i’ve used grid and arc with: ansible and earthsea, two ansibles and earthsea, as well as just a pair of ansibles…and i’ve barely scratched the surface of what they can do! i still haven’t tried out the sequencer/pitch functions of levels+arc.
since getting the ER-301, i’ve been exploring sample playback & retriggering with grid and arc, looking for a good mlr-like workflow. the grid might be used just to send trigs via earthsea or ansible’s meadowphysics, while the sample playheads are moved with arc and ansible. cycles and levels both work, though i tend to like the “wraparound” gestures possible with cycles. leave 'em freespinning, or season with friction.
or the first ansible is used to modulate params with arc, while the second ansible runs kria, which can sequence playhead position (pitch) and gate simultaneously. occasionally i’ll just use earthsea+grid to play oscillator melodies, while using ansible+arc for modulation duties. i prototyped this workflow even before the 301 arrived by using a frozen live recording in clouds.
also possible: if you have switch or isms, flip the grid/arc between your modules and a max patch on the computer; i think that was the first time i used both devices together. though there was some one-way visual lag, it really opened up new sounds and ways of performing. i need to revisit that combination, even though the 301 is steadily replacing the DAW integration.
the newest ansible firmware apparently includes gate subdivisions for cycles, meaning more than one gate/trig per rotation. might be a good way to manipulate 301 samples with just arc gestures, and syncing rings 2-4 to a high multiplier, to generate more trigs as the main playback position on ring 1 is shifted around. add the grid running pretty much anything on the other monome modules, and there’s lots of possibility for beautiful moments. maybe use one of the ansible trig outputs as a shifting clock input to another section of the modular.
