#1

Noton works by drawing cables between timers, logic gates and instruments inspired from pepepépepe’s Color Computers to explore binary logic.

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Right-click to add nodes, and left-click to add wires. Nodes will emit a positive signal if all the connected wires have the same polarity. The screen has timers to the left, and notes to the right. The default timers are 6 trackers, 4 sequencers and 2 pools.

You can clone/build this repo.

The Arena(workspace)

  • 10 input ports

    • 4 Trackers
    • 4 Timers
    • 2 Absolute pools

  • 10 output ports

    • 12 Notes
    • Might add an Octave modifier

Manual

  • Right-click to add a gate.
  • Left-click to draw a cable.

For example, if we wanted to play C3 every 2nd and 6th note, every 8 bars. We can combine two tracker nodes.

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#2

I’m a little confused by this, but a lot intrigued…
It sounds like the events are somewhat quantized, is that true? And are you sending MIDI note and CC data, or just note?

Very cool.

#3

I haven’t really found the vocabulary to explain how this works exactly. It’s inspired from the Color Computers zine, that might offer some context.

The logic gates are similar to XOR, if all inputs are true(cyan), then it outputs true, otherwise false(orange)

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On the left side there are 4 timers and 4 trackers, the 4 to the left of the group is like a sequencer, it goes 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4, the other 4 are quantized, so you can mix both groups to do something like hitting the second note at the 3rd bar.

It’s easier to see with drums, here’s another video that shows this better.

are you sending MIDI note and CC data, or just note?

At the moment it’s only sending one of the 12 notes of an octave(oct 2), but I’ve been experimenting with having only 8 ports to the right, and having it work more like a byte, so you can assemble 00010010 and send that note value instead, but it’s hard to make something that sounds like anything with that right now, so I’m not sure.

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#4

Ah, I see. Thanks for explaining.

I’d assumed that the length of the connection lines impacted the timing of the triggers (which might also be cool?). I do hear parts of the ‘measure’ slowing down then speeding up though don’t I (especially towards the end of that last clip)?

#5

I do hear parts of the ‘measure’ slowing down then speeding up though don’t I (especially towards the end of that last clip)?

Yeah, it’s currently not compensating for the time it takes to process interactions, it slows down a bit when I start to draw, I’ll fix that soon.

Unrelated, I’m a big fan of your music, 1979 is one of my all-time favourite album. It’s an absolute honor to see you having a look at Noton.

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#6

Got it. Super interesting project. I’m always into different kinds of sequencers.
And wow… Thank you!

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#7

Added an extra channel of 12 notes!

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#8

Man, I really dig that demo of organic polyrhythm with simple synth voices.

Instantly made me think of groundislava.

Definitely need to play with Noton.

Also thanks for the shootout to @Deru 's music. Didn’t know about it and I’m happy to discover it.

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#9

Funny that “1979” is on the same label as the Groundislava you posted. Friends of Friends ftw :black_heart:

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#10

Added support for multiple channels and shortcuts to control the octave.

Techno?!

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#11

Just compiled Noton and tried with sunvox, i’m reading your code now.
@neauoire What’s the Color Computer zine you wrote about ? Because i’m interested in stuff like CS unplugged .

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#12

It’s a coloring book by chirrolafupa. I added a link to it in the description above too. I’ve started collecting a bunch of notes on paper computing that might be interesting.

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#13

Great stuff here!
Some thoughts:

  • The first input port column (aren’t them gate/triggers?) works as a 6 gates binary counter and the second as a 4 gates decimal counter. Having different speed for the two columns may lead to interesting results.
  • The NAND logic gate can be used to easily obtain NOT, AND, OR gates. It’s also called “universal gate”. Maybe you can implement those as standard gates?
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#14

The first input port column (aren’t them gate/triggers?) works as a 6 gates binary counter and the second as a 4 gates decimal counter. Having different speed for the two columns may lead to interesting results.

@pangrus They’re a lot of fun to mess with, their rate is defined in the setup() function, and they can be set to anything you want :smiley:

The NAND logic gate can be used to easily obtain NOT, AND, OR gates. It’s also called “universal gate”. Maybe you can implement those as standard gates?

To learn how to build NAND gates in Noton you can follow this logic table:

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Looking forward to seeing/listening to your circuits.

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#15

Thank you for the suggestions, I’ll play with it in the next days :slight_smile:

noton

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#16

Loving your color scheme :>