#146

My 2c follows.

  • I don’t see myself using W/ for anything other than Tape, though the new modes are nice.
  • I found the CUEs difficult to manage and navigate. I’m not fussed about their absence, provided the timestamping works well.
  • I think good points have been made about the difficulty of recording a loop. Loop end should probably disable recording.
  • I think multiple tapes were nice to have, but I could live with just one tape (again iff timestamping works).
  • I think a way of wiping the tape clean is a must have. The old way of doing it on startup was at best only ok. I’d like to do this when powered on, ideally via i2c.
#147

Yeah, it seems that because users would often start at the beginning of the SD card due to either staying in one general space or continuously erasing their card and staying at the beginning portions, that the read/write activity would burn the hell out of high quality SD’s that we’re meant to last 20 years.

As a result, w/syn and w/Del mainly ignore the SD all together. w/tape is SD, but set up in a way to disperse the wear of the SD across the whole card (hence a long running 8 hour stretch). The main catch 22 that it seems The Whimsical Raps team found themselves in is; how to retain similar functionality while spreading the SD card read/write access across the whole data set.

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#148

I should also say that the delay mode seems brilliant and I’ll probably end up loving it. Not touching the SD card in that mode makes a lot of sense. I wonder how feasible it would be to fluidly switch between that mode and the tape mode, maybe a bit like what softcut does but obviously with persistent tape? As in, you can load tape content into the delay buffer and vice versa.

I’m honestly not as excited about the FM mode - I do love 2-op FM (some of my first sound explorations were with Yamaha OPL after all) but as others mentioned it seems a bit “extra” alongside the other functionality. Some kind of mutant FM/tape thing (i.e. using buffers as operators) would be very interesting though.

TL;DR I would love to be able to transition fluidly between the modes.

#149

I love the synth. I miss varispeed +- in tape mode, but I’m overall feeling excited about the direction that this is going in. I use Norns and crow though, so I’m def in a position to get the most out of all of these features.

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#150

Cant you achieve this with a cv input set to the yellow play mode using a bipolar cv source (like coldmac) like you could before in v1.21? Or do you mean the old doubling/halving?

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#151

That hasn’t been working for me, but tape mode has been super glitchy for my anyway with the beta. The speed change is steppy and anything lover than 0V stops playback.

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#152

Yeah, seeing similar. I think Trent mentioned that that was a known issue, same with the steppy tape speed.

I am wondering if some of the “digital noise” I’m getting is actually from some funk on the sd card. I’m still using the original one from the second batch of W/ shipped. Some sections had started getting nasty on v1.21 but no so bad as to be unusable for my purposes. Might be time to track down a fresh card?

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#153

I really wanted to enjoy v1 but didn’t so sold it a year back.

I bought another to try out the new firmware and I now love it. I will enjoy Crow and Norns with it but also see a lot of uses standalone.

Clearly isn’t quite finished but I am into it enough that I bought a second.

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#154

Have you reflashed the firmware? I’m gonna give that a shot first I think.

#155

Some thoughts, mostly on tape mode…

First a question: Is there a connection between the new firmware and how a -5/5v cv into THAT in LIVE on the old firmware worked? Is the idea that, on 2.0, toggling the record goes from Overdub (minimum) to overwrite (maximum)? And that changing the echo mode (loop+record) registers what was the difference between negative voltages and positive voltages?

W/ has always been pretty sensitive to input gain, as I’m sure you all have experienced. It doesn’t take much to clip it, especially while overdubbing. I’ve found setting the recording input gain and the dry signal fairly low has had the best results so far. The cleanest way I’ve found to set up SOS loops is to initially set the record to maximum (full overwrite), and then subtly dial it down a toggle or two to get the overdub I’m looking for. This is all good, but then when you turn off record, the volume of the loop gets normalized. In the the old firmware, running a -2 or -3 volt source in THAT to build up faint overdubs and then turning off record would leave the loop at the same volume. I guess I’m wishing that even with record disabled, the setting of the record “strength” would still affect the loop volume, the way it worked on the old firmware.

