Morphagene Patch & System Ideas

[chapelierfou]

Nice update! At 2:55, why are the reversed gene not at the same pitch as the forward ones ?

[walker]

Good question. The reason is that the Vari-Speed knob wasn’t in the same place as the previous cut. So the intervals are the same but they are transposed slightly.

[sunbeamer]

Just finished my update and this is exactly what I was hoping for! Easy to access gain adjustment, and the lower noise floor is absolutely noticeable. Tested with Rings of course, since that was always quite annoying to get the gain adjustment right for. Many thanks to @walker & co. for getting this out there!

[chapelierfou]

Okay ! Damn I feel too bad, cause I sent my MG back. The two main reasons were that :

• I couldn’t set the proper gain for Rings
• I didn’t like the Fifths produced with Morph clockwise.

[909one]

I installed the new firmware. Its nice to have easy gain adjustments like the Mimeophone. Digging that. I adjust the morph pitch to a major chord and it was quite nice just taking a simple drone and having those evolve to a chord. I like it a lot already.
One thing I noticed is that even on the lowest gain input setting of the Morphaggene, a sine wav from my complex osc, (Instruo CS-L) distorts the input. It could be the CS-L itself, I don’t know how hot its coming out. But its fixable enough with an attenuator. At least with not having auto-gain, you can get repeatable results. I never knew what was happening with the auto-gain thing. Good idea in theory, but manual is better.

[Gexex]

I tested this on -3dB with sines from both Cs-L oscillators with SOS fully ccw and did not experience any distortion. Not sure if this was the result of my signal path out (I hit an in-the-rack mixer before my outboard).

I’m enjoying the <1 morph settings very much. I rarely cranked morph before, but fully expect to now.

[taylor12k]

nice update, very welcome on both features. i do wish they’d address the ease of accessing the “green” or unity pitch setting… it’s the smallest sliver of colors on my varispeed knob and not easy to dial in.

[Hovercraft]

I spoke with Tom Erbe about that, and (unfortunately) he said it can’t be changed due to the hardware design. The range of the offset for 1X playback is maddeningly narrow. The gain issue was a bigger pain, though–so this update is a major improvement.

[taylor12k]

ah, didn’t know it was unfixable… but i agree the input level thing was a more important fix…

@Hovercraft

I spoke with Tom Erbe about that, and (unfortunately) he said it can’t be changed due to the hardware design. The range of the offset for 1X playback is maddeningly narrow. The gain issue was a bigger pain, though–so this update is a major improvement.

[909one]

It’s funny, I was watching the demo for the Instruo Arbhar, and the dude says something like, I think it’s extremely important to have a center detent and a way to easily get back tho they root pitch. It’s easy to criticize someone else’s build, I can’t even imagine the level of complexity that goes into designing the Morphagene, but you’d think that getting back to the root pitch would be high on the list of necessities for something that modifies pitch like this. I probably bump the pitch knob two or three times every time I sit down to patch. it’s just annoying how temperamental it is.

[a773]

@Hovercraft

I spoke with Tom Erbe about that, and (unfortunately) he said it can’t be changed due to the hardware design.

Really?

On the mutable modules there’s a “plateau” on octaves, making them easier to dial in. The code is in github, free for the coder at MN to look at. It’s not as good as a physical indent, but I do think it’s possible to improve the current situation.

There’s a million other things that could be done, how about “push putton and pitch will snap to octaves when turned”…

Software is magical.

NB: I sold my morphagene

[robinrimbaud]

that’s exactly what I was hoping for too. Something like the combination of holding a button and moving a knob all the way to the left and right and thereby returning the setting to the standard ‘green’ pitch. It’s almost like a game trying to find that tiniest amount of colour in there!

[boboter]

Thanks a lot for the update. I’m looking forward to trying out different morph pitches. The slight detuning from the demo video makes it feel like a whole new module already, completely different vibes are possible now. Very exciting.

[Fedor]

I suggested to lock pitch changes to octaves, but it was refused. But if quantizing a knob to semitones is possible in software, then it should be possible with the octaves.

[Aomatos]

If you don’t touch the pitch and send CV in the varispeed input you can always return to the root note, right? I mean at least that’s what I always do. Am I missing something? Why are so many comments about this?

[kveye]

I think it’s a strange logic to use another module to overcome a design quirk
Changing octaves of the grains gives nice musical effect and it’s natural to want to use that knob for performance, while sweeping through whole chromatic range in between does not suit all kinds of music.

[walker]

@kveye

Changing octaves of the grains gives nice musical effect and it’s natural to want to use that knob for performance, while sweeping through whole chromatic range in between does not suit all kinds of music.

You could say the same about a VCO.

@kveye

I think it’s a strange logic to use another module to overcome a design quirk

If you have a goal that goes beyond the design vision for a particular module, using another module to achieve it isn’t strange logic at all. I’d say it is precisely the point of having a modular synth. No one piece has to do everything. The interactions between modules are what make it YOUR instrument. Going outside the vision of the designer is something that is encouraged in a modular synth - that’s the beauty of it, no?

Practically speaking, a “detent” for green 1/1 would add a dead spot in the control, making full smooth sweeps impossible. There is nothing inherently superior about “Green” over other positions on the knob. For melodic pitch sequencing with repeatable, instant results, we added the vsop options. I hope none of this is a “deal breaker.” There are theoretical and practical reasons the module works the way it does.

[kveye]

@walker

There is nothing inherently superior about “Green” over other positions on the knob.

In theory yes, in terms of interfacing with a module i would disagree. It is an understandable starting point and all other points are derivatives of that Not going to argue or complain as i’m fine with MG as is.

Btw, manual is missing descriptions of colors for the varispeed knob, would be nice to know them actually.

[robotboot]

I get the same feeling trying to get MG in green as i do threading a needle.

If you set it to Quantized can’t it at least be increased there? I would love to use MG with 1v scaling but find it almost impossible to set up and keep it that way.

the being sid im exited to try out new gain staging as that seams like a huge improvement…thanks

[stvnrgrs]

It’s there, page 21 of the manual!