I recently sold my OP-1 because I owned it several years and it felt like I have reached the synth and drum engines limitations (sound wise).
Now I am looking for a new small hands-on sound module to quickly come up with new sounds and song ideas and the Organelle looks promising.
I think the idea of an open source synth is remarkable and I hope the community continues to grow and the more advanced users create whatever they can think of!
Unfortunately I have no time to learn pure data and want to use every free minute I have to make music and get creative. Therefore I am a bit concerned if the Organelle is already sophisticated enough.
Maybe someone can tell me a bit of his or hers impressions with the Organelle and help me with my pre buy questions:
Can I use the Organelle like a classic synth module and save patches?
If so, how many can I save?
Is there a way to send MIDI notes from a DAW like Ableton Live and maybe send some automation of the four parameter knobs?
Do the synth patches recognize velocity and after touch from a MIDI keyboard?
Will there be future updates of the OS and new patches by the developers?
is a tricky question. But maybe someone has experience with Critter & Guitari products: Can anyone tell me if there might be a price update on the Organelle anytime soon?
Either way Iād like to support small companies rather than spending my money on one of these multi national tax avoiding devils.
Yes, can do patches presets (check out Rawtickās FM and Juno patches). Yes, can do Midi. Yes, patches are being created regularly by developers and users. Yes, itās great. The Organelle is a synth, effect box and a computer and can do whatever I tell it due to Pure Data. And I canāt programme code to save my a***.
How many presets can I save in a patch like the Juno?
How do you connect the Organelle to a DAW and is there a MIDI chart somewhere? Does it recognize velocity and aftertouch?
Since you seem to be on the same Pure Data level as I am. Do you think the Organelle is already sophisticated enough to use as a synth module in the studio and live?
For the Juno patch I made it so that you can save and recall 32 presets. It could be much more if needed (for more than 128 I wonder if the knob resolution would get in the way of selecting a preset thoughā¦). Thereās only one number to change in the patch to add more presets.
You can send midi control messages to Pure Data / Organelle. Pure Data will show what Midi CC number itās coming in on and you can adjust patch to use this. Yes to velocity too, havenāt tried aftertouch but unlikely to be an issue.
No problem with using Organelle as synth module. Just dial in a patch and youāll have an FM synth, Mellotron, Minimoog, Juno or whatever. Itās a really versatile box!
Thats great! Can you tell me if it is like that with the on board patches?
That is awesome as well. But I wanted to know if this is possible out of the box without editing PD
Have you used the Organelle with a DAW? If so: How have you connected it?
I was thinking of buying an iconnectaudio2+ so I can record the audio of the Organelle and send MIDI to it from Ableton Live.
Ah ok. Thanks.
Do the on board patches receive velocity and MIDI CCs on the 4 parameters?
Have you any experience in sending notes and automation from a DAW to the Organelle?
I didnāt experiment with thatā¦ If they donāt, it would be easy to make them receive velocity and CCs, although youād have to modify the patches in pure data.
Hi @Trunks, thanks for checking out the Organelleā¦ we made the Organelle to be useful for both musicians who just want to play and those that want to get more into the Pd side of customizing the instrument. We like to do both, and we are committed to building new patches that give the instrument new functionality. We created many of the available patches since first releasing the Organelle. Some more specific information (MIDI, etc) is available in the manual if you havenāt checked that out. But also here are some short responses to your questions:
There is no built in preset saving mechanism, although some users have built this feature into their patches.
Yes, the Organelle receives both CC and note messages so it may be controlled from another controller or computer / ableton
The patches available from Critter & Guitari do not respond to velocity. Some of the user submitted patches might.
At Critter & Guitari we are releasing new patches all the time. Also other users are posting new patches as wellā¦
thanks for your answer.
It is awesome to get in touch with you in person! I really admire your work and hope you keep on creating new instruments and especially expanding the Organelle
Thanks for the link! I just read the MIDI and patch chapters in the manual and that cleared some things up. Especially the possibility to record all four knob movements via USB and send them back to the Organelle is great for my workflow!
I am going to order one tonight
Will the patches of the Pocket Piano come to Organelle someday?
A quick thought:
Sebastian of Patchblocks invented a simple drag and drop editor for his Patchblocks. I think it would be great to have something similar for the not so technically skilled Organelle users.
Thanks. The patch blocks editor looks cool. I hadnāt checked that out in a while, it does look fun and easy to use. Iāve been meaning to re-create some of the Pocket Piano patches for the Organelle. 2 of the included patches (Arpeggio Synth and Basic Poly) are already very similar alreadyā¦
It has 9v 2A and I dont know what extension cable I should use:
Cable-Black ā Tip negative 2.1 mm barrel extension jumper for long cable runs
Cable-Green ā 2.5 mm internal diameter, tip positive barrel connector for use with
Line 6 Modelers, larger EH and other digital effects
Cable-Red āTip positive 2.1 mm barrel connector for reverse polarity effects
(Note that all units powered must have same ground configuration)
Your organelle needs 9VDC 1A (center positive). Any PSU you use must meet these criteria.
Amperage: 2A (more amps: doesnāt matter)
Voltage: 9VDC (all good)
polarity: The power-all is center-negative by default, so make sure to use one of the reverse polarity cables.
Are you powering other devices with the Power-all?
If youāre not powering any center-negative pedals with it, the Red cable should be fine.
I tried the red cable with the Organelle and it works fine.
Would it be wrong to use the green cable?
I think all the āusualā pedals like Boss etc. are center-negative right? Would it be dangerous to power them with the same power supply and patch the red cable on it for the Organelle?
Green cable plug is larger, so it wouldnāt fit the organelleās socket.
Iām not exactly sure what the effect of daisy chaining both center-positive and center negative devices to the power-all, but Iāve often seen warnings not to do it, so Iāve never done so and Iām passing on that warning. Maybe thereās an electrical engineer lurking about that could answer this more fully.
Youāre correct to say that most guitar pedals are center-negative, so you should not daisy-chain with your organelle.
So I spend some time wirh the Organelle last night and have to say I am not as impressed as I thought I would be.
I think it is too limitating to have just these 4 knobs on every patch. There was almost no patch where I wasnāt missing at least one or two additional parameters. It would be more sophisticated to have like 4 additional pages of parameters. This way you could have the individual patch parameters on the first page, an ADSR on the second, a LFO on the third and some FX like distortion / reverb on the fourth. Like the OP-1 does.
Furthermore the reaponse time of the display feels to slow and I hope this is because of my Organelle:
When I turn a knob it takes almost a second untill the values are moving. This is extremely when I try to set the tempo or tuning of some patches.
Also some of the values are jumping by themselves:
