#97

For those who tripped up a little on OSX opening the zip only to find a crow.bin file - if you grab the osx_linux-update_firmware.command file from another firmware release and run that in the same directory as crow.bin, it should update Crow correctly :slight_smile:

6 Likes
#98

I’m experiencing some noise during recording on tape mode. Both when using the front panel and while controlled with Crow.
I noticed it first thing after I loaded the new firmware, only thing i did before was check the mode i was in, without changing.

Can reproduce consistently by:

  • get tape rolling monitoring audio input
  • set loop start and end
  • press record (occasional noise is audible)
  • press record again (noise stops and newly recorded audio unaffected)

I have some recordings if helpful in debugging, just give me a nudge and I’ll upload them

#99

If you have it playing and recording you press “loop” to set the start point and “loop” again to set the end point and begin looping—so pressing loop twice instead of flicking the switch down and up. The only difference from the old version (other than the button instead of switch) is that recording stays engaged when you begin looping. Personally, I love this, it always threw me off that recording would stop when I began looping, but with the new firmware you just have to do the extra step of pressing record if you don’t want it to keep recording over the loop I think, but maybe not “record+loop” simultaneously because that’s what enables the “echo mode” options.

1 Like
#100

thanks for that @nattog

I copied the druid script from the end of the last demo vid for those interested in a nice w/syn i2c base to play with:

--- w2.0 demo time

function init()
  output[1].scale(lydian)
  output[1](loop{ to(2,2,'sine'), to(0,0.4,'rebound')})
  output[2](pulse(0.1))
  metro[1].time = 0.3
  metro[1].event = next_note
  metro[1]:start()
end

six = 1
function next_note()
  ii.wsyn.play_note(lydian[six]/12, 2)
  six = ((six+1) % #lydian) + 1
  ii.wsyn.play_note(lydian[six]/12, 2)
  six = (six % #lydian) + 1
end

-- some scales for later
penta = {0,2,4,7,9}
lydian = {0,2,4,6,7,9,11}
dorian = {0,2,3,5,7,9,10}
wholetone = {0,2,4,6,8,10}
diminished = {0,3,6,9}
9 Likes
#101

Is it possible that w/tape can preserve it’s loop start and stop point when you turn it off and back on? Didn’t the old firmware do that?

1 Like
#102

Haven’t dug into this firmware yet, but based off the docs, I’m wondering, with i2c, if W/Tape affords the creation of something like a tape sequencer.

I’m thinking of a recording process where the tape head skips around in a programmatic and/or stochastic way (modulate timestamp?); tape speed (freq) and erase head (rec_level) could also be sequenced.

Imagine keys, drums, or even a human voice cut up, splayed, stretched, layered, and re- and/or de-constructed along some portion of the W/ tape… Dada and/or Cubism in 2 HP :slight_smile: .

Now that I think about it, this is also an idea for a norns script… :thinking:

3 Likes
W/: ideas
#103

What you’re describing reminds me of a lot of the Norns scripts like compass, cheat codes, and some others.

2 Likes
#104

That’s right! I knew I was thinking of something… so then it sounds like a lot of those functionalities are possible in W/Tape, no?

#105

Also — sorry for the double post, but what makes W/Tape different for me over the norns scripts is the persistence of the tape on the module.

One of the most compelling and evocative aspects of W/1 for me was finding old sections of tape — moments of shows I’ve played, loops I’ve captured, and so on — in short, pieces of my life. In those moments, W/ became, for me, a nostalgia machine :sob:

I’m just trying to think of how W/2 can afford for, and expand on that theme

5 Likes
#106

and this is something I like on the orig fw - I can create a long loop, splice within it, CV around those splices, while CV’ing overdub/write values. as I’m not using i2c, if i wanted control of playback speed, I’d have to swap with overdub/write but it’s all there.

2 Likes
#111

how reasonable is a request to split user-based development for crow/i2c/W/ to another thread?

5 Likes
#112

super reasonable, apologies for flooding. i’ll round 'em up.

1 Like
#113

Oddly, today when I turned my synth on, W/ won’t let me seem to record at all. My recordings from yesterday are still there but I can’t Overdub or Overwrite… Everything else seems to be as normal.

1 Like
#114

Thanks for the info, much appreciated :slight_smile:

i tried w/ tape today and it worked fine, but imo - it is ridiculously overcomplicated for something so simple that could be achieved with 2 taps of the same button.

So v2 to make a loop on the fly (in overdub mode which autoplays) you have 5 steps.

1 - press record
2 - press play
3 - press loop to start loop
4 - press loop again to close loop
5 - press record again to stop recording ( if you are lucky you just might catch it right without overwriting what you just recorded? - a serious live performance no go)
loop plays

  • The issue with this mode is having to do Step 5. When you close the loop in step 4 here, record should autostop and it should autoplay your loop. There should be an autoplay loop setting in the menu somewhere.

V1 to make a loop on the fly (in overdub mode) which autoplays you have 4 steps

  1. down toggle + record (together)
  2. press play
  3. down toggle (loop start)
  4. up toggle (loop end)
    loop autoplays

A looper that does the same thing is 2 steps - pressing the same button twice.

  1. Press Record.
  2. Press Record.
    Loop autoplays.

How I would like to see it done is similar to v1 but with less steps and still using toggles.

  1. Press Record
  2. Toggle Down (loop start)
  3. Toggle Up (loop end)
    Loop autoplays

I am not understanding how making a loop from scratch, that autoplays, has become so complicated.
More importantly there’s a higher chance of screwing up when this being done in live performance by using button presses instead of the toggles, plus the additional step 5 that could wipe your loop.
I just thought i’d bring it up from the practical side of using it.
Its not a major issue for me personally, because i have 2 x w/.
So 1 will remain on the old firmware specifically for live looping.
I do love the synth mode and delay mode - really amazing additions, but the tape mode i won’t be using on v2.

