Analogue-sequencer

....started making noises properly in it's new home a couple of 
evenings ago, but only last night did I escape from the g/f's kitchen 
long enough to take a good run up & jump right in. the endless DIY 
has given me a bit of RSI, though, so I haven't done much with the 
attached keyboard except rewire the midi-in socket on #73 to power 
it. 
(I do this with all my midi paraphenalia because a) the two spare 
wires in a midi cable are otherwise wasted & b) because I can't stand 
having wall-warts all over the gaff/stage. I use a laptop psu to send 
12V everywhere; this keeps the noise down & prevents interference to 
the midi data.)

#73 now lives in a slim 8U portable case that I bought two of from 
dieter doepfer.... there is a proteus 2000 bolted to it's back, with 
the front panel detached & rack-mounted above the p3.... a repeater 
will go in there, & maybe another module. I tried #73 out with my 
supernova at first, but the big blue synth is awful noisy these days 
& distorts too easily when there's a lot going on. I need to get a 
kenton & get the moogs fired up.

anyway. I've just about got a handle on the basic geography of the 
p3, & I know roughly how to get from one menu to another. 

eventually I will get used to the 5 octave range thing, unless there 
are plans to make this customisable... maybe I'll take an iron to it 
& reduce the 5V on the lower pots.... would that be a bad idea, colin?

I have a trick I do on the schaltwerk (p.o.s.- might sell it soon, or 
give it to g/f for her to write drum parts on) to mimic something the 
notron does (must get it mended soon) which is the triplet/trill 
effect. 

to perform this on the schalt, I would set the required step to 
velocity 127 & the rest to 120, then build a patch in the proteus (or 
whatever) that velocity-switches in a couple of linked & delayed 
presets to play the triplet. in the proteus, the linked presets can 
be delayed by a clock-divider, so it all stays in time when you 
change tempo.
this is a neat effect when used with drumkits too, for creating flams 
& triplets... you don't even have to use the same instrument...

the thing that's bugging me a little- & it's a tiny thing- is this:  
I have been able to perform the same stunt with #73, & -even better- 
finetune the triplet effect for more swinginess using the step-delay..
BUT
when you change the timebase of a pattern, the step-delay.. you know 
what I'm going to say.
this weekend, more playing.

two more things- 
#73's tried to crash a couple of times. I say "tried" because it 
actually keeps going even though there's garbage in the display & the 
buttons don't respond. eventually, the buttons work for long enough 
for it to crash properly. I think it might be a loose IC somewhere- 
it's only happened twice & if I'd left the buttons alone, it would've 
kept playing I think. it did this before I took the case apart; seems 
to have settled down since but I might do a re-init & squish some 
chips this w/e.
& I'm not sure if the second output socket is roland/korg or midi-
clock-only; I remember asking for the latter if it were possible. no 
biggy, & I really ought to just try it & see....

colin- it's a monster. crack with blue flashing lights. I am in the 
market for shortcake, in other words, & possibly a quickie "divorce" 
so I can spend more time knocking out aleatory spacerock.

d/r.m.i.

> eventually I will get used to the 5 octave range thing, unless there 
> are plans to make this customisable... maybe I'll take an iron to it 
> & reduce the 5V on the lower pots.... would that be a bad idea, colin?

The note range is configurable. In pattern edit mode, press FUNC + PAGE,
then PAGE a few more times until you see the 'note rng' option above the F2
key.
Hit F2 by itself to select the lowest note, and FUNC + F2 to select one of 4
ranges - 16, 32, 64 or 128 notes.
 
> I have a trick I do on the schaltwerk (p.o.s.- might sell it soon, or 
> give it to g/f for her to write drum parts on) to mimic something the 
> notron does (must get it mended soon) which is the triplet/trill 
> effect. 

 -snip-

> when you change the timebase of a pattern, the step-delay.. you know 
> what I'm going to say.
> this weekend, more playing.

When I put the variable timebase code in, I had a think about whether the
step delay should be scaled with the timebase or not, and decided against
it. The gate length *is* scaled.
But step delay is not something I use that often at non 16 tbases, and in
fact the source code for scaling it is in there, but commented out.
Anyone else got an opinion on this ?
If no-one minds, I can uncomment the scaling code, and the delay values will
track the tbase setting.

> two more things- 
> #73's tried to crash a couple of times. I say "tried" because it 
> actually keeps going even though there's garbage in the display & the 
> buttons don't respond. eventually, the buttons work for long enough 
> for it to crash properly. I think it might be a loose IC somewhere- 

Could be. It was working fine for the week or so I was using... er, testing
it out here. ;-)
Squishing the chips sounds like a good idea. Let me know if it does it
again.

