Brendan! I found a bug it seems. When i tweak fine tune parameter of HH to different value than -63 DR1 and DR3 start to sound distorted.
I fixed a number of bugs over the last few days - I've tried it with the version that's on the web now and can't reproduce it, so try the new one and see if it's ok now.
I've also added a step copy function. There is both main step copy and sub step copy. Main Step Copy: - Press and hold 'copy' - Press a sequencer button (it will flash) - Press another sequencer button. All the sub-steps of the first main step are copied to the second.
Sub-Step Copy: - Press and hold 'copy' - Press a sequencer button (it will flash) - Press one of the 8 'select' buttons corresponding to the sub-step you want to copy from (it will flash) - Press another sequencer button (it will flash) - Press another 'select' button corresponding to the sub-step you want to copy TO Just the one sub-step will be copied.
Edit: sub-steps light up during copy now! and it should work in both voice and step mode. You can also skip pressing a second sequencer button if copying a single sub-step within the same main step.
Voices can be changed by pattern automation. There is a new step automation parameter "Voice LoadKit#". When this is set, and the step is activated, the voice will do an individual voice load from the kit file number specified by the automation value. The load is not instantaneous, so it is recommended the load not be done on a step that you want to trigger (though this can sometimes sound nicely glitchy), but done on a silent (velocity 0) intermediate step.
The new parameter shouldn't cause old patterns to load strangely, but to be on the safe side you might not want to overwrite patterns or kits that you want re-use with older versions of the OS.
If it is possible to load single voices, is it also possible to safe single voices? Maybe this has already been discussed, in that case I missed it. But it would be really helpful to have avoice directory in the load/save menu!
It's possible, it's not something I would work on any time soon. It would require a lot of re-working code for almost no new functionality. If you have a voice you like, just save it to a new kit to use later. The only thing you can't do now is move, say, a DRUM1 voice to DRUM3.
I rather like auditioning through voices of different kits quickly to make new kits, and if all the drum parts were different files, you'd need a confusing menu with duplicate load entries, or you'd need to perform 4 steps to get a voice out of a kit and into the current one. Or you'd need to remember to save everything as both kits and voices. It just slows things down.
In short, there is an expanded Performance menu. Page 1 adds two 'Performance Macros' to the usual morph and sample rate controls. These each take two parameter assignments to let you change multiple sounds at the same time. The assigments are saved with the kit.
Page 2 adds roll control (as a rule, you must now say "roll control" seven times fast). You can change note and velocity while you roll. These are also recorded to the sequencer if record is on.
Pages 3 and 4 (get at them with the encoder scroll only) are the assignments for the performance macros.
Finally, I had some time to try out the new features and they are great! The routable custom buttons and the transpose tool are fantastic. Is it right that you have only half of the paramter range for the customs buttoms due to the symmetry of the paramter (+-63)? When I want to open a complete closed filter I can do this only up to value 63, right?
In the moment the transpose tool seems to be a global option. This is cool, because you can set different values for individual voices and can switch them at once. For arps it would be nice to have the transpose value for each part. This way you could edit your arp in the first part, copy it to another part and transpose the whole part. What do you think?
thanks! The idea with the bipolar assign is that you can have one parameter maxed when the macro is maxed and the other param at min when the macro is maxed - so you can crossfade two parts with one control, for example. You should get the full sweep with +63 that you would get, say, setting an lfo to 127 modulation, but the resolution is halved.
hmm... are you saying you would prefer the on/off switch to work individually for each part? I'll have a think about that, but i do like the immediacy of being able to transpose all the parts in different directions at once - and if there are parts i don't want to transpose, then I just set those to '0'.
There are a few things I need to tinker with - transpose is one of them. I want to have transpose saved somewhere in a file... I'm thinking in a 'performance' or maybe per-pattern? would that get too confusing?
I also need to change how rolls work when rolling over existing steps, it's not very clean now. And I really want to put in a way of overdubbing velocity on existing notes.
No, I like this global switching behaviour of the transpose tool. What I wanted to suggest are individual transpose settings per pattern in the performance mode. You could then create a pattern, copy it to another pattern and transpose it quickly without the need to edit individual notes. Even live this might be handy. Yes, it would be great if the transpose value could be saved per pattern.
