Mannequins W/ 2.0

pluralbeing · 2021-03-06T08:35:21.509Z

Galapagoose:

ported the new Just Friends compressor, replacing the tanh saturation

Woah! This sounds rad!

efluon · 2021-03-06T09:00:46.668Z

Nice work. Really looking forward to going to the studio next week!

coreyr · 2021-03-06T13:44:19.993Z

How did I never hear the beautiful haunting sounds that W/ makes when updating before? Excited to try all the new fixes and features that you rolled out this week!

juanv101 · 2021-03-06T18:29:37.457Z

Galapagoose:

TODO lets make a Wiki post of good replacement cards. If you can find them, the best I found were 4 or 8GB cards, Class 10.

I started using the new firmware today. Great job. Only used W/Tape until now. Thanks a lot. I have two W/ and it was a little bit difficult to make them work with the old firmware.

About the replacement cards. How do you know if a card is working OK or not? Are there known size limits?

Thanks again

xenus_dad · 2021-03-06T20:39:03.153Z

Potential feature W/Syn feature request (that might already be backlogged):

It would be helpful to be able to tune the default pitch, if possible, since some sequencers don’t send negative voltage. I realize the UI for this might suck a lot maybe more trouble than it’s worth. But, if not!

Galapagoose · 2021-03-06T21:11:58.117Z

juanv101:

How do you know if a card is working OK or not?

Firstly! W/ is way less sensitive to SD cards now. The firmware has been optimized to be much less demanding of the card, so many people who had a ‘failed’ card, can likely now use that ‘bad’ card.

Re: which card to get? Our testing has always been qualitative. Way back in 2017 I did a lot of benchmarking but I have not revisited. The short version is, newer ~high speed~ cards sacrifice small block size access, and don’t like rapid switching between read/write ← W/ does this constantly, buffering tape, then writing changes every 150ms or so.

If your module is giving the ‘three flashing lights’ error on startup, try re-seating the card. If that doesn’t work, you likely need a new card. Get the smallest capacity you can find even if it’s “slow” as it will likely respond better in W/.

xenus_dad:

tune the default pitch

Totally understand how this would be helpful, but I’m not confident I can cram it into the interface without making everything else worse. For now at least, you can use a DC mixer – Just add an offset to your v8 sequencer signal. That’ll allow your positive-only sequencer to be bipolar.

Eg. With Cold Mac, you can attach the sequencer to OFFSET, patch LEFT output to W/Syn, then adjust the transposition with SURVEY.

xenus_dad · 2021-03-06T21:41:27.685Z

Galapagoose:

For now at least, you can use a DC mixer – Just add an offset to your v8 sequencer signal.

Thanks! This is how I’ve been working with it. And I completely understand the UI issue…I’m not sure I have a suggestion for how it might look TBH. Maybe discrete octave shifts just to help things get in range, but that might not be enough for people.

Maybe something equivalent to ii.jf.transpose() might be helpful, so that there was at least a way to get W/Syn in a different range? This might help writing scripts for it anyway. Regardless, just a suggestion and almost certainly a low priority thing.

Thanks!

nattog · 2021-03-06T22:04:17.487Z

No other feedback than to remark on how well w/syn sounds mixed with mangrove. Thank you!

jemfiner · 2021-03-07T00:27:44.557Z

Could you clarify the way loop works please:

I understood that this meant that hitting the loop button would set the start point and enable recording:

*loop: set the start point of a new loop → capturing

but that doesn’t seem to be the case . . .

And here:

Loop is capturing

loop: set the end point of the loop (and disable recording) → playing

loop(hold): cancel the start point → empty

I understood that hitting loop a second time would disable recording, set the end point and start the loop playing, which doesn’t seem to work either.

Am I misunderstanding this ? And if so what is the simplest way to record a loop ?

Thanks !

Galapagoose · 2021-03-07T00:38:56.588Z

jemfiner:

hitting the loop button would set the start point and enable recording

The first press only sets the start point (does not enable recording). capturing in this context is a little misleading - i will reword it. You’ll need to enable recording just before you set the start point.

jemfiner:

I understood that hitting loop a second time would disable recording, set the end point and start the loop playing

I just tested this here and what you wrote is exactly what happened. Which part isn’t working for you?

jemfiner · 2021-03-07T10:03:49.317Z

The first press only sets the start point (does not enable recording). capturing in this context is a little misleading - i will reword it. You’ll need to enable recording just before you set the start point.

Thanks, this makes sense.

Still having a problem . . .

This is what I’m doing:
Only light on is yellow above record
Touch record and white light goes on, I assume now recording
Touch loop, yellow button above starts to blink
Touch loop again, white light goes on above it, record light goes off . . . but play still off
Touch play, loop yellow and white lights on, play while light , record yellow light . . . no sound.

GoneCaving · 2021-03-07T10:11:28.431Z

Don’t you need to have the tape playing and recording before you start the loop? It sounds like you’re trying record without the tape playing?

jemfiner · 2021-03-07T11:33:54.817Z

OK, of course . . . like a tape recorder ! That works, thank you.

eblomquist · 2021-03-07T12:07:58.326Z

Galapagoose:

W/Del

Something between a tape echo and BBD delay. Delay length (at regular 1x speed) can be set from 4 seconds down to 1ms. You can (dramatically) reduce the speed to stretch the ‘4second’ loop up to 1 minute.

Controls

loop

yellow: Mix

white: Freeze (toggle on/off)

play

yellow: filter frequency. controls lowpass filter in feedback loop.

white: modulation amount. positive is fast rate, negative is slow rate

record

yellow: rate

white: feedback

loop + play: tap-tempo, loop setting & max-time access

tap the toggle down repetitively to set a tap tempo

tap the toggle down then up to set a loop time directly (down is loop start, up is loop end)

hold the toggle down to release the current loop, enabling the maximum delay time
nb: decrease ‘rate’ before setting very slow tap tempo or loops to enable times over 2seconds

play + record. zoom

recursively zoom into the delay buffer by factors of two. Works great with a long delay time.

I’m trying to make sense of this part of the documentation.

What is one supposed to do with “loop” for example? It’s just a description, whereas there are actual action items under “loop + play”.

Is there something in the previous sections that explains what to do?

I’ve got the zooming into the delay buffer by factors of two down, and it’s very nice.

Also is there a way to change the speed of playback on an existing delay loop?

I guess it would be helpful if there was a bit more “for dummies” aspect to the documentation

anon60283851 · 2021-03-07T12:32:30.482Z

the first three ones tell you what the bidirectional toggle switch on top does when the given button is pressed and given color led next to it is lit.

eg. when you press loop and the corresponding led turns yellow, you can then tap the toggle switch on the top up and down to adjust dry/wet delay mix from 0% to 100% in steps. press loop button once more, the white led lights up, and then the toggle switch sets freeze on or off.

eblomquist · 2021-03-07T13:40:11.486Z

Now that is really helpful, thanks so much!!!

unity2k · 2021-03-07T14:42:02.318Z

When you learn of a better way to explain something to other users, you do have the ability to edit those instructions up there as this is a WIKI.

eblomquist · 2021-03-07T15:07:30.161Z

Thanks. I am aware that this is a WIKI, but as a seemingly perpetual newb, I am extremely hesitant to edit anything! I hope my requests for clarification may be helpful to those who are comfortable with editing…

efluon · 2021-03-07T16:27:59.691Z

back to the future (and the datasette)

maaark · 2021-03-07T20:04:16.562Z

Haha, I think @coreyr is refering to the sound the outputs make, which is nice and siney and haunting indeed! Gotta love the datasette sounds as well, though!