mlr (norns)

ReallyRad · 2022-05-03T08:25:58.319Z

Hi everyone,
I noticed a bug in mlr after some use that has been nagging for some time now.
It seems after a while patterns slowly get out of sync with the other loops, even with quantization enabled.

So sometimes, in order to be able to trigger a new loop in sync with what’s already playing, I have to set a new quantization grid by disabling quantize, triggering a new loop, and press quantize again.

It works in a similar way by retriggering the pattern in non-quantized mode as well.

Has anyone else noticed this and is there an easy fix for this? I feel like this might have easily stayed unnoticed for those using mlr without quantize for more ambient stuff, in my case it’s mostly rhythmic, so this stuff makes it hard to take advantage of the awesome layered pattern recording feature.

Thanks!

zebra · 2022-05-03T09:59:18.879Z

its true, the loops and the pattern sequencer are driven by different clocks and they will drift by default.

there’s a common thread here which is wanting this MLR to be more directly driven by control signals. it makes sense. if anyone wishes to spin up a variant of MLR that does use clocks to trigger loops, it’s not too hard. for the clocking mechanism i made a small demo: clockcut/clockcut.lua at main · catfact/clockcut · GitHub

(which, who knows, i might continue to build out a little.)

that sort of mechanism would be a straight-up addition to the present script. the other needed change would be more… invasive, allowing conversion between seconds and units of clock time in the specification of loop structures.

with all that in place, pattern playback and looping would be driven by same clock, which could also be MIDI.

hmm, maybe worth mentioning that (i think) if norns was set to use the internal clock and that clocks BPM were set very precisely to match loop durations (rounded to 1 sample at 48khz), then drift would likely be unmeasurable since they both use the JACK sample clock. (this is just a theory.)

its also worth mentioning the tradeoff of driving softcut more directly over OSC instead of allowing it to loop internally: it eliminates drift against control clocks, at the cost of adding some jitter. but i think this should only be noticeable with very short loops. (or should i say, fast repeated position changes.)

re: hard cuts,

i always say that scripts should not call play() and rec() during operation if they are trying to avoid clicks. it is really my fault for giving these functions the most obvious and typable names (they should be called play_enable and rec_enable or something.)

but, the intented usage is to set a combination of level, rec_level and pre_level instead, and do a little more management on the lua side:

any/all the level values can be composed of a mute flag and an gain amount
“opening” the channel can also reset the voice’s position

in other words, the best option is to just leave a voice running, configured such that it has no effect on the buffer or the outputs bus (level=0, rec_level=0, pre_level=1), instead of ever “stopping” it at all. i realize this is odd.

(it might seem like a weird omission that there are not more meta-commands like “fade out and stop” baked into softcut, and i would agree, but that’s where the implementation is at. it is also structured such that driving loop state changes by fade envelopes incurs a small but significant performance hit. its on my long list of things to rewrite.)

anyway the workaround suggested by @sonoCircuit should also work fine and is maybe the easiest alteration to make.

ReallyRad · 2022-05-03T11:16:40.510Z

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer and linking back to an existing thread on this forum. Hope to have time to get my hands on the script some time soon.

KNWSHZ · 2022-05-22T10:42:37.767Z

I understand the voice limit.
But does someone knows is there’s a way to make it 3 stereo tracks instead of 6 mono tracks?
Is it possible or it will be forever summed to mono?

Also, is there a CPU limit for more than 7 clips? having more clips can be an easy way to “clear” recordings.

Last q,
Where can I change the scrip to overdub = 1
when I load it? I always want overdub to be 1, so I guess there’s a way to change it…

thanks!

sonoCircuit · 2022-05-22T12:53:15.125Z

KNWSHZ:

Is it possible

Yes. However, it would require a substantial amount of changes (depending on how you’d like it to work).

