#224

You need a usb cable, and the Teensy Loader application on your computer. It’s pretty straight forward.

What tripped me up is the cable. Some USB cables don’t have the data line, they are just good for charging.

#225

The 4 robots can connect to the intellijel midi out! It’s a little add on adapter (10$) that connects the usb out on the 4robots panel to a din adapter for the intellijel case. It allows hemispheres midi applets to use midi in and out.

You would need to screw the module out to change firmwares because you need to press the button on the back of the tinsy. I use befaco knurlies and it takes me less than a minute to switch between the two, as long as my laptop is powered up that is.
It’s pretty nice to have the option for midi and of course all other ornament and crime features in such a small package. I would say it’s one of my nicest modules considering its looks and manufacturing standards. The screen is also very nice on the panel .

#226

Yeah, it really does seem like a great module to have, especially in the 1U row. I preordered the Disting Ex, so I’m not sure if I need two of these multi use modules, but I’m thinking that the o_C might be worth it just for the sequencing and the MIDI->CV, and then everything else would just be extra.

#227

Some of the features are pretty amazing too! The sequencers/turing machine/quantizers open up my small case to crazy things. Occasionally I’ll send a midi clock in. If you’re sending many signals out the captain midi app seems fairly flexible.

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#228

Sorry if this is a dumb question or exactly what Hemispheres is meant to do, but I can use two apps at the same time with Hemispheres right? As long as they aren’t one of those 9 or so “Full Apps”?

Specifically, I want to have one channel as the Shift Register (Turing Machine) and patch it to the Quantizer, to basically have a self contained melodic generator. My o_C hasn’t arrived yet, and I was playing around with picking up one of those 2HP TMs or Tunes, but if the o_C can do both at the same time, then I don’t really need it.

#229

Hey, you can actually do this with the original firmware with up to 4 voices at once! This is one of the things I use it for most frequently (other than the 4x squiggly lfo or 4x envelope gen). I know that many of us here push Hemispheres as the way to go, but the original o&c firmware is very powerful and totally worth a look. You can setup the 4ch quantizer to use a shift register (internally generated) for one to all four quantizers.

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#230

Hemesphere suite allows you two run two apps at the same time, but the apps themselves are different than the ones included in the base firmware. As pointed out above, you can achieve a lot with the original firmware (more than you might realise at first).

Hemisphere is also great though - the applications act more like leaner utilities. Very useful.

1 Like
#231

Oh interesting. I was looking specifically at the Shift Register and Quantizer apps in the hemisphere suite, and self patching the module. I didn’t realize that the original firmware had an app that did the whole thing. The one I have coming is hemisphere, but I expect i’ll give both firmwares a try.

In Hemispheres, am I able to do the self patching thing I’m describing?

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#232

I expect I’ll try both firmwares, but it’s coming with Hemispheres installed to start, so that’s where I’ll start :smiley:

I’m excited to avoid a bit of the menu diving, at least to start

#233

FWIW the Shiftreg app in Hemisphere already has a built-in quantizer, so you can use the other half of the module for something else. The Turing Machines-using pitch apps on the OG O_c have different/more fleshed out features, but you can do a lot of nifty stuff in Hemispheres—like using ShiftGate in combo with ShiftReg to have Turing Machine rhythms+melodies at once (I use the combo as a kind of mini-Marbles)

There’s also a more intriguing implementation of randomized/looping pattern generation in both Enigma and Darkest Timeline, which are full-featured apps (meaning only one at a time).

You can replicate some more advanced quantizing operations by using Dual Quantizer, Squantch (switching quantizer) and Scale Duet (switching between two different masks), also in combination (e.g. feed Scale Duet into Dual Quantizer to mask non-standard scales)

5 Likes
#234

I forgot about the quantizer scale masking! Jeeze, that’s how I was generating some of the evolving melodies many months ago that I’ve been scratching my head about lately!!!

#235

Wow I think I understood roughly 60 percent of that, which I’m so excited to try. And I’m pretty psyched to learn the other 40 too. Now it’s just the long wait until it gets here

#236

New question! Is there a way to limit the range of the ShiftReg app in Hemispheres. Right now, it ranges 2.5 octaves, and I’m not really getting anything musical. I’d love to get it to like an octave, maybe an octave and a half, if that’s possible?

#237

I recently went on a little quest to find that out and was told about this:

the same developer released another version of Hemisphere which replaces Captain Midi with two additional sequencers (one implementing TB303 functionality, the other generating x-number step staircases like the NI Clep Diaz:

3 Likes
#238

ahh fantastic! So, this is a different firmware I’d have to install? Is that correct?

Is there an option just to install the one with the new version of shiftreg? I think I want to keep captain midi for now.

#239

yes, the first link I posted is regular Hemisphere with just ShifReg modified. You can install that instead of the original Hemisphere. Note that I didn’t edit or complied the firmware—it was shown to me by the author after I posted a question just like yours on MW (I often use scales with just 4-5 notes per octave so ShiftReg ends up spitting out 5 octaves worth of notes! too much even for my xenomorphic taste…)

#240

Got it, thanks! If something goes wrong I can always just go back to the regular firmware, right? And I just use the standard update process in the manual? This seems like a great bet; I was just attenuating the signal which, spoiler alert, does not sound very good lol

Side note, thank you for explaining the 5 note thing! I was using pentatonic minor (my go to for just noodling around), and I couldn’t figure out why it was such a spread. I thought it was 2.5 octaves regardless, but it makes sense that it’s 6 octaves in smaller scales.

#241

Idea: I’d love to see a version of O_C that let you select applets at compile time. This should be possible with Makefile or compiler flag/command line arguments, but I’m not familiar enough with Arduino to know if there are any major complications to note.

Edit: I think something similar is done to compile the FLIP_180 version.

#242

People have brought this up before but apparently there’s quite a bit of cross-app referencing on the back end and it would be difficult/impractical to implement (not that I really understand why or how, mind you…)

#243

Yes, attenuating the output compresses any quantization (you could obviously re-quantize after attenuating…)

The original ShiftReg range works based on the number of allowed notes in a given scale: 32 notes is 2.5 octaves if you quantize to semitones, but that range increases if there are fewer notes per octave (pentatonic would actually be more than six octaves!)

As far as I can tell you can switch firmwares as many times as you wish…it’s the same exact process as updating or switching to the regular o_c firmware.