#31

wow! thank you for sharing this - i’ve neglected the alt note page and haven’t worked up the confidence yet to dive into meta-sequencing, so this is kind of game-changer for me in terms of putting together sequences that don’t sound like 16-step loops.

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#32

The “relatively spare” part of @alanza’s strategy is key in my experience. Setting the alt note to something like 12-16 steps long, divided heavily, can result in very long cycles that will be carry a theme of the note page with well placed variations via the alt note page.

I also find it a lot of fun to set the note and alt note pages to a very short loop length, like 3 and 4 respectively, then playing the notes on each page to manifest new melodies quickly.

6 Likes
#33

I may be mistaken, but I’m fairly certain I had this working at some point.

Anyhow, I should probably call out - and this is linked to Alanza’s post - that the ability to have different sequence lengths for different aspects of the same track - is one of the key points of Kria. Having gates, note values, alt notes, probability, ratchets etc - running with different phase relationships - is both rare and liberating in equal measure. (No pun intended, but it’s quite a good one…).

But it can be a chore if you need everything to end at the same time, if that functionality doesn’t work as I think.

#34

button combo for “quantized” partern changes worked as you described. Thanks for the heads up. I went back to RTFM, even though I RTFM’d many times before, and lo and behold, the button pattern you described is right there :slight_smile:

1 Like
#35

Relatively new grid/ansible owner here. I gelled with Meadowphysics and Earthsea pretty quickly, but Kria has me feeling a bit on the dense side (even after reading the documentation). I’m hoping someone can answer a few questions for me.

Steps: When you’re in trigger view, the upper left corner of Grid is lit in a 4x6 pattern. This means that the sequence is 6 steps long, right? Is there a way to edit the number of steps in your sequence?

Tracks: I’m not understanding how tracks interact with each other. Example: I program a few triggers in track 1 and then switch to track 2. I still see the triggers from track 1 and pressing the keys of those triggers will deactivate them in track 1. I feel as if I’m missing a major concept behind how tracks work.

I feel like once I have a firmer grasp on these two concepts that the rest of the app will fall into place for me.

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#36

The trigger page is the only page that lets you review all 4 tracks at once, so you can see when triggers happen relative to each other. So yes, in the default configuration Kria will have a sequence length of 6 for all 4 tracks. You really have up to a 16 step sequence, and the highlighted 6 steps are showing the selected 6-step “loop” that’s playing in that sequence – you can toggle keys further to the right on the top 4 rows to see them light up, but these triggers won’t be hit unless the loop selection includes them. To move the selected loop, hold the LOOP key and tap a key in the top 4 rows other than the start of the current loop selection. Note that the loop selection can also wrap around the edge - if you hold LOOP and then tap the rightmost key, your selected 6-step loop starts on the farthest-right key on the grid and wraps around the other side to include the 5 leftmost keys.

To change both ends of the loop selection rather than just moving the start point, you use a 3-key gesture: hold LOOP, hold the desired start point, then tap the desired end point.

On the trigger page (6th key from the left on the bottom row is lit) you see all tracks, and can toggle any trigger for any track from this view. All other pages should control only the selected track (the leftmost 4 keys on the bottom row are the track selects). All 4 tracks can be programmed independently of each other. The only interaction between tracks has to do with how the loop selection works - by default the “loop sync” mode is “all”, which means that all four tracks share the same loop selection for all parameters. You can decouple track and parameter loop selections from each other by changing the options on the config page (shown when key 2 on the Ansible front panel is held).

Programming parameters within a track typically does not affect other parameters on the same track either. The exception to this is the “note sync” setting (on by default) which keeps the trigger and note pages in sync with each other – they share the same loop endpoints, and toggling a note on the note page will toggle the corresponding trigger step for the selected track, and vice versa.

2 Likes
#37

Many thanks for the detailed answer! Setting the loop length is exactly what I was looking for, I’m not sure how I didn’t pick that up in the documentation. I don’t think that I was processing the meaning of “track” in the context of Kria/Ansible either. Anyways, i think I’m on my way now. Thank you again!