Also, I feel like it would be nice to be able to easily get back 1:1 speed. Maybe holding ‘play’ sets speed back to “normal”, though you might trip this accidentally while jamming on the speed controls if you aren’t careful…

I’ve generally come around to this tape mode. Once you get your gain staging where you want it, it seems quite solid. I was offput at first, being one of those who developed muscle memory and workflow around the old version. I miss having the general concept of a multi-loop (cue) system, I had a ton of happy accidents with the old cue system (though also hit a fair amount of bad dead ends.) I, like many, dreamed off the day where you could more easily and cleanly insert and navigate between cues. It does seem like this new firmware requires a different approach. I totally get the dedication to crow/i2c connection, its powerful, unique, and flexible. I’ve yet to play around much with i2c stuff, but on paper it seems like it will answer a lot of deeper control questions. I feel like people who aren’t into this direction will be able to sell these modules pretty easily… It’s pretty mind blowing the amount of performance and utility you could get out of three w/ and a crow loaded up in a slashes and a computer, that’s 8hp for a nearly complete computer/tape music machine.

Oh, and please bring back the this/that option to output -5 to 5 v ramp following the loop length.

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#156

I would like this too - it was a great feature. I guess it should be possible using Crow - will see if I can find an easy way to script it, although might need to wait until the timestamp command is working.

#157

Yes you’ve got it. “tape echo” is like positive voltages on the old firmware, “tape deck” is like negative.

What’s the situation where you’re having a hard time getting back to 1:1 speed? If i speed or slow the playback (just by holding the toggle switch) it reverts back upon release. And if I double or halve the speed I can just do the opposite action to get it back. I think I’m misunderstanding something here, apologies…

wow I did not know about this :astonished:

Unrelated notes:

I had a complete module failure today which happened when I switched from delay to tape mode while the module was in use—all the lights went off. I had reorganized my rack yesterday so I took out the module to make sure all the power and ii stuff was in order (it was, although the module was a bit warm), reflashed the firmware and good as new! Haven’t been able to recreate this failure but figured I should mention it. When trying to recreate this failure I noticed something else:

  • I turn on tape mode and start at point A where there’s some audio recorded.
  • I allow the tape to play until point B where I start a loop I play into that loop for a while, overdubbing etc.
  • I switch to Delay mode.
  • I switch back to Tape mode and it returns me to point A where I hear that random audio instead of returning me to my loop.
  • Tried this a few times, as well as turning off/on the entire synth with the same result—returned to point A.

I’m not sure live performance mode switching is really viable, so I don’t have complaints about that aspect, but switching to and from tape mode, or on/off should return you to the state you were in i.e. the same portion of tape, and looping on/off, right? That’s why I think there’s a bug there.

Another request: The Delay mode modulation controls—I know someone already asked for it to be easier to get back to zero modulation (I second that request). I also wonder if the modulation range could be smaller. I feel like if I want to do really wild modulation I would use CV, and for the onboard modulation option it would be more useable if it could be dialed in very mild.

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#158

Seconded in 20 characters!

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#159

I often turn off the monitor, set a long loop and build up a wall of sound by manually playing the input source and playing with tape speed. It’s really not a big issue, I just found myself accidentally being in the lowest tape speed setting, recording into it and trying to slow it down it down further. I used to double tap play frequently, occasionally as a performative gesture. I prefer that the play speed now latches, but it seems to me it can be confusing to where you are in the tape speed if you are someone who chaotically and unmethodically jams on the speed. And I guess it only really matters when you hit the wall in either direction, at which point you know where you are… I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

#160

Ah, I see, that makes sense. Well, it seems like the blinking LED for “play” changes rate depending on the speed you’re at so it can be a good indicator of what tape speed you’re at, if you remember to check before you start recording.

#161

In full agreement, very excited w/ w/ v2

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#162

@Galapagoose please keep this strange artifacty aliasing that w/Dly has when running at very slow speeds! It is so beautiful!

It would be nice if there was a little dead zone in the middle of the modulation setting (play white light) and I would also agree with the the above input that the mod-depth could be a little less extreme so that dialing in some wobbles without going into full WOWOWOW without cv would be cool.

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#163

Mlogger is totaly right : the w/tape should be lot easier to use like : press record to play and record and start cue point / press loop to end of loop and looping/ overdubbing (Chase bliss blooper is a good exemple). We don’t need overwrite mode but erase loop function. If you keep cue points it should be main cue points (start and end of loop) and secondary Cue points for granular kind of stuff with easy erasement).
I bought w/ for looper stuff, make it easier plz. Thx for your work.

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#164

A global option to choose between “end loop and overdub” or “end loop and stop recording” could solve the problem too… That way people could choose the behaviour they prefer. Looping preferences are a bit like coding brace placement preferences, often almost a religious belief ;).

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#165

Overwrite is something that some of us use, for instance as a VERY long single pass delay.

I get that looping doesn’t work the way you want it to, but asking for features to be removed seems counter productive when some of us use them quite happily.

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