is there visual feedback anywhere while norns is off and plugged in to know if it’s charging?
was running mine since unboxing for about 3 hours just jamming and then it died 
didn’t check what the battery percentage was when i first turned it on though. do we have a battery life estimate with constant normal activity? i’ll probs always keep a little power bank handy anyway…
Key2 on the Norns? And key 3 while hitting Key2 or after? Sorry I’m having such a hard time figuring this part out!
If I hit key 2 it toggles between Volume/speed mod and rec level/overdub. key 3 doesn’t seem to be doing anything that I can tell
most shipped with around 80% battery. battery % indicated on the LEVELS screen in the upper right.
different engines/scripts use different amount of CPU hence different amounts of power. you can see the power drain by holding KEY1 in LEVELS. the battery is 2250maH so you can do the math of how far you’ll get given your current consumption. (it also shows charge rate, as a positive number)
and no, there’s no indication when charging when the thing is powered off. unfortunately there wasn’t a quick (cheap) way to implement that in the circuit.
yep, the keys on norns. while in REC mode in levels you hold down key 2 to access the record functions, and you execute them by hitting key 3 while still holding key 2. switch between REC and PLAY modes by holding key 2 and turning encoder 3. you’ll see this visually on the screen as well. maybe you’re still in play mode?
this info and more helpful navigation basics is on the legend (levels and tape section) that came in the box with norns, also pdf version here 
Thanks for your help. When I open MLR, with the top left button lit on the grid I know I’m in rec/speed mode. the norns display is showing REC>1. If I hit key2 it will go between volume/speed mod and if I hit it again it will say rec level/overdub, while still showing REC >1. If I hit key2 while turning encoder3, it just adjusts the speed overdub level or speed mode, depending on which view is visible.
EDIT - I see, you are saying to do this from the levels menu, not the MLR menu
with the tape>REC and monitor level off, shouldn’t I hear the source when I enable the REC column on the grid?
right now MLR uses a shared sound buffer for all 16 clips-- if you load a super long file (16 seconds?) it’ll overlap into the other buffer regions. this is something i’ll address with updates.
but if you meant eMMC (disk space) there is 2.2g free (indicated in SYSTEM). you can probably fill it mostly with sound, but then you won’t have any room for TAPE (direct to disk).
@stripes is talking about the direct-to-disk TAPE function, which is in the menu system, leftmost screen which is LEVELS.
mlr has a whole different interface. quickstart here: Approaching: norns
and real docs coming within the next 2 days. (we are basically finished building/shipping, hooray!!)
regarding line noise when usb connected to your computer, i bet the truck discussed in this post would fix things.
i will verify later.
ah yeah i see, didn’t realize you were talking about MLR. thanks brian! take a break soon : ) you guys r killin it out there!
Thanks Brian. That was a big help. One more question, following those instructions I’ve been able to record on tracks 1 and 2, but not 3 and 4.
Yes, maiden and hotpot mode work perfectly!
also vis a vis wifi, a couple more thoughts:
otherwise, hotspot is solid 
For a moment I thought hotpot was something new and delicious.
Is it possible to edit SC engines from Matron? I haven’t found a way.
I synced everything to USB and see that the engines live in dust/lib/sc
What’s the current recommended workflow for creating/editing SC engines? Will I just need to sync to/from USB for now?
Ha! I was too distracted by norns to notice how hungry I am…
I can confirm this. Failed connection on my local network, yet I’m editing in maiden and replying to this post at the same time. Since you can’t get the IP when it is pseudofailed, you can use the norns.local (on macs).
Currently not possible. I’m using the SuperCollider IDE on a Linux laptop for engine coding (with matron running on the same laptop without UI), but it is also possible to access the norns system via ssh and even mount the filesystem with sshfs, then edit the files remotely. You’ll have to reload SC class library manually from the REPL in the latter case.
Unable to get midi (keystep) to work in earthsea tonight, not sure if I’m doing something wrong/dumb. loaded earthsea, connected midi, no output. the parameters seem like they should be fine and I’m able to use the keystep with hello_ack just fine. Tried back button restart as well as sleep and also plugging in midi at different points. thoughts?
The scripts currently only read notes from midi channel 1. Is your keystep using channel 1 to send the notes?
strangely I just tried it again after about 20 mins off and it worked without switching channels or anything. but I did just switch channels and see that only channel 1 works, so thanks for that info.