the app I miss the most from hemispheres/benispheres is the bytebeat one called viznutcracker, sweet. it’s such a cool modulation and sound source. running at a slow speed and then sequencing parameters, is amazing for creating nice musical, rhythmic modulation and riffs.
I am about to receive a 2nd uO_C, so this discussion is really interesting to me right now !
What made you choose between Hemi and Beni ? (I may stick to OG O&C on the first one because triggers in 1 and 4 are broken so…)
Phazerville Suite - an active o_C firmware fork
https://github.com/djphazer/O_C-BenisphereSuite
Has anyone tried this?
Interesting - not tried it but I will probably do so soon.
I have quite an involved patch at the moment so I’ll switch by the end of the week after properly recording.
But I initially got o_C with hemispheres because I basically needed a Turing Machine and a Quantiser w/ note mask, each not necessarily tied together… and voila, there it was. Saved me triple the HP and $$$
I’m interested only for exploratory reasons.
Please…explain yourself better!
Wanted to throw Squares and Circles into the conversation here. If you buy a Teensy 4.0 (point zero specifically, not 4.1) you can load Squares and Circles onto it and drop it into a normal O_C. Theres a web interface on their github to upload to the Teensy (actually failed a couple times before i got a success, but otherwise very convenient).
Haven’t really put it through its paces but it strikes me as a super useful module, all considering. A bunch of sound sources, but not too much to be bewildering. Sure you can browse through a bunch of wave forms, but also theres just some 707/808/909 style synths with basic parameters, a clap, a simple FM drum, etc. FX with separate outputs. All in all kind of a sweet deal as a “oh and I just need one more thing…” type of module. Don’t know why it flew under my radar for so long but its worth checking out if you can grab a Teesny 4.0, in my opinion.
What I like to do is using Piqued (4x EG), assigning the trigger for all of the four envelopes to TR1, changing the retrigger behaviour of all four envelopes to ‘none’, adding multipliers to the envelope times (e.g. 1=1x, 2=2x, 3=4x, 4=8x — this can also start with higher multipliers to have finer control over the ratios), assigning time control for all four envelopes to CV1.
Now, add a rhythmic trigger to TR1, all envelopes will fire at the same time. Add an offset to CV1 to change (increase) envelope time, envelopes will start to skip a trigger (or two etc. depending on multiplier) creating super interesting and dynamically controllable rhythmic related divisions for the envelopes. Fun for controlling 4 voices or even various timbre parameters in just one voice.
So, yeah, just like with Just Friends.
Another great way to use the Piqued envelopes, is chaining them by having them triggered at the end of cycle of the previous and also controlling all their envelope time via the same CV.
Similar things like the above mentioned phasing could be achieved with Quadraturia (Quadrature LFO) and a ‘snappy’ LFO shape. — Currently I have it set up as a Øchd ‘light’ (phasing, various length cycles) Well, maybe not necessarily light, since it offers so much control over everything.
As said, the flexibility of the OG O_c is unmatched for me. I always feel severely limited by the Hemispheres variants. Alone the OG quantisers with all their CV-able transposing, mask shifting etc. features. The CopierMaschine (ASR) has so much depth through being able to dynamically manipulate the buffer etc. @2197 already mentioned the overlooked Bytebeats as rhythmic modulation source …
Ah well, enough now.
I was using Benespheres. It seemed like the best balance for my uses. But I ran into a bug with Benespheres 1.3. (There is a new version expected soon that should fix my problem.) So I switched back to Hemispheres 1.9.9 most of the time from which it is derived.
Hemispheres and Benespheres, in general, provide much simpler algorithms than the OG firmware. They are much easier to learn and apply. I mostly just use it for small CV and clock utilities like Dual Quant, attenOff, voltages and squanch.
Benespheres has some nice additions to Hemispheres. It removes a few deeper full-screen algorithms to make room. But I have not missed the removed algorithms. (And I’m not using O_C for MIDI.)
These are some of the Benespheres highlights for me:
- Shredder - based on the NE Mimetic Digitalis sequencer
- ProbMeloD - a random melody generator
- ProbDiv - a complementary random rhythm generator
And it integrates a couple of handy Logarithm algorithms: - Stairs - based on NE Clep Diaz does stepped LFOs
- TB 3PO - a 303 sequencer
I’d encourage anyone with the O_C to experiment. There’s really no downside and flashing the firmware with the Teensy app on your computer is super easy once you learn the basic steps. (see SynthDad’s video). (Firmware flashing even retains your calibration.)
I have two O_c modules. For the last two months, I used the one with the Squares and Circles FW way more than the other one with the Benisphere FW. Can I swap out the Teensy on that module and that’s it, or is there anything else I need to think about?
In addition to that, I´m thinking about adding the Plum Audio OCP X to one of my cases. Is that version compatible with the Squares and Circles FW?
What are you wanting to do exactly?
The module website says: “OCP X can run any firmware, truly any firmware”, so I would say probably yes.
Thanks for replying
I´d like two O_c with the Squares and Circles FW.
Plum Audio replied they will check if the claim is true after getting the next batch of OCP X modules ready.
I’m using this and probably this is my fav balance of OG apps and Benispheres improvements.
i didn’t know about that Plum Audio thing.
looks neat!
i’m interested in them but…alas…it’s two HP to big.
I just picked up an OCP X myself and it is excellent. Build quality is top notch, and the additions of the manual trigger buttons and attenuverters (that can act as manual CV inputs when nothing is plugged in) are really convenient. Highly recommend!
I´m getting my OCP X today, very excited!
Does anyone know if using the Plum Audio 1u o_C with the Plum USB adaptor for Intellijel cases allows for use of the midi din ports on the Intellijel cases, or just the USB port?
only the usb port, unfortunately. to connect to the trs midi port (i assume you mean trs on the palette cases, and not din?) would need some kind of hardware interface between the usb and trs that isn’t there.
Sorry I did mean din on the Performance case
ah i see. well, in that case i’m not 100% certain, but pretty sure it’s the same.