#61

any thoughts on teletype compatibility?

#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 didnā€™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 donā€™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!

iā€™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 donā€™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 itā€™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 wasnā€™t completely happy with the randomize / mutate features as sometimes they would result in ā€œdeadā€ 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 thatā€™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 ā€œcomplete chaosā€ 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. Iā€™ll have to get another white whale to play this. Forget writing love haikuā€™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, ā€œi2c addresses are part of the firmwareā€, so I guess detecting the Orca WW shouldnā€™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 firstā€¦ (Which is also the case with the original ww btw, needed firmware update to be adressed by teletype)

I guess heā€™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 ā€œthis was also the case with WW needing firmware updateā€ā€¦
all good.

#70

youā€™re rightā€¦ sorry about that!

1 Like
#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 itā€™s doable, should know for sure this evening and hoping to have it all working end of this week now that iā€™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 ā€œdemoā€ 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 ā€œin the momentā€ ethos, but rather encourages more exploration.

#76

one thing i forgot to add to the list is trigger mutes. need to think what to replaceā€¦

usb import/export at some point would be great especially as people start adding more scenes. i couldnā€™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.

canā€™t really imagine filling all 32 slots!

#79

2 Likes
#80

Itā€™s alive! Looking good!