#62

yeah, definitely planning to make Orca work with Teletype at some point, it will open up some interesting possibilities, like CV control over Orca parameters, and possibly additional outputs so you could have Orca control 4 (or 6!) voices - this could be really interesting. can also use TT triggers switch between different Orca presets. many ideas!

will just need to figure out if it can be integrated into the official Teletype firmware or if it would be a separate version of Teletype - either way should work and i would keep the separate version up-to-date with the official one.

now that v2 development is done i can start digging into the Teletype codebase and integration with WW, i looked at it briefly but didn’t want to get distracted by all the possibilities TT brings until Orca v2 was done.

2 Likes
#63

i have a new version v2.1 ready which brings a number of improvements. the bad news: i had to make some changes in how the controls work. i do hope though that the benefits are totally worth it, and i don’t anticipate any more major changes - after using it for a while i think it feels great. there still might be some bug fixes but nothing major (other than integration with teletype at some point in the future).

so the major change - the preset system is completely redone, and i had to change how it functions, but what you get in exchange is:

  • instead of 16 presets you now have 8 banks of 8 presets - 64 in total
  • perhaps the more exciting part - you can now select and change presets with arcs as well!

i’ve updated the manual and will do a video at some point, but here are some highlights:

  • you can copy a preset to another preset (or multiple presets), same for banks
  • any changes you make to any presets are remembered even when you switch between banks or presets - you still have to explicitly store them to flash if you want them to persist after powering off
  • if you don’t like your changes you can reload any preset / bank from flash any time
  • best of all, all 64 presets can be selected when using arcs, and any changes made with arcs are stored in the preset when you store it to flash.

so the idea is that you can make any changes to presets while performing and then easily come back to the original preset by reloading it, and it’s just as easy to make multiple changes and then store them at once. you can swap between grid/arc any time and your presets will track all the changes regardless of which device they were made with. also any changes made by mutate / rotate features can be stored - or discarded, as you wish.

finally, since you can always use Orca as a plain old sequencer just remember that each preset stores all 16 scales, so you can actually store 8 banks * 8 presets * 16 scales = 1024 sixteen note sequences with Orca.

what else is new: i wasn’t completely happy with the randomize / mutate features as sometimes they would result in “dead” tracks (tracks that just stay on or off all the time), so now Orca will try to avoid dead tracks as much as possible. this is mostly important for the mutate feature as that’s something you would use where you just want it to keep changing without your intervention. randomize was also modified to affect more parameters so it should provide more interesting results, and if you double press it it will randomize every single parameter, including the scale (the “complete chaos” mode).

some smaller improvements and bugfixes as well. the new release is here: https://github.com/scanner-darkly/monome-mods/releases/tag/v2.1

#64

This mod rocks. I’ll have to get another white whale to play this. Forget writing love haiku’s to your modular this here is sweet whale on whale action!
Thanks for sharing @scanner_darkly

#65

Still very intrigued by Orca and will install it on my WW next week.

With Teletype now being out in the open, I am wondering if the TT --> WW integration will also work with a WW running Orca? Based on what @tehn hat written earlier, “i2c addresses are part of the firmware”, so I guess detecting the Orca WW shouldn’t be a problem. But I am not sure the WW remote commands will make sense with Orca WW.

@scanner_darkly: I hope my slightly confused paragraph above makes sense. Do you see the possibility for having TT remote controlling Orca?

#66

It would have to be implemented first… (Which is also the case with the original ww btw, needed firmware update to be adressed by teletype)

I guess he’s already on that :smile:

#67

The firmware updates for all three modules have been available for a while:

#68

this is about the alternative firmware orca :wink:

#69

I must have misunderstood your message as saying that “this was also the case with WW needing firmware update”…
all good.

#70

you’re right… sorry about that!

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#71

yeah, most definitely should work!

ideally i would love to add Orca specific commands to TT, need to figure out a good way to do it, but in the very least i can definitely get Orca to respond to WW commands. pretty sure it’s doable, should know for sure this evening and hoping to have it all working end of this week now that i’m back from traveling.

a combination of TT+Orca should make for some really interesting possibilities which would not be possible otherwise. things like each track running on its own clock instead of all 4 running off the master clock, global reset from a trigger etc.

