#169

If I’m understanding you correctly, and remembering it correctly from my own use (not in front of my system at the moment but I’m looking at the manual under Kria/Patterns), the pattern save feature you may be talking about is more of a “copy-paste” situation.

For example, you’ve come up with a sequence you’d like to use as a starting point, and want to use it to make multiple variations for chaining or meta-sequencing purposes. If I remember the gesture correctly, long presses on other pattern slots will save this current pattern into those slots.

Then saving the preset collects all of those patterns and such, and saves it to memory under the whole preset

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#170

@ellips_s that makes sense, thanks!

#171

Metasequencing will demonstrate why patterns are so useful vs presets alone.

#172

So I guess this is sort of a general seeking advice/experiences thread… I’m curious to hear people’s thoughts about currently available Monome offerings with respect to my current modular setup, but not limited to it by any means.

I guess this is my first actual thread? Brief backstory: I started off with an 0-Coast a couple years ago and subsequently dove too quickly into modular. Before long I had a Pittsburgh EP360 nearly full but with zero focus because I just let my GAS run crazy. I freaked out and sold the whole thing out of frustration, but ultimately realized I was too much of a fan of the format to totally stay away. I’ve subsequently come back bit by bit, and I have an 84hp skiff currently set up like this:

Despite being fairly cautious this time around, I’ve found I have the same frustrations, the bulk of which lie in sequencing. Arpitecht has been fun for creating melodies, even if I don’t have too much control over the actual lines. That said, I start running into problems when I start to look at incorporating something that’d be good for transposing those melodies within the small rack, like… say a Pressure Points or a Voltage Block (I had the latter and didn’t like it. Former is awesome but large, esp if you add Brains).

Grids has always looked beautiful but somewhat confusing to me, though the more I look into it and read tutorials etc, the more sense it makes. It’s sequencing functionality looks ideal. Also I like the fact that I could use it outside of the modular world. Teletype also looks very interesting, as does Ansible. With respect to all of these, I’d say one of the things that I find most impressive about what I’ve seen/hear people do on here with Monome stuff is the complexity of sounds and, for lack of a better word, narrative melodies (vs just stagnant/repeating) with relatively small skiffs. I wanna know more about how you do that!

With all that in mind, I don’t really know quite what Monome thing to zoom in on. I do know that I could get rid of a couple of my modules to make room for other things (Arpitecht and Spectrum could go without much sadness, for ex), so I’m open to all suggestions. A couple of notes about what I currently DO enjoy about my rack: Steppy is fun and very useful for programming specific rhythms. I have always loved Pam’s. Marbles is pretty wonderful. However, I could get rid of any of those if I heard a convincing reason why.

That’s a lot of rambling—thanks for sticking with me! I’ll probably think of more coherent things to say, but for now I think this should get the rough conundrum across. Now fire away :relaxed:

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#173

Spitting some CV into Arpitecht can add tons of variation to its melodies. Pretty much everything has a CV input, too, so you can pick which thing you want to be different. Notes, rhythms, slides, etc. I’m also a fan of sending CV from Arpitecht to multiple places in the rack. It can help to tie the room together. I use on in a 104hp system and think it rules face and additionally slays face.

… this post has nothing to do with Monome :man_facepalming:

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#174

I think you are on the right line of thinking so far as what you mention the problem your having is (things being too stagnant). Zooming out and focusing on the overall compositional movement of something will help a lot with that.

If you want to continue working this way with the added control, teletype would be great for that kind of approach. If I was you, I would probably get rid of the adsrvca (as you can rely on the plaints internal eg) + arpitecht to make room?

If rather you’d like to do something more expressive and playable, ansible + grid would be a great choice (especially with the polyearthsea firmware).

One non-gear approach (provided you have a DAW that could do this) is you could take things you like but feel static and aggregate them together, mixing them in and out to create something that feels more like a “song” than a “loop” (pitch and time shifting to make the parts feel harmonious)

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#175

That’s ok that it has nothing to do with Monome! Haha, certainly no worries :smile:

I do like those things about Arpitecht, for sure. In fact, it’s one of the only (if not the only) small sequencing modules that I’ve really bonded with. I guess I’m just looking for some more notches of control over various things, like I said particularly with transposing.

