yesterday I saw a youtube video by “look mum no computer” where he was using a TV as an oscilloscope to get some of those Lissajous type things.
looked like fun, and i wondered what I could do with ETC modes…, and came up with this
what im doing here is the X/Y directly from my AE Modular using the audio stereo signal , where left = x , right = y. for course given the audio input on the ETC/Organelle is DC couple you cannot drive it in the same way as an oscilloscope, so here its just a similar concept where wiggling a modular can give you different patterns
some background:
a) I had to extend the ETC code base a bit, as audio_in is just a mono input, so I extended it to have an audio_left and audio_right
(ok, I admit, ive wanted to do this for a while, as I think playing with the stereo field generally can be useful for modes, even if its just to create ‘panning effects’)
b) im using alpha channel to create the trail, so it has a similar effect to a oscilloscope.
of course, truth be known for Lissajous effects on a etc, you dont even need an audio signal, you can just do it with some sin/cos functions… but wheres the fun in that
another option of course, is to driving it via midi, assuming the data rate can keep up… might be fun with a midi sequencer, like the pyramid, which can do midi LFOs.
anyway, just some fun, and perhaps might be interesting to others.
i’ve been wanting something like that ae modular for ages. didn’t know it actually existed! looks and sounds great after looking into it.
this patch also looks great!
sorry my mistake - Id assumed the ETC had stereo hardware, as uses the same SoC/audio codec… but having looked at the spec, indeed it says its Mono… thats an odd decision imho.
(I had incorrectly assumed it was coded to be mono, to just have less data to process)
I got it via kickstarter, it was a great price, and they have continued to develop it… I’ll be picking up the new modules soon (again well priced!)
good point is its price, a great way to learn about modular… and certainly its influenced my thoughts on getting into eurorack (both good and bad)… its also fun to play with DIY, as like many dupont /microcontrollers its 5v , so easy to plug stuff in.
where its slightly falls down is tuning, the oscillators dont track particular well (about 1 to 2 Oct, when using midi to cv) … and sometime the cables can fail (but Ive thousands of them, for a few cents) so you have to watch them a bit.
Im going to get around the oscillator tuning by buying his new sequencer… at 74euro, the most expensive module, but not bad for a 16 step sequencer
Steering this right off topic but -
Do you find that it syncs with MIDI clock well? That may be difficult to answer without having used the sequencer module yet but…
I like the idea of a live set where improvised songs start with some modular noodling, then a beat gets introduced via octatrack, organelle processing/synth etc. It would work great if the AE syncs tightly. I could probably do it now with VCV but as much as I’ve evangelised about not being scared of laptops I would much prefer tactile analog interfaces.
yup, ive no issue with computers/software … they are ultimately more flexible/cheaper.
but yeah, a dedicate control interface often is more fun.
yeah, ive been sync’ing it via midi seems tight enough for me.
as the oscillators don’t track well, ive been using it mainly for percussion/drones.
it came with a ‘beat divider’ and a step 10… so that’s been fun for percussion, especially when linked up to the logic module (and also S&H) .
of course, this is where you start realising, how adding a few duplicates of modules could be fun… and then understand why eurorack can get expensive quickly.
(fortunately with AEM, many modules are 2o euros!)
(*) I will say, i try not to get OCD over latency, as its cause is not always clear where its from… esp. when testing, due to midi interface/audio interfaces. so if its sounds in time, that’s good enough for me.
(again well priced!)