here: crow

Added a little info on this here under “faq”. The problem is that only one device can be transmitting on the bus at a time, so having multiple leaders increases the odds of contention even if they’re talking to totally separate modules. The situation you describe might be fine, or it might cause some modules to lock up and need a power-cycle to work again – how best to deal with this kind of thing has yet to be figured out / implemented.

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Lovely - that’s helpful. I suppose the crow / teletype relationship is hardest for me to grok. I’m tempted to get crow primarily for the m4l integration and devices (and for norns interaction), but the teletype is still a major part of my small skiff.

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I am not the authority on 16n I2C despite what it might seem, but in a nutshell:

  • in follower mode, 16n can be queried over I2C by other devices (eg: Teletype). If Crow has support for 16n/“ability to support 16n because of how it works” in its ii library, it should Just Work.
  • if there is a sane way for crow to be follower and 16n to be leader, that requires an addition to the 16n firmware, which I’m happy to receive guidance/submissions on.

Given the way it’s described, though, it feels like it’d be a follower.

Multi-master is a bad look and basically shouldn’t even work.

I wonder if crow will be able to take advantage of Ableton’s recent CV Tools additions? I can picture some of those tools being recreated in m4l for interfacing with crow.

to the future! :bird:

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the CV Tools are all written for dc-coupled audio interfaces, so there’d need to be a bit of crow-specific code to translate the signals into data for crow.

they’ve been adapted, at least :slight_smile:. I tried to take as much inspiration from existing tools to keep things appealing while also adhering to an opinion. please feel free to hit up the ^^ crow help: max and max for live thread if you have any requests or hit any speed bumps!

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(staff notice: to keep this release thread on topic, which is for general crow questions, the lengthy side discussion on “how should crow be documented?” has been moved to crow & end-user documentation.)

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Not exactly sure how to ask this, but will Crow will run the Teletype language or something like it? Using Druid, perhaps? How do they compare? I’m intrigued by the idea of live coding, and I believe that is something TT does, but it would be much easier to fit and afford a Crow or two than a TT… plus Crow runs M4L too, which I would like as well…

Sorry if this should be obvious… Thanks!

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Crow is a pretty simple device. It really has two functions:

  • it is a USB device (not a host!) that can produce and receive eurorack CV signals. a USB <-> CV converter, with some extra tricks like LFOs. The M4L devices support this use case.

  • it is also an accessible standalone development environment for eurorack. The language is Lua, with a special framework specifically designed around CV processing. The processor is a lot more powerful than Teletype. It does not use the TT scripting language. The “druid” environment supports this use case.

The bindings to the norns scripting environment are kind of in between, allowing norns users / developers to treat it as a CV expansion module.

There’s no reason to worry about the second use case if only the first interests you. And vice versa.

If you want to do live coding for eurorack, in Lua, then this is for you. You need an external computer, to act as a code-editing interface

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Crow does also embed a domain-specific language called ASL for easily describing sequences of voltage transitions within Lua scripts.

If one wanted to write an interpreter for a stack-based language (like TT-script) for doing something or other with CV, this seems quite achievable to me as a project entirely within Lua on Crow, and would probably be quite a neat encounter with several of the sacred digital mysteries. Perhaps a fun Crow study!

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Just trying to satisfy some curiosity… are the docs for the Just Friends II commands online somewhere?

Edit: I found this :smiley:

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Zellen being one of my favorite sequencers on Norns, please do so ASAP!

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3 posts were merged into an existing topic: Crow & end-user documentation

Will get to work as soon as my crow arrives! I hope it will not be stuck in customs for too long.

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Anyone know if Kria will be one of the scripts that is Norns/Crow compatible?

Building my first modular rig, and if crow can run Kria from norns, i think i’m sold on buying teletype over ansible.

I don’t know if anyone has investigated what it would take for Kria (running on norns) to drive a modular via crow but that seems fairly doable at first glance. One would be limited to two voices since crow only has four outputs.

…unless of course the target was Just Friends running in synth mode (via crow).

I think it’s worth noting (for clarity) that in the above scenario Kria wouldn’t be running directly on crow. Norns would still be running Kria and handling interaction with the grid. Norns would then simply be using crow as an expander to produce CV and gate signals.

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I’m assuming there wont be an i2c cable in the box with Crow, is my best bet just DIY’ing one to connect it to Just Friends? Or is there a standard cable I can grab at an electronics shop (where would look for DIY parts too).

link crow to Just Friends (Whimsical Raps) through an i2c cable (or powered bus)

Powered bus… I have a makenoise power bus, does those mean I don’t even need an i2c cable?

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i2c ‘jumper’ cables can be found on the cheap! Just show your local store this:

The shorter the better, so long as extends between your modules, I don’t regret gettin multiple sizes.

The powered bus will be something like the @okyeron’s tt-busboard jr or the hard to find teletype backpack, or even @bpcmusic’s txb…

What are these things? Follow @tehn’s advice and read this AMAZINGLY helpful thread put together by @okyeron :

It can be intimidating at first, but once you start wrapping your head around it, the typical reaction is, “Oh, that’s all this is?”

Plus, since plenty of people have been patient and kind with me on this forum, I’m happy to pay it forward. Feel free to ping me if it still doesn’t click. I’m no expert, but I feel like have the basics down pat.

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I ended up going with these 3 pin jumper wires https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10368 because I didn’t want to deal with worrying about using electrical tape or heat shrink tubing to keep 3 separate wires together. It’s not labeled as such, but when you order a premade i2c cable this is what you’re getting.

Found the jumper leads at my local. Thanks!

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@dansimco the only thing I will add is to make sure the wire lengths are long enough. I’ve been trying to sort out my 16n Faderbank i2c control of my ER301 and, because of the position of the i2c jack on the faderbank and distance from the back of the 301, its definitely not a stable connection. I even found that when I had teletype, Just Friends, and Ansible with a teletype backpack, it was a stretch to get the i2c cable i had on hand to where they needed to be…i still havent gotten i2c to work at all, but everytime someone mentions it they talk about how its fiddly and the shorter the wires are the better, but I’m not sure where the tipping point is…

Anyone have a guideline for the length range our i2c cables should try to fall into?