The link description literally says

It’s really great to create DAWless setups based on the MONOLIT […]

I guess that is the answer you are looking for. Well, it also says “DAWless” while there is clearly a DAW in the preview image, so… ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

PS. It seems that post is from the maker of that device, so they’ll be interested in you being interested in it.

A design feature of monome is that as long as things contain “mono” in its name, they are bound to be able to interact.

Actually, I think it is just vaguely formulated: I would guess that the Grid is connected to the MONLIT, and through some program on it passes midi to monomachine.

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Yeah but it says the grid is directly connected to the monomachine.
(I felt so dim when I read your comment haha)

Oh yeah later in the post it does say “The Monome Grid is directly connected to the Monomachine, which sends MIDI signals without a PC”. Confusing.

My interpretation is that he delegates the monolith basically to the status of an adaptor or a cable. The post is about not using a DAW, so maybe his idea is that as long as there is no PC¹ the chain, the connection is “direct”.

Anyway, grid sends OSC messages. Gear which can interpret OSC² can do something with them on its own. Others need something³ to translate them to MIDI or CV.

PS. Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel dim.

¹ whatever “a PC” means
² basically nothing
³ norns, teletype, Pd, Max, Arduino, this monolit thing apparently

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So I haven’t missed anything in the ecosystem! It’s a bit misleading really but I expect it’s inadvertent. Anyway thanks for confirming for me

since its a thread about fundamental descriptions, clarification seems needed: grid/arc device does not directly transmit or receive OSC-formatted messages. rather a simple bespoke serial protocol.

as you can see, the protocol does define equivalent OSC address patterns for serial command bytes. this dual spec allows:

norns, teletype, arduino, etc - speak the serial protocol directly. (as will most bare-metal systems i would think.)

max/MSP, pymonome, seamstress, etc - exchange OSC messages with a daemon that manages one or more grid/arc devices via serial port(s).

so both high-level and low-level software environments are well supported.

it is true that there is not (yet) any official firmware allowing grid/arc to act as a MIDI device. (doing so requires implementing UI logic, which traditionally doesn’t reside on a monome hardware interface.) there is no great technical barrier to creating custom firmwares though, so i wouldn’t be shocked to see one in action.

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