Norns: alternative grids

[DoS]

@Chico

how do I actually proceed?

Let me check back with what steps I had to take to get everything working.

@shoggoth

arcologies - does this setup work well with that

Yes! It does and is responsive and eminently playable.

[Chico]

Awesome! Thanks. I’m really confused. No programmnig skills whatsoever…

[DoS]

@Chico

No programmnig skills whatsoever…

I have few myself; it’s mostly a matter of making sure that a few key names of midi devices (in this case the Launchpad Mini Mk3[s]) are in place in the midigrid libs, and then pasting the right line that calls midigrid into any script you want to use it.

[Chico]

Still more than I can manage to figure out by myself. Usually I do well digging up the info I need for these kinds of things, but the Norns environment is still so new to me that I’m at a bit of a loss… Thanks!

[funkoftherob]

I was wondering if you could give a little more specific advice on getting arcologies to work with this: I added the lines

“local grid = include(‘midigrid/lib/mg_128’)
local g = grid.connect()”

into the _grid.lua file, which is where I figured it needed to happen. Now it crashes on init when I try to load it.

Any insight you might have would be much appreciated.

[DoS]

@funkoftherob

Any insight you might have would be much appreciated.

Please bear with me (also @Chico) as I have had to reinstall Linux on my desktop computer recently and am rebuilding folders etc including my Norns Shield backups.

Update: logged in to Dust to have a look at how I set up Arcologies and found the following:

@funkoftherob

    local grid = include(‘midigrid/lib/mg_128’)
    local g = grid.connect()

into the _grid.lua file, which is where I figured it needed to happen. Now it crashes on init when I try to load it.

Is correct except you should have ("midigrid/lib/mg_128") with double rather than single quotes in there, I think.

Second update:

@Chico

how do I actually proceed? midigrid-master.zip into Norns dust folder?

I’ve had a look back through my /dust folder and what I downloaded, and it seems that as far as I can tell I installed the midigrid script from @JaggedNZ’s Github into /dust/code and I recall that the Mini Mk3s worked with no further configuration of the script itself (it’s possible I’m wrong about this, but it looks unchanged to me from a quick check).

Adding the line local grid = include("midigrid/lib/mg_128") before local g = grid.connect() is how you get it working with each script you want to use with the Launchpads. You can do this using Maiden in your web browser to edit, test (and save!) each script if you find this easier than using say FTP to work on the code over wifi.

Awake is a good script to test midigrid with as it is simple to add the line noted above and to see it working when everything hopefully goes right.

[funkoftherob]

@DoS

Is correct except you should have ("midigrid/lib/mg_128") with double rather than single quotes in there, I think.

Thanks so much for your feedback.

I did make that change and verified the placement in the _grid file, but for some reason its still crashing the script. If I change the code back to the original it runs fine.

If you can think of anything else you had to do, I would love to try it out. I’m definitely going to keep poking around, but I’m also aware I’m in a bit over my head.

[DoS]

@funkoftherob

If you can think of anything else you had to do, I would love to try it out

Hmm, OK, that’s interesting; I will have a look for any other midigrid code changes I might have made in Arcologies in that case.

[funkoftherob]

That would be great. I’ll also try some things and see if anything works.

Edit: Also happy to send you the error if its that kind of party.

[DoS]

OK, so I checked and this is what my _grid.lua actually starts with:

_grid = {}
local grid = include(“midigrid/lib/mg_128”)
_grid.device = grid.connect()

See if that helps, making sure local g = grid.connect() is cut out.

[funkoftherob]

Thanks for the help! I’m still getting a failure, but this is a good jumping off point to see what else I might have to look at.

[JaggedNZ]

I suspect you have installed midi grid incorrectly, this is a common issue with using the .zip files from GitHub.
There is a new install method in the latest Norns update, but I have not had a chance to sit down write up a new install process.

[Chico]

Thanks @DoS ! Will have to try this tomorrow during the weekend! Will report back. Thanks again!

[funkoftherob]

It’s working well in most of my other scripts, but I’ll try a fresh install! Thanks for the feedback.

Edit:
@JaggedNZ I resinstalled midigrid from maiden and have verified that other scripts I changed (glut, awake) are working as expected.

@DoS I made those changes to the code and am getting an error that it is trying to call global g but failing, also occasionally during certain types of failures, I can see button presses on the lp in maiden causing little failures themselves. I was wondering if you might have had to change anything else in that code to get it to work.

Not sure what the next move is, but I appreciate the help!

[DoS]

@funkoftherob

I was wondering if you might have had to change anything else in that code to get it to work.

So I did some testing and got a load fail; I updated and then re-installed arcologies and it worked fine as far as I could see (without midigrid being called), but when I put the code snippet above back in _grid.lua it fell over with a load fail once again.

So I edited the first three lines of _grid.lua library to

_grid = {}
local grid = include(“midigrid/lib/mg_128”)
g = grid.connect()

and it’s back to working, though my presets will no longer load. Hmm. Will have to start afresh now it seems. Edit: scrub that, I forgot that presets are loaded in arcologies from the parameters menu, not the psets…

[funkoftherob]

@DoS I feel a little validated now that you got the same load errors I did. l tried the change you mentioned and I am getting an init error. Matron also spits out a new error every time I press a button on the lp. I wonder if there something I missed about actually connecting the device, its showing up in midi port 1 if that means anything for this issue.

Thanks for all of your help, I now know I wasn’t making a completely preventable mistake, which is a bit of a relief. Do let me know if you run across that init error though, it’s been driving me crazy.

[Helen]

Hey @Chico!

How did you get on with making the Launchpad Mini Mk3 work with Norns Shield?

I have a Mini Mk3 on its way and have been trying to figure out what I need to do but honestly, I have no idea.

If you have made any progress, please would you let this useless n00b know?

Thanks!

[Chico]

Hello! @Helen I’ve been having weird schedules at work and haven’t gotten around to trying this yet. I’m off today but got to take care of some house stuff. If I get everything done quickly enough I’ll try hooking up the Launchpad today. Cheers!

[DoS]

@Helen

How did you get on with making the Launchpad Mini Mk3 work with Norns Shield?

Just chipping in to say that the way I think I got the 2x Launchpad Mini Mk3s working was to install @JaggedNZ’s midigrid repos from Github and it was pretty much fine from there; if you only have one LP Mini Mk3 then you need to insert

local grid = include("midigrid/lib/midigrid")

before

g = grid.connect()

in the scripts you want to use it with (Awake is a great one for testing, as is gridtest as you might imagine). Not all scripts will work with midigrid though - buttons might not light up, or the LP Mini Mk3 is too slow to be usable, but it’s worth trying it out!

[Helen]

Thank you, I appreciate the info (not that I have any idea how to install a repo from Github, but I guess that’s why we have Google, right?! )

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Edited to remove further edits and restore original post.