1 Like
#38

Thanks again for the information! I have a follow up question related to clocking Kria from the teletype. Using the M script with kr.clk makes perfect sense to me. I’m not sure what kr.period does though. Increasing the period value enough appears to make Kria skip steps almost. What is the relationship between the clock speed and the period?

I also notice with a fairly fast clock (M 194 for example) that the motion from step to step seems less smooth than Kria is clocking itself. Is this due to a limitation in the teletype? Thanks in advance!

#39

KR.PERIOD can be used to set the period of Kria’s internal master clock, whether or not Teletype clocking is used. My recollection, which may not accurately account for the behavior you’re seeing, is that KR.CLK sort of requests a given track to advance, but I/O might only be registered on the next master clock edge. So you may need to use a fast internal clock setting on Ansible when clocking from Teletype at faster rates, to ensure that the incoming Teletype commands get “sampled” fast enough.

3 Likes
#40

You are a fount of knowledge and I appreciate your responses! Thank you!

#41

Im wondering if there is a way to decouple the trigger and note pages like what is possible with rene2? I was feeling inspired by this recent make noise video and wanted to attempt with Kria but getting stuck on not being able to continue a stream of note cv after a single gate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi7t4hwYUSs

1 Like
#42

There is a few ways to achieve it! But first you have to press the 2nd button on the module itself change the loop and note syncs to be off (https://monome.org/docs/ansible/kria/#config). After that, you can have each different page (gates/ratchet, notes/alt-note, octave/slew, gate duration) individually loop freely and have their own clock division. Another useful trick is to change the ratcheting behaviour for each track (2nd column, first 4 rows on scale page), which can allow for legato.

In my opinion, this is what makes kria such a great sequencer! If it had some more options for external modulation I would argue that it’s the best sequencer in eurorack. Incredibly immediate and playable!

2 Likes
#43

Totally agree with you here. Its an amazing sequencer! Hopefully with the new crow firmware we will see some ability to have more external modulation. What would you like to see added?

3 Likes
#44

Some type of integrated sample and hold a la Rene would be great, maybe some automated scale changes, pattern changes, note shift on certain steps (could fit this under the gate length page with a second press, setting a range of how much shift per step…)… I can come up with heaps of ways that would be interesting and useful!
crow could be a really logical expander, with norns being able to extend some control over kria and crow (within itself or via other connected controllers) as well as configure the ins and outs with how would interact with ansible.

3 Likes
#45

I struggle so much with trying to effectively use Kria - I wish someone would do a decent video tutorial for melodic usage and then for drum patterns. Something that starts simple and builds up to the more advanced techniques. A bit like @dan_derks recent Norns/Maiden tutorial which was presented really well.

When attempting to learn myself I rarely feel like I know what I am doing and I generally am left feeling like I might be the only one that can’t grasp it but I imagine I am not alone!

7 Likes
#46

I might actually take up the challenge for this. I know kria inside out and would love to share my love for it :slight_smile: Not sure if my computer will be up to the task of editing it, but I might give it a shot over the coming week or so. Keep me busy through lockdown!

21 Likes
#47

That would be amazing - if you want a guinea pig with minimal knowledge just shout via DM

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#48

That would be brilliant! Kria has become such a powerful and richly rewarding thing, but there’s relatively little out there talking through what it can do. I always feel like I’m only scratching the surface myself.

4 Likes
#49

I will jump on the bandwagon here as well, I would LOVE that. Thanks @Puscha!

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#50

Hey @Puscha - this would be great and if I can help in any way, let me know!

I’m in the process of digging deeper into Kria myself - aiming to go beyond either vanilla sequencing or “random” paraphony in order to be hopefully more intentional with the advanced features, so this would be timely.

Happy to help with editing if that makes it easier to approach (not sure how that would work in practical terms but the offer is real).

2 Likes