The softcut routing is the handled with

softcut.level_input_cut("ADC input", "voice", "level")

For 3 stereo tracks you could route ADC input 1 to voices 1, 3, 5 and ADC input 2 to voices 2, 4, 6. However that’s only a fraction of changes to the code you’d need to make. If you’re up to it I can recommend to study the code and see where further changes are required. Feel free to DM me, I’d be happy to guide you through some bits.

KNWSHZ:

more than 7 clips

There are 7 clips because each clip is 45s long and that’s all that can fit into the buffer (349.52 seconds). It would be totally possible to have more but shorter clips.

KNWSHZ:

Where can I change the scrip to overdub = 1

change this line to:

params:add_control(i.."pre", i.."pre", UP1)

that should work.

KNWSHZ · 2022-05-22T13:42:35.832Z

sonoCircuit:

There are 7 clips because each clip is 45s long and that’s all that can fit into the buffer (349.52 seconds). It would be totally possible to have more but shorter clips.

Got it, working!

sonoCircuit:

change this line to:
params:add_control(i.."pre", i.."pre", UP1)
that should work.

Working, amazing!

sonoCircuit:

The softcut routing is the handled with

softcut.level_input_cut("ADC input", "voice", "level")

For 3 stereo tracks you could route ADC input 1 to voices 1, 3, 5 and ADC input 2 to voices 2, 4, 6. However that’s only a fraction of changes to the code you’d need to make. If you’re up to it I can recommend to study the code and see where further changes are required. Feel free to DM me, I’d be happy to guide you through some bits.

Ok I think I got it, I’ll dm you soon

Thank you!!!

PeterBark · 2022-06-21T16:27:36.819Z

tutorial and beat based demo using MLR with some additional midi mapping from touchOSC. I included a download link for the touchOSC template in the video description for anyone interested.

ampism · 2022-06-24T09:11:58.111Z

@tehn Am I being totally stoopid, or is the “1file”, “2file” etc missing from Params page? I can’t load samples into MLR, and I’ve done this many times…(?)
Help!

sonoCircuit · 2022-06-24T10:54:00.878Z

not stupid at all!

sorry about the missing communication. @tehn merged a PR I made which adds total session save and recall via pset and “clickless” start/stop.

If you save a pset the whole buffer (50.3 MB) is saved together with a file including patterns/recalls, loop state, loop points, speeds and playback direction. I removed the “load file” in the params, because it conflicts with the way the “session save” feature is implemented. To load files you need to go to clip view and load your files there.

Also until the next norns update you’ll need to remove any files manually when psets are deleted. All files are stored under data/mlr/“pset number”.

ampism · 2022-06-24T11:04:44.978Z

sonoCircuit:

To load files you need to go to clip view and load your files there.

Ah! Got it. Up n’ running now. Thanks @sonoCircuit !

I understand how to load a sample now, but the rest of your post has left me kinda baffled…I’ll dissect it another time

Thanks again!

Update : confused again. I managed to load one sample from the tape folder, and then
play that sample over the 6 tracks, but when I want to load a different sound onto a different track, I’m getting in a muddle. See pic:

IMG_54051920×2560 305 KB

2nd Update. On page 2, when I hold 2 grid keys to create a loop, the bright light passes straight through my loop, and just plays as normal (?)

Catchthehare · 2022-06-24T11:12:33.591Z

Great work - I’m enjoying your series!

sonoCircuit · 2022-06-24T11:45:01.551Z

ampism:

in a muddle

not sure what you mean by this. I can see that clip 4 is assigned to track 3 and no clip is loaded.

ampism:

2 grid keys to create a loop

I am assuming that the loop was set before loading another clip. If so this is normal behaviour as the loops are reset when loading a clip (however the lit keys aren’t cleared, which is something to address). If this is not the case, please reload mlr and see if this persists.

edit: sounds nice btw.

ampism · 2022-06-24T12:49:30.696Z

sonoCircuit:

not sure what you mean by this. I can see that clip 4 is assigned to track 3 and no clip is loaded.

