According to the specs, the 201PP has 512 MB of RAM, some of which will also be used by Pd and the OS - so it’s wise to keep the memory footprint minimal. You also don’t have to load your samples into memory and can run them directly from the SD card - the only reason I chose this way is because of latency issues with the Organelle patch.
I don’t know how experienced you are with Pure Data, but technically it’s definitely possible, you just need to come up with a good concept on how to do it well and efficiently, which now sounds easier than it is…
There’s tons of Pd resources out there - I highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/@QCGInteractiveMusic/videos and the excellent book from Maurizio Di Berardino - even though it’s tailored to the Organelle you can take a lot from it.
Anyway I like the idea of a SID synth, reminds me of my C64 (R.I.P.) back in the 80ies. Good luck and plenty of fun on your journey!
Thanks so much for making this! It’s an awesome sounding patch. I am brand new to pure data and synthesis, but this seems like a really great jumping off point for me.
Would my understanding be that this is a sampler patch? And the difference being that the pre-loaded 1-5 patches on the 201 are using sounds created in the 201 rather than sampled audio? Also, what’s the latency like if you were to execute the samples from the SD card? I’ve still got a long way to go to understanding it all, but I appreciate any insight! Thanks!
Thanks @the_timber_owls! Glad you like it.
I want to point out that I’m not an authority when it comes to Pd - I began coding in Pd in December 2022 and I’m not much of a synthesis guy either - speaking of that - yes! 201 Pacifica! is a sample-based patch. There’s no synthesis going on. If you have any questions specific to this mode feel free to ask and I’ll try to explain as good as I can.
I have never measured it in milliseconds - so I don’t know. Latency may not be the correct term either - as mentioned above this mode is based on an Organelle patch I wrote a few months prior to this and there was an issue with pops/clicks - you can read about it here:
As mentioned this happened on the Organelle and might not affect the 201PP at all. I just took the patch as it was and modified it a bit to fit into the 201PP eco-system. If you’re a beginner don’t get sidetracked by this now.
I would also like to revise my opinion somewhat. The book is well written and helped me a lot to understand Pure Data for the Organelle, but if you are only working with the 201PP, it might be better to start with straight Pure Data tutorials, because the examples in the book are not doable with the Pocket Piano and it might get confusing.
I’m kind of a newbie when it comes to the C&G ecosystem. How do I get these samples to play on my 201? I’ve deleted and replaced the original 6-Samples folder and replaced it with the 6-201-Pacifica folder but I’m not getting any sound when I play the keys. The other synths all work fine. If anyone has any insight as to what I’m doing wrong, lmk! I’ve replaced other synth and pattern folders on the 201 with success, so not sure what to do. Thanks!
After that step, did you reload the main 201 patch by pressing and holding the high E F G keys and then pressing Shift button? This reloading step will update the main patch with regard to any changes made during file management (such as replacing/swapping an entire mode/pattern folder or moving individual files such as samples, etc.).
Could it possibly be due to a corrupt download? I just downloaded the mode again from patchstorage and added it again via disk mode and could not reproduce the problem. If chrisk’s suggestion didn’t help, try to download it again and repeat the steps.
actually, just went to turn it on and before connecting it to my desktop I checked to see if the Pacifica sounds were on the 201 and they are. No clue how that happened, maybe turning it on and off helped? Seems to be working fine though!
Cycling the power reloads the main patch too. So if you had not manually reloaded the main patch (by pressing high E F G keys and then shift) before shutting down, it would make sense that cycling power made it work.
I’ve just now gone through several hours of Pure Data tutorials and am trying to decode the mysteries of the existing plug-ins. Can I ask how hard was it to convert an Organelle patch into a 201 patch? Is it as simple as ignoring/deleting the messages for the screen display data? Or is it more tedious?
I’ve successfully copied some wav files from an organelle patch into the sampler (6) folder in the synth, but if I wanted to copy over knob assignments, would that work too? Appreciate any insight!
This is hard to answer and depends on how complex the Organelle patch is.
I, for example, had issues with abstractions that involved a loadbang, but I was able to fix it by cut-and-pasting it into a subpatch. Compare motor.pd from the Organelle patch to [pd motor] in module.pd from the 201 version.
My assumption is that this is due to the loading of the modes during the boot process and abstractions of a patch are not called directly here, hence the loadbang get’s ignored.
Also - someone correct me if I’m wrong - I think you’re only able to use knob1, 2 and 3 on the 201 in your modes. This means if an Organelle patch is using knob4 you might want to find a workaround for its function by e.g. hard-coding some parameters.
When I was converting Pacifica! into a 201 module I just added -$1 to knobX-objects and loadbangs as seen in the 6-Sample module which I took as a cheat-sheet patch.
Here are a few differences in addressing objects between the Organelle and the 201 Pocket Piano, hope this is helpful:
Thank you so much! Very informative, and I appreciate you explaining everything. The only direct pure data video I found was for the Organelle, and so now seeing the difference between [r knob1] and [r knob1-$1] helps a lot!