Mon-ohm. Or mahn-om. I’m not a linguist…
Emphasis on the first syllable.
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Yeah, I pronounce it in the same way as “biome” (though have no idea if that’s correct)
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If you watch the old monome profile video from cycling74, that’s how it is pronounced by the proprietors!
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Dear community, I’ve been lucky to purchase a full set of Monome stuff:
- Outdated modules — Earthsea + Meadowphysics + White Whale
- Couple of Ansibles
- 128 grid and arc controllers
- Teletype + 3 expanders
I’ve been running -isms case for a while and I also happen to own all Mannequins modules (not counting a bunch of other eurorack gear). Which I happen to learn you can connect magically via i2c and achieve an eternal bliss. As far as I understand, Ansible basically makes dedicated modules outdates cause they run all firmwares. How would you approach this to explore this in the most efficient way?
I’ve been trying to find the most recent getting started guide, but there’s just too much for my old tiny brain to comprehend. So I’m wondering and I appreciate if you could point me in the right direction:
- What updates should I deploy on all of them before getting started? Was there specific update or firmware I need to look out?
- What’s the best way to connect everything together on the back? Who’s the master > follower in the connection, etc? I’m handy and capable, but blindly ignorant.
Please help cause Monome been my lifelong goal since I saw videos years ago before starting my eurorack journey and now that I finally was able to appreciate it.
On my background and goals: I’m fairly familiar with trackers, eurorack and max. But I would to limit my exploration to Grids, Arc + Teletype for now. Not involve Max in the production. Just want to explore small fun -isms case, generate some tunes and bleep-blops.
Appreciate your help and sorry if it’s been discussed numerous times. It’s even a bit difficult for me to navigate thousands of posts.
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Hi! I want to make a MIDI looper in Norn and send the MIDI data to my modular hardware. If i understand it right I can achieve it with crow. But it’s currently out of stock. I wonder if I can send the midi data out of Grid via it’s USB ports and send it to devices like this:
Any suggestions would be very appreciated! Thank you!
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the grid cannot send MIDI data
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You have quite the collection, there! Most of those sequencers are highly interactive so you’ll probably end up focusing on just a couple at a time. Bring some utilities nearby for combining their output in useful ways (switches, adders, attenuverters, etc.). Two Ansibles flanking a Cold Mac running into a quad quantizer could be a great recipe.
You should be glad to hear that none of the Trilogy modules are outdated since they all bring a unique set of CV IO, knobs, and buttons. Ansible is the remastered “greatest hits” collection but I found myself missing the knobs in Earthsea, for example.
This page details the latest firmware available for each monome module, with instructions. Updating can bring its own challenges so be careful to follow the instructions exactly, especially pre-installing the correct drivers.
You may also want to update your Mannequins modules: Just Friends v4.5 (new today!), and W/2 beta w20b7 (this one radically changes the features of W/, so be sure to read the new scroll). These are updated using audio; check the Whimsical Raps website for instructions.
I would honestly recommend getting very comfortable with the normal operation of these modules before exploring the I2C functions. Specifically, a good understanding of Teletype scripting is key to comfortably using these features. Feel free to join us in the Teletype Study Group Discord if you’d like some chat guidance while you explore the Teletype studies (and beyond). If you are feeling ready to get into the I2C stuff, shoot me a PM here or there.
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Thank you so much for sharing this. Appreciate it a lot. I will start with updates first. See where patching gets me. I’m very excited about tracker function of the Teletype, if I’m honest. But I’ll start slow.
I’m still a bit confused with how much of everything should I put in the case (monome vs voices vs utility). Still exploring everything. Will start over the weekend.
I wasn’t kidding when I said lifetime achievement. And I got three kids.
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are there any real-life differences depending on the version of hardware Norns uses? (not shield, factory norns) + does monome offer upgrades/replacements for older hardware Norns?
The differences you’ll find between different hardware iterations are a different compute module with different amount of storage (4GB vs 32GB), and different enclosure colour (grey vs black). There’s a summary here:
There are instructions for upgrading older versions here:
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Hello,
this is my first entry here, so forgive me if I do anything wrong. I want to know whether arc or any of its clone can be used as a standard MIDI controller (I am using Cubase basically) without to much headache or programming. I could not find anything with the search function.
Would appreciate some insight!
Thanks
Philip
Welcome! The monome arc and grid use the OSC protocol. You would need a translation from OSC to MIDI using a computer or other device if you want to send MIDI to external instruments or your DAW. There are little programs out there like this one.
I have a Monome 258 that was loaned to me and it looks like I am going to be keeping it. I have a Mac M1 and have done some reading and digging and am still very lost. I would like to use this in Ableton Live. I would like to map each pad as MIDI. I know that the monome has a lot of potentials but I would like to start there and eventually move to Max and other things.
Best,
You can check out this repo. It’s a suite of apps for using Grid within Ableton.
I believe there is something in there that can do each pad to midi.
Are you handy with code at all? I was pursuing the docs earlier and noticed in the Node.JS tutorial, they literally walk you through programming your own little grid to MIDI controller script that will work within Ableton. Totally going to try this tomorrow and I am pumped!
I am sure it exists somewhere already, but I can share it with you when I finish.
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