Thanks yes, I'll take that into consideration and I've put 'make transpose per-pattern and save in pattern data files' on my to-do list.
If what you're after is quickly editing the note data for a new pattern, you can 'write' the transpose by turning record on. Just let the pattern play through once while transposed and recording, then turn record off (also, turn transpose off).
the transpose value is written to a per-step value (distinct from the 'note' of a step) in realtime as the sequencer runs, *but only when transpose in ON*. So ... you can do some fairly complex stuff by flipping transpose on/off quickly and changing the value while recording. The results aren't 'finalized' until you turn record off, so you can always do more overpasses or do a pass with transpose set to 0 if you don't like the result.
Cool! :-)) Thanks for the hint. This transpose tool is just great and opens a lot of new possibilities. Just think of random values for the pattern generator, it's usage as a modulation target or a chord mode by copying the paramters from drum1 to drum2 and drum3 and setting the right transpose values for drum1-3.
Maybe adding some 'note' params to the euklidean generator (root, chord, octaves, etc) would be interesting. I'll kick that thought around a little! The trick is more expanding the menus than anything. Also a utility to 'link' the voice params of all 3 drum parts might be useful! poly mode... hmmm...
having transpose as a mod target might get into tricky territory ... it's in danger of generating an endless functionality loop (ie - if you can modulate the transposition, what if you want to transpose the modulated transpositions? what if you want to modulate the transpositions of the modulated transposition?)
Just not sure what the extra functionality you're thinking of is... It's already possible to modulate the coarse pitch, or record pitch automation to sub-steps for that chip-tune type steppy pitch cycling effect. Maybe some 'ladder' type LFO waveforms?
I was just dreaming a bit. The difference is that the transpose value is kind of quantized to full notes. This might be interesting and is a difference to the coarse target. I was also thinking about a probability option for the transpose tool, but maybe this goes too far.
I think coarse is quantized to half-steps of pitch also. If you change it with a mod like lfo or velocity (or the new 'macros'), the way the mods scale isn't quantized. But if you do it with the step or substep automation, it should remain quantized. Keep in mind that track automation can be directed at a different track, so this might be a thing to try... Drum 1 is your 'sound' where you want pitch-cycling Drum 2 is your 'pseudo-lfo' ... set the track length to 1 and set all the sub-steps for the first main step to automate coarse pitch for drum 1 AND - this is key - *set the velocity of those sub-steps to 0*
You should get a nice, quantized and steppy pitch-cycling in 1/128th notes when drum 1 triggers. You can also transpose drum 1 and the relationship of the notes should track. This also doesn't preclude you from using drum2 - you can copy out those sub-steps and then set any steps where you want drum 2 to sound to have a velocity other than '0'.
Any chance you could look into reset points for patterns with non 16 step pattern length? This would make this machine so much more dance music friendly
Any chance you could look into reset points for patterns with non 16 step pattern length? This would make this machine so much more dance music friendly
I'm not sure what you mean by this... I think you can accomplish much the same already with the current repeat/next pattern structure, when global 'pcr' (pattern change reset) is turned on.
For example, if you have pattern 1 with one track of length 15, and set the pattern to repeat 4, next 1, it should run for 4 bars and then reset all the sequences to their start when it changes (back to itself). So the track with length 15 will repeat 4 times (60 steps), then get to step 5 and reset back to 1 at the start of the 5th bar.
That's the way it should work, anyway. If it's not, I'll look into it. It's not something I use alot as I tend to pattern change manually.
well, I will say I plan to eventually allow pattern length to be set by sub-step rather than main step, which combined with track scale, should allow for much more stuff like that. I will eventually get around to adding some play 'modes' for tracks - forward, reverse, ping-pong, random, etc. that might push that along a bit. Maybe something like a 'plays once after pattern change' would be useful?
reset bars per track... not sure I quite see the utility, beyond the above paragraph. But if you want to reset one or more non-16 step tracks but not others, currently you can do this manually with 2 patterns. Make a copy of 1 pattern, then set the track(s) you want to reset to be length 16. If you double-select that pattern, it will realign all the tracks based on their current length. Then switch back to the first pattern.
hello everyone, a very fresh LXR'ee here. finished the build last week and so far i have like 5% of the possible stuff down, but already wanted to try out the custom firmware especially because of the step copy capability. firstly huge thanks for taking things further in an open source spirit! really appreciated!
so i did the firmware update procedure, and everything seems to function, but i have some weird stuff going on. for example the samples load erratically, only like 5 out of the 19 are available, and loading them again seems to shuffle which ones, but just some, not all are. the total size of the samples directory is under 400kb here, and it's the samples folder kindly offered by brendanclarke at the firmware directory.
