Hi,
I am interested in the grid, seems like a very cool and playable device (although a little out of my budget, so I may end up building a DIY grid or something similar). A lot of the software listed on the grid software page in the documentation requires max, which does not run on linux.
Is there much software that can use the grid on linux? Is it still a good device for jamming with, for users with a linux desktop PC?
Thanks
The grid works very well on Linux, in fact better than on Mac and Windows, as there are no known problems with the serial drivers. I used to play a lot with rove by @wrl - a kickass MLR-like audio looper, it requires preparing the samples before you start a session.
Now I’m using grid+arc with my own python scripts for controlling external plugin hosts, mainly Renoise and REAPER.
You can use the grid with processing, there are some VJing and video sequencing apps for that. And of course there’re SuperCollider projects with monome devices that you can run on Linux too.
Thank you for this! I recently acquired an old ThinkPad T430 which I’ve set up with Arch and I was just thinking that I’d like to start using my grid with it.
It’s nice to hear that the grid runs well and is scriptable!
Ahhhh, the T430 is a sturdy old beast. I hope you enjoy! Personally I’ve been wondering about using the grid for non-musical applications, since having such fluid I/O would be great for augmenting window management or Kerbal Space Program or whatever.
The T430 was literally in the junk pile at work. I couldn’t believe it. Such a capable device.
It’s funny you say that, I was thinking something similar, like scripting the grid to interact with my wm (sway) so I wouldn’t have to touch the laptop as often while playing /performing.
Ha, another happy T430 owner here, used it successfully to play a few shows before the lockdowns.
I’m very happy with my new MNT Reform as well, but since it’s an ARM computer it can’t run some proprietary software such as Renoise, although the aarch64 build of REAPER works very well with the bundled Debian system.
Ports of the aleph grid ops to pd (in turn based on eurorack firmware):
Kind of an opinionated on the ‘right’ way to use pd - rather than doing lots of complex graphical programming this approach advocates fairly complex ‘modules’ written in C, which have a fair bit of flexibility in terms of their usage in a patch. (Btw the usage of C here is a pragmatic choice, not part of the dogma of ‘simple patches connecting complex modules’)
For example, you can quickly patch together a midi white whale / kria acid combo using the pd externals here. The philosophy of pd-grid demands that one should write a new module in C to make something like a grid-controlled mixer, rather than using graphical programming in the canonical ‘old school monome’ way of using max/pd (ie pre-norns, pre-lua)
This framework also allows several apps to share a grid with ‘focus stealing’. Not as advanced as @artfwo’s explorations in python, which I believe allow several apps to simultaneously run on a larger grid. Just permits the patch to switch between which ‘app’ has control of a single connected 128 grid.
Note:
This approach to control modules would also greatly benefit from a companion bundle of ‘ugen modules’ (ie pd externals which generate audio) - for self-contained pd performance scenes with minimal patchwork. Currently sitting on a small private cache of Faust programs which could be bundled up and repackaged as pd modules, for example 808-ish drum voices, etc… Wasn’t a fan of the various existing ways of embedding Faust in pd in terms of developing a Faust program but for existing ugens I guess faust2pd probably works just fine!
I use my 10-key numpad as a 3x3 one button virtual desktop switcher. Could see grid as similar one-touch spacial selection.
been enjoying messing with my own patches a bit but I’m wondering if anybody has any more recommendations for things to play with. I’m wishing that there was a tag on the lllllibrary for linux support now.