Orca - Livecoding Tool

[florigenix]

Thankyou very much for your responses neauoire and a773. I’ll try them out, and thanks for clarifying the operator questions!

[neauoire]

hey @josker

The F operator bangs with two empty values, as well, which makes for more bangs than I’d like.

It’s a bit of a tricky one, to bang when not empty, you need something like:

2F.
..F
..*

You will need to build your system so it needs two bangs to validate, like:

......C.........
aV1.bV1.........
................
3Ka.b...........
..1F1...........
.1V*..#equal#...
................
3Ka.............
..1F............
....F...........
..0V*.#not.null#

At this point, you should try and add the number of valid cases(2), like:

......C...........
aV2.bV3...........
..................
..3Ka.b....3Ka....
....2F3......2F...
4.X0..x1.......F..
....0V0...4.X0.*x1
..............1V1.
.3K0.1............
...0A1............
....1F2...........

When the output of the last F bangs, you can be sure that both cases are valid.

[metasyn]

It sounds like you just need to select the right midi input device. In the case for the learn-orca site, I’ve hardcoded the patch to specify the midi output device to go to enfer.

In general, I think what you’re after is pretty easy to achieve when you’re running orca normally. Just make sure you’ve selected the right input and output device. You can press some shortcuts:

Next Input Device........ CmdOrCtrl+,
Next Output Device....... CmdOrCtrl+.

Or you can use the midi command to select inputs/outputs I think. It sounds like currently, you’re getting abelton set as the output device, but not the input device. If you set ableton as both, you should be able to receive the master clock and and notes back to a particular midi channel.

[josker]

Oh my I’m going to have a fun time following your example, thanks so much!

[ruaridhTVO]

Just stumbled across this, tried out the excellent Learn Orca site linked above and am completely hooked. Time to wade through 1086 messages here to see what I’ve missed

[t_krntz]

Hi, a very new user here
When I’m looking thru older videos, I see that U was a way of moving things around instead of eUclidean rhythms. Does this functionality still exist in other letters?
I’ve also noticed that when I have my T operator, let’s say C8Tabcdefg, that whatever I put in the first track slot will play the whole time and I have to leave that blank in order for the track to the rest of the notes in the sequence. It would looks something like C8T bcdefg

[fourhoarder]

you have to put the C above that line so it increments the position.

.C8
.18Tabcdefgh

[scottmetoyer]

Hey folks - I added QR code scanning and creation to a fork of Orca. You can create QR codes from selections, and scan QR codes containing code snippets right into Orca.

You can get the code here, and see it in action here.

Hope someone gets some use (or at least some fun) out of it!

[Aedhon]

Hi all,

I read that it should be possible to sync Orca to midi in, but so far I have not been able to do it.

I have a Squarp Pyramid sending clock, bitwig syncs to it correctly and I do see clock if I use a midi monitor. However, Orca doesn’t seem to care much. (Clearly I did select pyramid as a midi input using ctrl,)

Do I need to use any key combo to switch to midi clock? Any suggestions?

thanks,
Marco

[ezbot]

Octatrack next, than the new Polyend Tracker

Live coding the Digitakt with ORCΛ

[Simon-Claudius]

I’m experiencing the same/similar issues. I’m trying to get Orca to sync to an external clock. I used a few different clock sources and verified they were transmitting correctly, but unfortunately Orca will not sync to any of them. I did make sure Orca was listening on the correct inputs - and tried multiple different ones there, too. I wonder whether there’s something I’m missing in setting up Orca. Already opened an issue on GitHub about this, as well.

@neauoire, do you have any input on this?

Would love to get this to work for my setup .

[RMBLRX]

@Aedhon, @Simon-Claudius, I don’t believe this is possible yet in ORCA. I do believe there are other ways to sync with an external clock (UDP or OSC, if I’m not mistaken). However, you can send ORCA’s clock out: Just use shift+space when starting ORCA. When I use ORCA, I usually use Bitwig as a go-between for everything else and control its transport with ORCA.

