modsmodsmodsmodsmodsmodsmodsmodsmods!!!

This is amazing, thanks so much!

JaggedNZ · October 12, 2021, 2:35am

Yes, a conditional import should work, midi grid loads as a singleton so multi includes of midigrid should hopefully not do any to unexpected.

eigen · October 12, 2021, 6:18am

alright, I’ve just pushed a new commit that embeds midigrid.

would gladly appreciate if someone could test.

eigen · October 14, 2021, 9:22pm

another update which fixes detection of usage of grid by script .

basically, had to take into account some edge cases:

scripts that do a params:bang() when they load
script that register g = grid.connect(1) + set g.key before they even init().

sadly, re-enabling gridkeys after a manual stop (e.g. K1 + K3 in global menu) is now broken.
one would have to go to the params menu and disable/enable it back for it to start working again while no scripts are yet loaded.

this regression is due to how closely interleaved the start script and stop script transitions are. i’m sure there’s some clever way to handle this but can’t figure it out w/ the few remaining stamina i had for the day.

21echoes · October 14, 2021, 10:53pm

this is awesome! i was always a little upset at the scripts that didn’t let me use the grid as a keyboard but was always too lazy to open a PR to fix it.

one kinda left field feature request: is there a world where this could send cc messages instead of note (& pitch) on/off messages? lotsa scripts respond to CC messages as well as midi note data

eigen · October 15, 2021, 7:26am

ah! we were debating about this on the study group (discord) just earlier. @Clashley1’s idea was to have a bunch of quantized faders (each having 8 possible values).

i would rather focus on stealing the keyboard from gridstep first (scrolable w/ chromatic/in-scale modes), wich i really enjoy.

also, i’m unsure about putting too much intelligence in this single mod. @Clashley1’s idea original idea was it to be another mod altogether (gridfaders).

i haven’t really made up my mind yet

lapopal · October 15, 2021, 9:52am

solved. It was my bad. Thanks for the script!

coreyr · October 15, 2021, 1:37pm

Oh, gridstep style keyboard would be great! I was actually just going to request an earthsea style scale mode or even a highlight on just the C’s in a chromatic scale.

This mod is great, I’m one of those weirdos who owns a grid, and some cv sequencers but no midi keys so I was missing out on some really great synths. I’ve also been too lazy/ don’t know where to start with adding grid support to those scripts. Thank you!

mbutz · October 15, 2021, 2:09pm

Unfortunately I don’t see any traces of gridkeys at all. I don’t see an entry

MOD - GRIDKEYS > MIDI OUT device

If I start sines and configure the virtual midi device also no sign of gridkeys. There is also no midi output in case no script is loaded (as I understand out mode should then be activated).

I have a Fates and system version is 210706 (is there perhaps an update I missed?). So currently I am clueless of how to activate and use gridkeys. Any hint on what I have missed or doing wrong much appreciated.

Otherwise: Great idea and what I was hoping for!

eigen · October 15, 2021, 2:35pm

you need to activate the mod first.

i guess it’s not yet documented on the main monome documentation site.

take a look at this §: GitHub - monome/norns-example-mod: example mod for matron

speakerdamage · October 15, 2021, 2:49pm

It took me longer than I care to admit last night to figure out that E3 enables the mod (instead of the expected K3).

thanks for this mod!

mbutz · October 15, 2021, 4:44pm

Ok, this is new information. Thanks.

But: I don’t see an entry SYSTEM > MODS.

I double checked that I have it installed (assuming that the entry appear if you have at least installed one mod):

;install https://github.com/p3r7/gridkeys
starting...
install failed: project gridkeys already exists in /home/we/dust/code

My SYSTEM menu contains: devices, wifi, restart, reset, update… and that’s it.