Mlr (norns)

[sunbeamer]

I can also confirm this after the latest Norns update. Seems like on the cut page, defining a loop length causes the LEDs to shift to incorrect positions.

[crim]

When I first got into electronic music, I was entirely focused on sampling. Over time, I wanted to focus more on performing and improvising, and got frustrated with the fact that sampling seemed to require so much preparation (finding/recording your sounds, chopping them up, etc). Most samplers I think are really studio tools that aren’t designed for live use. Eventually I discovered the Octatrack which is when the notion of “live sampling” really clicked with me. However, in many ways the OT doesn’t feel as “immediate” as MLR.

In other words, I really enjoy processing recorded sounds in my music, but I also want to combine that with live improvisation, and MLR is a great interface for doing this.

[Jonny]

I think MLR shines with acoustic or electro-mechanical instruments since cutting the sample exposes odd noises that become textural and unique. You also get some magical things happening when recording with patterns and overdubbing.

[LLK]

I really can’t separate norns MLR from Softcut, to me it’s what really made it “click”. I completely understand being a bit baffled by MLR, not specifically by the thing itself but by why it somehow seems so fundamental to a lot of artists here when really when you get to it it’s all pretty simple and rough around the edges compared to most other samplers. I tried to put myself to it with re-mix multiple times and although I had fun, I could never use it for live performance (what I aimed to use it for) because it was too much hassle on top of my previously existing setup and I didn’t feel the “hands on, quick access to things like cut pitch and pattern” gain was all that useful to what I was making. So in essence I think in order to really get the value of MLR my guess is you’d have to start from scratch thinking a project with MLR in mind, so that the thing becomes more than the sum of its parts.

But then for norns MLR, it’s also the quickest way to get to use the softcut engine (that and cranes I guess ?), and Softcut is really magic to me, it’s like audio clay, it makes my sound feel gooey and fun to exploit and distort, the way it pitches back and forth so seemlessly, become cutting and percussive at high pitches, I love the grit you get on the lower pitch or when you record in reverse it adds some weird stuff to the sound, I mapped cc parameters to control the pitch slew and the smaller speed change (= not octave) of each track and that alone becomes the instrument. Then on top of it the usual MLR feature of pattern recording and sample cutting become rythmical elements, or chaos generators, or whatever. And all of this while remaining hands on, musical and easy to grasp.

There are some quirks re-importing samples (that don’t play at the right speed for whatever reason) and other stuff I’m not exactly clear as to why they behave like this but it’s really nothing compared to what it brings. But then, it’s really just nothing like what I’ve seen mlr used for in the last decade (ie. whole dj sets, beat making, whole ambiant performance, etc.) so to me it’s more “MLR norns” (especially since on the other end I HAVE seen a lot of people using norns MLR the way I just described since it’s been released) mostly as @alanza said beause of the live input focus.

One last thing : I still wouldn’t mind more quantize options because I feel that wouldn’t hurt the approach one bit to just get to choose wether or not you want (some) things to synchronize or not with an existing track, but at this stage, I still have a lot to work with with the script as it is.

[kasselvania]

I appreciate this break down. I, too, would second the idea of getting some sort of quantizing option. Maybe even a way to shift or nudge audio waves to the cuts on the grid, since that would allow for there to be some minor corrections. Maybe as a record setting in the param menu. I understand that this might be more processor intensive (or programming intensive) than what is appropriate for the norns, but hey, a boy can dream.

But all in all, the MLR norns is a VERY cool tool that seems to be a free form punching bag for my sounds. I find the idea really cool, but I sort of agree with @instantjuggler that it has been hard to find a way to bring it in to my process. I think if I had an OP-Z, OP-1 AND a Organelle (or just a modular setup like many on this board) I would find a greater use for it.

I continue to come back to a long time minor sticking point with a lot of the monome family of tools (which I love!) in which it is really a ‘sink or swim’ proposition. Everybody here is extremely friendly, yet incredibly advanced. So, many times I’m left feeling like I’m drowning for weeks until I can begin to get somewhere even resembling “tolerable” in terms of my output. Rarely do I get the feeling, even from some of the studies and docs such as the mlr ones, how people truly use it, or what types of sounds, beats and more would work best. It’s even hard to know what to expect. Now, I know that this is part of the allure, but it can certainly, at times, fall between intimidating and frustrating.

I wish I could get something like a ‘summer intensive’ where someone would livestream their setup, with a view of not just their grid and the norns screen, but also their tools. See how people explore and fit their tools together, and get inspiration from beginning to follow along, and then become side tracked by inspiration.

I am even slightly embarrassed to admit, my true dream would be to sit next to someone who has REALLY mastered all parts of the norns and just ask every dumb question in the book. So, I guess if anyone lives in LA, or is on discord and wants to walk a newb through his paces… Hahah

[kasselvania]

Per a conversation I just had here in this thread, I was wondering: would there be a way to add a quantizing option to more? Maybe a nudge option, to just ever so slightly adjust our loops?

[mattlowery]

Going to be brave and ask a dumb question. I’m enjoying MLR, but am wondering if someone can walk me through page 3- the Clips page. My lack of understanding has wiped several promising sessions clear, so I want to fully grasp this page before I try again. Help?

[gnome666]

also, would appreciate a further explanation of how to “record” patterns. dont really grasp that yet

[kasselvania]

The way it works is basically like this:

You press one of the pattern buttons to begin the recording of your button presses, do your pressing on a clip (I don’t know if it works for more clips at once…) then press the button again to stop recording. Then, you can toggle the pattern you recorded to play by tapping that same pattern button. If you wish to delete that recorded pattern, hold the ALT button, (the button on the top right) and press the pattern you wish to delete.

Hope that was well explained enough.

[gnome666]

The way it works is basically like this:

Thanks for the explanation. Will give it a try tonight. Cheers

[Molotov]

also can confirm this bug here too

[noiserock]

All the people having grid playhead offset issues, are you using the latest norns update(190801)? Having the same issue here.

[lanserdj]

Echoing what other people have said. Softcut takes it to the next level. Setting patterns and overdubbing to those patterns is insanely fun. Would be a whole lot more practical in a live setting if it could receive clock on norns, but i think thats in the works…? I’ve also made loops and exported them to ableton to help drive rhythm. The emphasis of Norns MLR is really on live processing of instruments - really hoping something will happen with syncing external clock, because that would take it to the next level.

(And if someone has found a way to do this, can they explain to me how to do it?)

[rdfm]

Indeed, I wonder what could have changed and introduced these bugs to the clip and cut pages in this update

[noiserock]

Have you had any success using the OP-Z as a USB master clock for any other scripts? Just wanted to see if I could sync it up, but cannot seem to get it to work.

[doublecoolbossman]

I haven’t tried anything else as far as I remember…

[tehn]

bugs will be fixed Thursday! apologies for the delay. no idea what changed.

this will also give me a chance to add some small things and get to the other issues on the list.

[zebra]

sounds like phase offset / quant issue, no?

i’m noticing that phase quant and offset is only being set when a clip is loaded

tehn/mlr/blob/master/mlr.lua#L279-L280

phase quant and offset are affected by softcut reset:

monome/norns/blob/master/crone/src/SoftCutClient.cpp#L219-L220

so MLR should be careful to set them appropriately. before reset you could probably get away with this if MLR was the only thing touching those params.

[tehn]

yeah but set_clip gets called in init

i’ll dig in properly

[lanserdj]

So i’m trying to sync up with ableton - do you know how i would go about getting it to show up in this slot?

I have no problems syncing up to ableton when using Orca which is what is confusing me.