EDIT: there are not 19, but 11 samples in my 'samples'-directory... ahem...
also my drumkits are funny. the first 7 are named some ASCII-jibberish, and sound like forcibly loading .txt files as audio (yeah... i had a wild youth) from there on they're the normal ones, plus some extras, and they work.
is this a quality of the hacked firmware, or am i doing something bassackwards? i did just take all of the files from LXR.zip and dumped them on the SD card.
i figured i ask before i manage to hack my new love to a state of uselessness, since i understand nothing of what i'm mucking about with here. tried to search for info also, but found none here or at BC's site.
Comments
version that's on the web now and can't reproduce it, so try the new
one and see if it's ok now.
either:
brendanclarke.com/files/LXR
github.com/brendanclarke/tree/custom-develop
Main Step Copy:
- Press and hold 'copy'
- Press a sequencer button (it will flash)
- Press another sequencer button.
All the sub-steps of the first main step are copied to the second.
Sub-Step Copy:
- Press and hold 'copy'
- Press a sequencer button (it will flash)
- Press one of the 8 'select' buttons corresponding to the sub-step you want to copy from (it will flash)
- Press another sequencer button (it will flash)
- Press another 'select' button corresponding to the sub-step you want to copy TO
Just the one sub-step will be copied.
Edit: sub-steps light up during copy now! and it should work in both voice and step mode. You can also skip pressing a second sequencer button if copying a single sub-step within the same main step.
Voices can be changed by pattern automation. There is a new step automation parameter "Voice LoadKit#". When this is set, and the step is activated, the voice will do an individual voice load from the kit file number specified by the automation value. The load is not instantaneous, so it is recommended the load not be done on a step that you want to trigger (though this can sometimes sound nicely glitchy), but done on a silent (velocity 0) intermediate step.
The new parameter shouldn't cause old patterns to load strangely, but to be on the safe side you might not want to overwrite patterns or kits that you want re-use with older versions of the OS.
I rather like auditioning through voices of different kits quickly to make new kits, and if all the drum parts were different files, you'd need a confusing menu with duplicate load entries, or you'd need to perform 4 steps to get a voice out of a kit and into the current one. Or you'd need to remember to save everything as both kits and voices. It just slows things down.
http://brendanclarke.com/files/LXR/
In short, there is an expanded Performance menu. Page 1 adds two 'Performance Macros' to the usual morph and sample rate controls. These each take two parameter assignments to let you change multiple sounds at the same time. The assigments are saved with the kit.
Page 2 adds roll control (as a rule, you must now say "roll control" seven times fast). You can change note and velocity while you roll. These are also recorded to the sequencer if record is on.
Pages 3 and 4 (get at them with the encoder scroll only) are the assignments for the performance macros.
The routable custom buttons and the transpose tool are fantastic.
Is it right that you have only half of the paramter range for the customs buttoms due to the symmetry of the paramter (+-63)? When I want to open a complete closed filter I can do this only up to value 63, right?
In the moment the transpose tool seems to be a global option. This is cool, because you can set different values for individual voices and can switch them at once.
For arps it would be nice to have the transpose value for each part. This way you could edit your arp in the first part, copy it to another part and transpose the whole part.
What do you think?
The idea with the bipolar assign is that you can have one parameter maxed when the macro is maxed and the other param at min when the macro is maxed - so you can crossfade two parts with one control, for example. You should get the full sweep with +63 that you would get, say, setting an lfo to 127 modulation, but the resolution is halved.
hmm... are you saying you would prefer the on/off switch to work individually for each part? I'll have a think about that, but i do like the immediacy of being able to transpose all the parts in different directions at once - and if there are parts i don't want to transpose, then I just set those to '0'.
