Its here, my most ambitious Organelle project to date, one Ive been really excited to share 
I love the Organelle, its portability, its flexibility…
However, one thing I wished was that I could run multiple patches at once, combine them in different ways.
Enter Orac, The modular for your pocket
Installation
- ensure you have OS 3.1, these can be downloaded from http://organelle.io
- download orac, which is a zop package
- copy the zop patch to your usb drive into patch so /usbdrive/Patches
(or a subdirectory if you wish) - load usb stick is loaded onto Organelle,
- on Organelle, patch menu shows , “Install orac” - click it : )
what is Orac?
Its a modular, However, its a modular with a difference, no building synths, no pesky wires or patching, no bleeps, no lab coats.
The modules are musically useful things, like synths, fx, sequencers rather than small things like oscillators.
Yet, being modular, you still get to choose which, how many of each, and how audio and signals are routed.
A simple case might be a sequencer into a synth into some fx.
But you can get much more complex, with multiple ‘chains’, where you have different sequencers into different synths.
So, you can have drums running in one chain, asequence a bass line on another, and play a lead on top, that is all possible on one organelle
As of Today, there are over 50 modules to choose from, cover sequencers, synths, fx, recorders and include all my MI modules, and also a large number of C&G patches modified to modular format.
(Orac is also designed to be easy for patch developers to add new modules, more on that later)
These modules can be freely inserted into 10 slots, where a ‘routing’ module allows you to control how audio/notes/midi is routed around the rack.
Once your rack is perfected you can save and recall presets.
Need more hands on control, no worries, it supports midi learn.
All this is very easy to use, but I hope opens many creative doors.
a fantastic video from Loopop about Orac
My detailed walkthrough video
a nice video from Antonio (@keymanpal) walking through building a rack from scratch
There is a separate post regarding patch development
Basic controls:
- short press encoder, enter main menu.
- turning encoder takes you thru pages of the current module
- press and hold encoder + aux , list module slots and select
- press and hold encoder + first 10 keys , select module slot 0-9
Main menu:
- module line : shows current module , press encoder, list available menus to switch to
- preset line : shows current preset, press encoder for preset menu,
- midi learn : activate/deactivate midi learn
- save : save presets and midi learn to ‘disk’
- home : return to organelle menu
Preset menu:
- new : create new preset (will be called New #1 etc, can be renamed in orac-rack.json file)
- update: updates the current preset with changes to parameters, midi cc (non persistent, see Save above)
- list of presets: select preset to load
Midi cc learn:
- activate in main menu
- then turn parameter you want to learn
- then turn your midi controller (above zero)
- (repeat steps)
- deactivate midi learn in menu
note: if you want to cancel a learn , turn your midi controller to zero
FAQ
- Im not getting any input signal from the LINE IN
by default the input gain is 0%, you can change this to in the Router module for each chain. - routing modules can be placed in any slot, and really its only useful to have one
- clock module can be placed in any slot, its also optional (depends if you have module using it or not, e.g. sequencer), id advise a max of one in the rack.
Credits
This project is only possible because developers have shared code freely under open source, a case of ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’.
Special thanks to C&G for releasing their patches, they are well written and it was fun to ‘modularise’ them, and also to Mutable Instruments which my MI modules are based on.
Also Id like to thank Ziv (Loopop), Antonio (@keymanpal), and C&G (@ChrisK / @Oweno) for helping during pre-release by providing invaluable feedback and suggestions.
a first stab at the module list…
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTLKrgYphakK8n1iLfxryQRmW-TQw60K8kPnY1DJOHKEp3wZtHpyccbZtcg-9mQS_cA9HGiQtskr2CZ/pub?output=pdf