[Simon-Claudius]

Hey Marshall, Thanks for your response. Maybe I misread the docs and previous discussions on GitHub related to sync, but it seemed to me as though Orca would/should already accept MIDI clock. Obviously that just not being a feature would answer my question instantly ;). During my tests I successfully synced hosts (including Live and Bitwig Studio) to Orca, so there’s no problem there. However, I’d love to see support of external MIDI clock, which would suit my personal setup better. I might dig into the codebase and see whether I can implement it if it’s actually just not there.

[RMBLRX]

I believe this is the last word on the matter, for the moment, but it might be that I’ve been using the latest release version, rather than the development version (I’ll investigate further, at some point, as I might have missed the fix):

@neauoire

I don’t use orca to receive midi data, so it’s not something I actively develop or fully understand, if a fix ever comes to that department, it won’t be from me. If somebody is up to it, I’d welcome a PR. But the best way to achieve this is to fully control orca’s clock over UDP. That’s how I do it, it’s a lot more reliable.

@Simon-Claudius

I’d love to see support of external MIDI clock, which would suit my personal setup better.

I feel you on that, it’s simpler to source the DAW for clock, generally. Honestly, I would just prefer ORCA in VST form, as I imagine there has to be a way to wrap either the C or Javascript version for use as a VST.

[Simon-Claudius]

Ah, okay. That makes sense, then. Shame it wasn’t just me being daft, but good to have an answer :). Turning Orca into a VST would come with its own set of challenges in regard to how DAWs process MIDI data, but it’s an interesting idea that I might pursue at some point. In the meantime, I’ll just sync things to Orca rather than the other way around. Another solution could be turning a MIDI clock from a host to UDP commands via e.g. Max.

[Aedhon]

Ah, then I also misunderstood some of the above messages regarding midi clock. Pity, but I can work with Orca as master eventually.

Thx for the clarification

[nicholas_dallwitz]

Hi, just a quick question about orca-c that I’m running on raspberry pi.

It doesn’t seem to accept using option(alt) to drag values around.

Does anyone know if this is normal? Or is it a setup issue I’ve got with my terminal(terminator) or something like that?

Thanks!

[L4COUR]

I think that the best way to go here would be using Ableton Link dev kit in order to make it sync better with other music software or DAW’s. If I had the knowledge and time I wouldn’t hesitate trying to combine the two https://ableton.github.io/link/.

I also believe that it would be possible to wrap Orca and make it more VST like. I have seen people wrapping Electron application inside of Node for Max devices before, and I believe that it would be possible to do something similar with ORCA. I don’t know about wrapping C, but i am surethat javascript can be done

I think it is great with all of these ideas and trying and experimenting with alternative ways of combining ORCA in an audio setup. However, seeing ORCA as a constraint in the creative process I find to be more useful than anything. I think there is something quite cool about how ORCA’s unique timing compared to the very strict timing in DAW’s. That said I still feel that ORCA’s unique and playful workflow in itself is great and timing is the bottleneck that solved could open up to more cool and creative possibilities

[RMBLRX]

I’ve been messing around with Link using Stellare’s implementation for VCV Rack, which is neat, though since I only have Bitwig to use it with, and MIDI bridge is generally more useful because it can receive start/stop, I haven’t had occassion to make good use of it. Link would conceivably provide a decent workaround for ORCA and I could see a lot of utility with ORCA-C in my case (being able to sync a Raspberry Pi easily over the network as an outboard sequencer, like with a pisound hat or something). I also confirmed through use of an app for my phone that Bitwig can send and receive start/stop as well as well as clock synchronization over Link, so it would certainly solve the issue altogether.

[duncgibbs]

Hey all. I’ve been having a great time with Orca so far. I was wondering if there was anyway in Orca to map MIDI inputs to keystrokes. If not, is there a tool you all know of or recommend to script that?

I was hoping to hook up an OP1 as an input and use the knobs to move the cursor like an etch a sketch, pressing the keys to insert characters.