Entrian Sequencers released: Timeline, Melody, and Drummer

For those who are interested in - here is my first look on this great module.

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The power of the recording functionality is really amazing, if a little limited (only one track at a time). As far as I know, there is nothing in VCV rack that can record a sequence of gates/notes from something like Marbles as well as this (perfectly preserves gate length, distance between notes etc.)

What I do to get around the single track recording functionality is to make multiple instances of timeline, give them a long length like 256 beats and break each track into a series of 16 beat chunks. Once Iā€™m done letting the timelines record for a while I can copy/paste the different 16 beat chunks into my main timeline for each respective ā€œinstrumentā€ and everything synchronizes perfectly. Yes thatā€™s right, you can copy/past between different timelines!

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yeah you can just run some random module and then choose the favorite pattern and copy it as much as you like) thatā€™s pretty cool and I forgot to show this in the video sadly(

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Seriously amazing addition to VCV Rack, Richie. Iā€™m really enjoying the editor within Timeline so far. Every time Iā€™m like can it do this, there seems to be a way. One thing I havenā€™t figured out yet though, can you stretch a group of notes, drum hits, or cv to make it longer or shorter horizontally/vertically either as a whole clip or selection within the clip?

No, Iā€™m afraid thereā€™s no way to stretch notes like that. Iā€™m curious to know exactly what you mean though, particularly ā€œverticallyā€ for melody or drum notesā€¦?

No worries! Just testing the limits of this thing. Well, vertically wouldnā€™t make sense for drum notes, melody would be more experimental, cv could be cool but there is always attenuators. So yeah maybe vertically doesnā€™t make too much practical sense and I should have worded that better.

Iā€™ve got a drum playing from timeline with ratchet set to a low percentage and low start velocity and high end velocity so that the ratcheting ramps up. This is working great but for the hits that should be normal (ie, the non-flam ones) are using the start velocity so they are very quiet.

Is there a way around this? I almost feel like there should be another slider for velocity and the start/end only used for the flams.

As youā€™ve discovered, the velocities apply to all the notes in the ratchet, including the main leading/trailing note.

To get separate control over these velocities, I think youā€™d need to define two notes, a main note and a ratchetted note immediately after it. Adjust the quantization to get your separate ratchetted note to play at the right time. Something like this:

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Ok thanks, that could certainly work and provide a bit more flexibility.

It seems a shame to have to do that though, would a dedicated velocity slider plus ratchet start/end sliders be unworkable? I feel like you should be able to add the occasional ramped ratchet on the same channel.

No, not unworkable (but not trivial to implement).

Would you mind raising a feature request at https://github.com/EntrianAudio/Rack/issues please?

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Am I missing something with the CV tracks, they only go from -5v to +10v?

Yes, thatā€™s right. Itā€™s based on the VCV Voltage Standards document, which says ā€œCV modulation sources should typically be 0 to 10V (unipolar CV) or Ā±5V (bipolar CV).ā€

But that document also says ā€œThe only rule is that you can always find a module which breaks the ruleā€ and youā€™re not the first person to question that range (see https://github.com/EntrianAudio/Rack/issues/47 for an example).

Can I ask what range youā€™d like to see, and why?

I was expecting to see Ā±10. I canā€™t say itā€™s a problem for me yet but itā€™s something I noticed and thought was a bit odd. I would have thought that it make sense at Ā±10, for uniformity if nothing else. I think the 0 to 10V (unipolar CV) or Ā±5V (bipolar CV) standard doesnā€™t apply here as I can already create a -5 to +10 envelope as it is now so why not the whole -/+10 range.

I donā€™t actually have a use case for this at the moment but there are other modules that offer Ā±10, like sample and hold modules, so it must be useful sometimes.

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The CV editor now goes from -10V to +10V - hereā€™s whatā€™s in the latest version, 1.1.19:

  • Increased the CV range to Ā±10V. #47.
  • Added channel rotation. #53 and #60.
  • Where a drum note is a ratchet with a probability, and the ratchet comes before the note, and the note plays without the ratchet, the note now plays at the right time rather than playing the first note of the ratchet. #63.
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Thanks! :smiley:

Hi @Richie
in continuation of Melody: Number of output channels doesn't change Ā· Issue #60 Ā· EntrianAudio/Rack Ā· GitHub iā€™m not sure itā€™s working for me. It seems like i get an extra channel for some reason. Am I doing something wrong?

Also it seems that with record turned on I get a lot of notes skipped on monitoring.

Hi Lev,

The reason youā€™re seeing more channels than youā€™ve set is that channels are added for record monitoring. If you set your maximum polyphony to 1, and plug in a 1-channel input to the Record inputs, there will be two channels on the outputs. Otherwise you wouldnā€™t be able to hear your monitored notes when the sequenced notes were playing.

I canā€™t reproduce the problem of notes being skipped - could you attach a patch and some instructions to help me reproduce the problem? Thanks!

Oh, I didnā€™t understand that monitoring happens on separate channels. Is it always one channel for monitoring? The last one? This may explain why behaviour changes when record is active? I donā€™t think they get skipped, maybe just sent to an unexpected channel. I will come back if I can pinpoint the problem better, thank you!

Itā€™s as many as are present on the Record inputs. So for example, if you connect a MIDI-CV set to 3-channel polyphony, three channels will be added.

The additional channels are just added to the pool of channels, rather than being reserved for monitoring, so thereā€™s no difference in channel mapping between sequenced notes and monitored notes.

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@Richie i know itā€™s a strange one but it seems that after last update your modules canā€™t be deleted with hover mouse + delete/backspaceā€¦ win10 here.

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