5 Likes
#115

Could you post the crow firmware you used? The link at the top doesn’t work - 404 error. I tried v2 RC on the releases page, but i think that one didn’t have w/ support.

#116

Click “Artifacts” on the right hand side here https://github.com/monome/crow/pull/342/checks

Grabbing new builds like that was a nice tip dropped in one of Trent’s streams for checking out new features before releases are made.

1 Like
#117

this may be early in the process but I have to ask if, once 2.0 is out of beta, will v1.2.1 be supported by Mannequins?

edit: Q not directed at @mlogger

1 Like
#118

Well if the issue is only the last step of pressing record again to stop recording maybe that’s something that can be reverted back to the way it was on the previous version? I can see how having record automatically turn off might be more universal and a bit more conducive to live performance because it’s more “careful”, less prone to accidents, etc…

I definitely don’t like the idea of having just a two button press looper, I like the idea of it being more of a “tape” then simply a digital looper… but I could probably be convinced. I think what I miss the most is being able to arbitrarily change the loop by adding cues within… cutting the loop in half or doubling it might be more “musical” in some contexts (especially if you’re looping with a clock signal over i2c) but it also seems to take it away from the “tape” metaphor make it more like a live looper… My gut feeling is that this foot in both worlds is limiting and makes it not quite doing one thing or the other as well as it could. These metaphors are only useful where they’re useful, so “this is not enough like real tape!” is not by itself a legitimate criticism, I realize, but tapping into that tradition of music was one of the things I liked about v.1

Okay so, solutions. To me the thing that seems most obvious (although maybe way too much work) is that tape mode should either be fully “tape” mode (more like v.1) or it should commit to being “loop mode” — focused on time synced live looping, clear buffer on start up (don’t need a 6hr buffer), maybe your two button press loop option. Much simpler interface (more similar to delay and synth modes in their simplicity—I’ve pretty much already learned them, whereas tape mode i have to refer back here every time). Is there a world where this mode doesn’t even require an SD card? People would be sad about losing the tape, and the ability to play back recorded audio from previous sessions, but maybe that’s a sacrifice that would be worth it for a newly imagined instrument geared towards use as a looper (which the current version seems to only halfway do). Is that the kind of sacrifice you and @baleen are asking for with this version?

I’m not advocating for this personally, I’m just trying to distill how you think this can be improved. For me, improvement would mean moving away from the looper pedal metaphor and more towards the tape machine metaphor—play means playing till you press it to stop and can continuously be sped and slowed and reversed, record means recording till you press it to stop with control over the overdub, cues persists and can continue to be added to manipulate loop points like chalk on a tape (okay the metaphors are falling apart lol, please check me if I’m out of pocket with this). This combination of functions is not easy to imagine on this interface: for example, if you set cues via the switch, you can’t also use it to continuously speed or slow or bump the “tape”.

In the beta’s current state, tape mode seems like the weak link to me as well (and it’s got the most glitchy/weird behavior where it’s difficult for me to even report whats going on because I don’t know if it’s reproducible or what’s happening exactly). I tried doing some loop tests to emulate @mlogger 's workflow as described, and it seems like if you press record off right before setting the loop end then nothing gets recorded? And sometimes it seems like the loop points don’t get put where I expect them—sort of like when you set a cue point to loop on v.1 and then you pass a cue point so when you set the final cue to begin looping it loops from the middle cue point… except there’s no cue points here so I must be doing something else wrong? Or there’s a bug? Sometimes things don’t seem to record at all if I’m toggling record on and off when looping (trying to punch things in). I’m not sure what’s going on there because it works sometimes and I can’t figure out what the difference is…

I bring up this idea of a “loop mode” because it seems like that would be able to have simple enough controls where it might be able to fit into the “language” of “delay” and “synth” modes… whereas the current tape mode has an almost entirely different language both from the other modes and from the previous version, making it difficult to learn… or it’s just buggy in it’s current state and I’m a nincompoop which is entirely possible and likely. I suspect it’s a combination of the two :stuck_out_tongue: I hope this long post is helpful somehow.

TLDR: I would be sad to loose some of the tapeyness of w/ but maybe the halfstep towards a livelooper/livesampler with this firmware indicates that that’s the proper space for the “tape mode” to live in? And that it should fully embrace that?

PS if this “tape mode” became a more simplified “loop mode” would that make v.1 support more likely? I would hope so, but v.1 support is probably completely untenable in either case :frowning: (unless it becomes open sourced at a later date, which I got the sense was implied in the livestream, but I may be wrong about that…)

PPS this post was so long it had a TLDR and a PS, smdh.

7 Likes
#119

I don’t care about the SD card as the material on it was inaccessible. 8 hours and different tapes was a ceiling I didn’t reach, and I never used a prior sessions recordings. This reads stubborn but what I concretely want from W/2.0 is the original W/ design and functionality to not contain many critical failures. A “live looper” which I am imagining based on your post, is a very different module. is that okay? maybe (if I can erase the tape). is that why, a little over a year ago, I bought W/? no.

my real concern rn is not about what sacrifices I would accept in W/2.0, it’s that I don’t want W/2.0, as the features I use are the features that break the module.

ikr i mean it happens to all of us tbh and fwiw its what the internet is about amirite

2 Likes
#120

However, if you recorde/loop live played acoustic instruments, it is more smooth when the release of the sound naturally fades to the beginning of the loop. Chase bliss blooper has this option and it works very well

1 Like