As this conversation goes on, I’m guessing I’ll start to be clearer about what I’m trying to say / look for. One thing that just popped into my head is that I tend to want to write songs, vs, for lack of a better word, jam. Most of what I’ve done with my current setup involves making little jams that evolve just a little bit with simple transpositions, and I’m interested in more long-form manipulation. If that makes sense.

#176

Yep, this is the big thing. I think the problem I run into is that I don’t have a comfortable way to do that with my current setup. I feel like I’ve got some tools for the micro, but they don’t feel as good for the macro view.

I could always sequence these compositional changes with my DAW, but I guess I keep trying to make it happen without doing that. Maybe I should stop pushing against that, dunno.

#177

Might not be what you are looking for, but my favourite way to compose on the modular ( in opposition to jam) is still to use the computer and à midi to cv converter

2 Likes
#178

Meadowphysics and Kria (the grid sequencers on Ansible) explore some ideas that you don’t find on other sequencers. Kria in particular allows you to decouple the components of your sequences in a way that leads to less stock/repeating behavior. I’ve found that while I am still interested in other gear, using monome/Mannequins has helped me focus as there’s quite a bit to explore.

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#179

Thanks for moving this, mods. My bad!

#180

I’ve been scanning around for a Switch alternative (minus power- I did the “cut the red wire” trick) that is necessarily external and preferably cheap. Has anybody found something that works? I think this should do the trick, as it’s not a hub from what I can tell. Any other recommendations would be very much appreciated.

https://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Sharing-One-Button-Swapping-Computers/dp/B00JX3Q28Y/ref=sr_1_11?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1550604692&sr=1-11&keywords=usb+sharing+switch

#181

I recently got a Grid+Ansible setup and haven’t had a lot of time with it yet, but it surprised me by how immediate and intuitive it (Kria, so far) is. Highly recommended! Very simple to set up melodies and to interact directly to modify on the fly. I was afraid that the flexible design would make it cumbersome to use, but the various views (triggers/notes…) are different enough visually so you don’t have to memorize too much. It also just feels great to play and interact with.

5 Likes
#182

To give an update on my post above, the switch I linked seems to mostly work in initial tests with Ansible and Teletype. The only problem is that there’s a long-enough-so-that-it’s-annoying delay while switching. I’m sure the capital-S Switch or Isms would do the job much better, but this is a “better than nothing” solution maybe.

#183

I know that if you passive mult V/Oct it won’t be a perfect copy.

If I want the V/Oct to OSC but don’t need a perfect copy to V/Oct on my LPF is there a way to do this without a Buff mult?

I’m guessing stack cables will always degrade all signals?

#184

My suggestion is to try it with the stackcables and see if it bothers you: I have my main pitch patched through a stackcable and it’s plenty close enough to being in tune for me, especially since Make Noise, Monome and Mannequins modules seem to be designed with stackcable nonsense in mind.

In general you’re right, since from the electricity’s point of view, all connections via stackcable are equal, the only way to prevent CV droop on one of your connections would be a buffered mult.

3 Likes
#185

another question. Isn’t SUM and OFFSET the same thing?
for example in the BIA manual.

Pitch: The knob sums with the CV input.
Decay: The knob offsets the CV input.

#186

Yes. The one corner case that might occur is in a digital module, if the module reads the knob and the CV input separately, you could reach values in the firmware beyond the +/-12V maximum set by your power supply.

#187

Been looking at the WMD Arpitecht. Seems like it pairs really well with a voltage block. In theory the teletype can do the same thing as a voltage block yes? Just harder to set in the right voltage as quickly as the voltage block.

But I do have a TXi, so probably could set cv1,2,3,4 to TXi.PRMs. set it to the internal clock so i can adjust them in real time to figure out settings. Then set a pattern of those settings?

Be like to do the below without the voltage block. running out of space :frowning:

#188

I don’t have Teletype, but setting “the right voltage” quickly is not a strength of Voltage Block, especially when it comes to pitch CVs. The faders have a huge range, so it’s pretty difficult to dial in a specific note.

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