#72

quick update: just added the i2c code to Orca and have it responding to TT remote commands.

also tehn graciously gave me permission to add Orca commands to Teletype firmware, which should make things much easier! i should have everything working end of this week and can provide teletype hex file until the next official version is out.

so far thinking of adding the following:

  • bank select
  • preset select
  • scale select
  • global reset
  • individual clock 1-4
  • rotate track weights
  • rotate scale
  • mutate
  • randomize

and for individual track controls it will likely be like this:

  • select track 1-4
  • set divisor for selected track
  • set phase for selected track
  • set length for selected track

does this sound like a good set? anything to add/replace?

4 Likes
#73

this sounds fantastic!

one catch on the firmware update for TT. we manually programmed the “demo” scenes by hand, and then downloaded the firmware off the hand-written unit, which was then flashed onto the production units. a new firmware will not have the demo scenes.

this is unrelated, but i might eventually have time to implement an import/export method using a usb memory stick.

3 Likes
#74

import/export via usb would be incredibly useful.

#75

Glad to hear that you are re-considering this!
With Teletype being able to save scenes (or share between users for that matter) would be a very useful feature. One that does not take away from the “in the moment” ethos, but rather encourages more exploration.

#76

one thing i forgot to add to the list is trigger mutes. need to think what to replace…

usb import/export at some point would be great especially as people start adding more scenes. i couldn’t find in the doc - what is the max number of scenes? if i read the code correctly 32 scenes max?

#77

I think it was 32 or 34?

#78

this is correct. we used an avr with more flash (and more SRAM more importantly) for TT vs. the trilogy.

can’t really imagine filling all 32 slots!

#79

2 Likes
#80

It’s alive! Looking good!

#81

yeah, there is something super exciting about seeing Orca respond to a typed command. i only have 2 commands implemented so far (bank and preset select), partially because i tried using TT pattern for bank selection (especially when triggering TT with one of the Orca triggers) and it was so much fun i lost track of time!

so here is what i’m thinking for Orca command set:

ORCA.SCALE - select scale
ORCA.RANDOM - randomize current preset
ORCA.BANK - select bank
ORCA.PRESET - select preset
ORCA.RELOAD - reload preset (value of 8 reloads all presets in the current bank)
ORCA.ROTATES - rotate scales
ORCA.ROTATEW - rotate track weights
ORCA.MUTATE - mutate current preset
ORCA.GRESET - global reset
ORCA.CLOCK - advance specified track counter

then there are commands for individual tracks. instead of repeating each of these 4 times for each track what i’m planning to do is have one command for each parameter which will apply to the currently selected track, and there will be a command to select current track.

ORCA.TRACK - select current track
ORCA.DIVISOR - set the divisor
ORCA.PHASE - set phase
ORCA.RESET - reset the current track
ORCA.WEIGHT - set the weight
ORCA.MUTE - mute or unmute trigger

this does mean you might need to use 2 commands to set a parameter:

II ORCA.TRACK 0
II ORCA.DIVISOR 5

but i actually like this because then you can do interesting things like using trigger scripts to change parameters but have something else select the current track (like M script going through the pattern).

it’s worth noting that if you change presets via TT the change takes place immediately to allow for tight sync (when you change presets using grid the change happens on the next clock so you don’t have abrupt changes).

one of most interesting things TT/Orca integration brings is individual clocks for each track. this should really open it up in the way that wasn’t possible in Orca alone. i thought of how this should integrate with the master clock, one option would be to provide another command to stop track from following the master clock, but then it would be strange if you forget you did that and you can’t figure out why some tracks don’t move!

so instead tracks will follow BOTH the individual clocks and the master clock. this could actually make for some interesting results as well, especially if they are out of sync. but if you don’t want them to follow the master track then just simply insert a dummy cable into the clock input so the master clock stops, and supply individual clocks for each track, and you can share the same clock between different tracks like this, for instance (don’t remember if Loops can be used with remote commands?):

L 0 3 : II ORCA.CLOCK I
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