Cheers,
Colin f

> > I have a trick I do on the schaltwerk (p.o.s.- might sell 
> it soon, or 
> > give it to g/f for her to write drum parts on) to mimic 
> something the 
> > notron does (must get it mended soon) which is the triplet/trill 
> > effect. 

I forgot to mention - there are aux events for doing trill effects.
They are not detailed in the manual yet, but you'll find some info here:
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/analogue-sequencer/message/1510
These are also something I don't use much, and am open to suggestions on
whether they should work differently.

Cheers,
Colin f

On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 19:33:54 +0100, "Colin f" <colin@colinfraser.com>
wrote:

>If no-one minds, I can uncomment the scaling code, and the delay values will
>track the tbase setting.

Might be worth trying it out and seeing how it feels?

Paul
---
Paul Nagle / Soft Room Music
Email: paul@softroom.co.uk www.softroom.co.uk
                           www.BogusFocus.com

On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 19:55:10 +0100, "Colin f" <colin@colinfraser.com>
wrote:

>I forgot to mention - there are aux events for doing trill effects.
>They are not detailed in the manual yet, but you'll find some info here:
>http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/analogue-sequencer/message/1510
>These are also something I don't use much, and am open to suggestions on
>whether they should work differently.

I use these and somehow I've never found them exactly what I'd expect.
Something about the timing of the trills isn't quite the "Chris
Franke" effect I was aiming for. Having said this, sometimes you hit
on a combination of repeat and note length that gives something cool
but I don't yet find it intuitive. I actually think note length should
be ignored and the repeats should correspond to simple musical note
divisions - even creating demisemiwemiquavers if necessary. 

I also wanted to create the typical Cubase "snare pre-trill" which is
very hard. This involves a burst of very fast, perfectly quantised
beats rising in velocity before the main beat and I've experimented
delaying a note, then repeating it, prior to the main note - but again
the results just don't feel exactly right. One place where drawing
32th or 64th notes on a Cubase grid does come into its own.

OK, I'm rambling cos it's early and I'm heading off to Amsterdam in 5
mins. Someone can probably articulate this better. And maybe I just
didn't try hard enough.

Dampkring here I come!

Paul

---
Paul Nagle / Soft Room Music
Email: paul@softroom.co.uk www.softroom.co.uk
                           www.BogusFocus.com

>> the results just don't feel exactly right.<< [snipped]
elsewhere mr nagle refers to the famous pre-trilled snare abused by 
many a d&b merchant, for which cubase (phooey!) has a penchant.
actually, the pre-trill is closer (& I really didn't want to mention 
this, but....)to the effect employed by herr franke on "stratosfear" 
& which is beloved of berlin-school types everywhere.
 
what I can achieve using the delayed linked patches is a different 
effect, more like a fast echo. a "post-trill", if you will.
the "overdrive" effect from the notron is somewhere between the two, 
though I've never been arsed to record it into anything else & 
analyse it.

I'll have a look at message 1510 (I didn't get as far back as that 
whilst trawling the archives yesterday...) & report back. oh, & chip 
crunching tonight too, if #73 acts weird again.

colin- I will adjust the range of my note pots by your method, I 
think! I was sure I'd read something about this tweak somewhere, but 
I'm fooked if I can find it in the manual. also, did you see my query 
about the dinsync output? but I will check that out meself...

d/r.m.i.

>>I was sure I'd read something about this tweak somewhere, but I'm 
fooked if I can find it in the manual.<<

my bad- reading manual for v3.9 which I downloaded around the time I 
placed my order. shoulda known the thing would be completely 
different by the time it arrived.... page 24, menu item 2.4, just not 
there in my original copy. also the arpeg mode stuff....

d/r.m.i.

> >>I was sure I'd read something about this tweak somewhere, but I'm 
> fooked if I can find it in the manual.<<
> 
> my bad- reading manual for v3.9 which I downloaded around the time I 
> placed my order. shoulda known the thing would be completely 
> different by the time it arrived.... page 24, menu item 2.4, just not 
> there in my original copy. also the arpeg mode stuff....

That's my fault really, for adding more stuff.
Don't worry, the ROM is very nearly full, although I have freed up another
1.5k by shifting the bootloader up a bit...
Only 5,440 bytes to go !

Cheers,
Colin f