Yes, shoulda been clearer, apologies. I just mean that I don’t know how (or why) track 3 is selected. Let’s say I opened MLR and I wanted to put 3 samples, called “A”, “B” and “C” onto tracks 1,2 and 3 respectively. How would I go about that?

Regarding the looping on page 2, do you mean that if I select an area to loop, and then load a new sample, that sample will not adhere to the current settings and will just play from start to finish?

Sorry. I know all this stuff is second nature to most people on this forum, but to me it’s very hard to understand.

sonoCircuit · 2022-06-24T13:18:27.764Z

No apology needed!

ampism:

I wanted to put 3 samples, called “A”, “B” and “C” onto tracks 1,2 and 3

On the clip page rows 2-7 correspond to the tracks 1-6 and the columns 1- 7 correspond to the selected clip (there are 16 key lit but only the first 7 can be selected). You can assign any track to any clip (clips can also be assigned to multiple tracks). By default the clips 1- 6 are assigned to tracks 1 - 6 (track 1 → clip 1, track 2 → clip 2 etc.). So you need to press the corresponding key to select a clip and load your sample there.

ampism:

will not adhere to the current settings and will just play from start to finish

Yes, when a clip is loaded the start and end point are set to the start/end of the loaded file.

ampism · 2022-06-24T17:29:33.406Z

sonoCircuit:

On the clip page rows 2-7 correspond to the tracks 1-6 and the columns 1- 7 correspond to the selected clip (there are 16 key lit but only the first 7 can be selected). You can assign any track to any clip (clips can also be assigned to multiple tracks). By default the clips 1- 6 are assigned to tracks 1 - 6 (track 1 → clip 1, track 2 → clip 2 etc.). So you need to press the corresponding key to select a clip and load your sample there.

Great - this is super helpful. Thank you

sonoCircuit:

Yes, when a clip is loaded the start and end point are set to the start/end of the loaded file.

So is this a bug? Or a conscious choice?

ReallyRad · 2022-06-25T07:56:23.589Z

Wwoow! I’m booting up mlr to start working on some modifications and there is a new version online since 1 month? No changelog? Really curious to see what was added.

EDIT : oh no, I see it’s just a version bump

elvale14 · 2022-07-01T17:35:21.630Z

Is there a way to use the four recall/macro control buttons available on the 128 grid on a 64 grid?

SOLVED

Did some research in this thread and found a diagram for the 64 grid that I had not seen before. I never knew the three bottom left grid buttons had that functionality. Super stoked to be able to play around with recall slots!!!

Lizards_Case · 2022-07-04T09:35:13.173Z

Just want to say a massive thank you for porting this to Norns and giving it all that love with the updates. I own a grid since 2 tears or so but I was never able to use mlr in a stable fashion. This changed radically with having it on norns. It works like a charm now.

My only miss would be having it sync reliably in slave mode, be it midi or link since a daw will never be happy beeing slave.

Still - a big up and many thanx for mlr on norns!

LC

kasselvania · 2022-07-04T14:57:37.951Z

I agree with the desire for hard clocking. Sadly, this is not so much a part of the way this scripts very foundation is built.

As an option, re:mix, the M4L representation of mlr works great in modern Live. It’s a pain in the butt to setup, but it works.

Also, a friend of mine has been digging deeper in to Norns programming for his own project. There’s some crossover between looping/recording functionality, so I’m bugging him almost daily to look at making a spin-off of his code base for a more “clock-able” mlr variant. Preferably incorporating the arc controls that have been added to some branches

tournesol · 2022-07-04T18:04:56.711Z

kasselvania:

Also, a friend of mine has been digging deeper in to Norns programming for his own project. There’s some crossover between looping/recording functionality, so I’m bugging him almost daily to look at making a spin-off of his code base for a more “clock-able” mlr variant. Preferably incorporating the arc controls that have been added to some branches

More “clock-able” mlr would be amazing