There are a few things I need to tinker with - transpose is one of them. I want to have transpose saved somewhere in a file... I'm thinking in a 'performance' or maybe per-pattern? would that get too confusing?
I also need to change how rolls work when rolling over existing steps, it's not very clean now. And I really want to put in a way of overdubbing velocity on existing notes.
What I wanted to suggest are individual transpose settings per pattern in the performance mode.
You could then create a pattern, copy it to another pattern and transpose it quickly without the need to edit individual notes. Even live this might be handy.
Yes, it would be great if the transpose value could be saved per pattern.
Thank you for your great firmware!
If what you're after is quickly editing the note data for a new pattern, you can 'write' the transpose by turning record on. Just let the pattern play through once while transposed and recording, then turn record off (also, turn transpose off).
the transpose value is written to a per-step value (distinct from the 'note' of a step) in realtime as the sequencer runs, *but only when transpose in ON*. So ... you can do some fairly complex stuff by flipping transpose on/off quickly and changing the value while recording. The results aren't 'finalized' until you turn record off, so you can always do more overpasses or do a pass with transpose set to 0 if you don't like the result.
Thanks for the hint.
This transpose tool is just great and opens a lot of new possibilities.
Just think of random values for the pattern generator, it's usage as a modulation target or a chord mode by copying the paramters from drum1 to drum2 and drum3 and setting the right transpose values for drum1-3.
Maybe adding some 'note' params to the euklidean generator (root, chord, octaves, etc) would be interesting. I'll kick that thought around a little! The trick is more expanding the menus than anything. Also a utility to 'link' the voice params of all 3 drum parts might be useful! poly mode... hmmm...
having transpose as a mod target might get into tricky territory ... it's in danger of generating an endless functionality loop (ie - if you can modulate the transposition, what if you want to transpose the modulated transpositions? what if you want to modulate the transpositions of the modulated transposition?)
Just not sure what the extra functionality you're thinking of is... It's already possible to modulate the coarse pitch, or record pitch automation to sub-steps for that chip-tune type steppy pitch cycling effect. Maybe some 'ladder' type LFO waveforms?
The difference is that the transpose value is kind of quantized to full notes. This might be interesting and is a difference to the coarse target. I was also thinking about a probability option for the transpose tool, but maybe this goes too far.
Drum 1 is your 'sound' where you want pitch-cycling
Drum 2 is your 'pseudo-lfo' ... set the track length to 1 and set all the sub-steps for the first main step to automate coarse pitch for drum 1 AND - this is key - *set the velocity of those sub-steps to 0*
You should get a nice, quantized and steppy pitch-cycling in 1/128th notes when drum 1 triggers. You can also transpose drum 1 and the relationship of the notes should track. This also doesn't preclude you from using drum2 - you can copy out those sub-steps and then set any steps where you want drum 2 to sound to have a velocity other than '0'.
I will try your procedure.
https://github.com/brendanclarke/LXR/tree/custom-develop-testmacro
This would make this machine so much more dance music friendly
YES!!!!! Please
For example, if you have pattern 1 with one track of length 15, and set the pattern to repeat 4, next 1, it should run for 4 bars and then reset all the sequences to their start when it changes (back to itself). So the track with length 15 will repeat 4 times (60 steps), then get to step 5 and reset back to 1 at the start of the 5th bar.
That's the way it should work, anyway. If it's not, I'll look into it. It's not something I use alot as I tend to pattern change manually.
reset bars per track... not sure I quite see the utility, beyond the above paragraph. But if you want to reset one or more non-16 step tracks but not others, currently you can do this manually with 2 patterns. Make a copy of 1 pattern, then set the track(s) you want to reset to be length 16. If you double-select that pattern, it will realign all the tracks based on their current length. Then switch back to the first pattern.
also my drumkits are funny. the first 7 are named some ASCII-jibberish, and sound like forcibly loading .txt files as audio (yeah... i had a wild youth) from there on they're the normal ones, plus some extras, and they work.
is this a quality of the hacked firmware, or am i doing something bassackwards? i did just take all of the files from LXR.zip and dumped them on the SD card.
i figured i ask before i manage to hack my new love to a state of uselessness, since i understand nothing of what i'm mucking about with here. tried to search for info also, but found none here or at BC's site.
which files should be on the SD card?