Interest in a module+protocol for sending text over VCV cable?

:fu: :+1: :wave: :muscle: :guitar:

1 Like

As a bit of update, hereā€™s the current state of the unreleased TTY module Iā€™m working on:

NB: UI is quite preliminary! I didnā€™t bother to add any narration to the video, but hereā€™s whatā€™s going on:

  • Scene 1 (0:00 - 1:06): TTY displaying a series of values. Note that it only displays values that differ from the previous one.
  • Scene 2 (1:08 - 1:38): BASICally sending text to TTY via Tipsy. My current suggestion for marking an input port as expecting Tipsy is the oversized ā€œ+ā€ behind it.
  • Scene 3 (1:40 - 2:13): TTY showing the actual sequence of values behind Tipsy, and also demonstrating using BASICally to send a text message that clears the TTY screen.
  • Scene 4 (2:14 - 2:30): A silly take on Oblique Strategies, where BASICally suggests things for the viewer to do while playing a patch.
  • Scene 5 (2:34 - 3:28): Demonstrating copying from TTY.

Anyway, I thought Iā€™d share where itā€™s heading and see if people had useful suggestions that I hadnā€™t thought of or let me know of functionality that would matter to themā€¦ Thereā€™s still a lot to do before releasing, but for certain I will:

  • add more value and text ports, so that the user doesnā€™t have to deal with merging different data streams into one (especially tricky with Tipsy).
  • add string variables to BASICally. And then likely some string operators.

mahlen

2 Likes

Having something that created an audit trail of what you did during a jam would be pretty cool. Especially if it could be smart enough to precis usage e.g. didnā€™t show reams of cc values.

Huh! So some compact representation of a long series of CV values, which is:

  • recordable
  • editable (by typing)
  • replayable

??

Like a series of:

timestamp: value
timestamp: value
timestamp: value
...

With the timestamps increasing.

This verges a bit into territory usually handled by a DAWā€¦but it doesnā€™t have to beā€¦so, interesting! And a promising use case for a module that takes text as an input.

Admittedly, ā€œrecordableā€ and ā€œreplayableā€ could be handled by a long ā€œtapeā€ recording, but this could be a far more compact representation many varieties of CV, and adding ā€œeditableā€.

I wasnā€™t personally thinking of ā€˜replayableā€™, more as an aide-memoire to tell you which modules you used in the jam (and when). As you said, linking to a DAW would make more sense if you wanted to record literally everything.

Ah, so something that (somehow) knows about all of the controls in the patch and notes when they change. I currently have zero clue how (or if) one could do that, but it is a fascinating thoughtā€¦

Huh, this module is a gesture in that direction:

Is there a reverse mode?

For ReMove? Not my module, so the moduleā€™s docs are more informative than I.

1 Like

A CV trigger to reverse the automation could be good

A result of the discussion above is now finally available!

A new text display module, TTY, is now live. Docs are here. It accepts Tipsy text messages (and also can log normal float values from a cable).

BASICally now has the ability to output Tipsy text messages. This allows, among other things, one to log messages from a BASICally program. But thereā€™s an interesting variety of uses.

You can see two minute walkthrough video of example uses for TTY here. This patch of TTY sample uses is here.

Iā€™m hopeful that more modules will start to support the input and output of Tipsy text messages, as I think text is a potentially powerful tool for manipulating a patch and getting human-readable feedback from a patch or module.

Thanks again to @baconpaul and @pachde for encouraging and materially contributing to this idea.

4 Likes

Please excuse my intrusion in this discussion (absolutely brilliant) but when I read this line I had a good laugh. Ditto for me and yesā€¦ I was literally mesmerized by the sound of modem connecting. First there were BBSs, then Win3.1 with socketā€¦ In a way I miss those sounds. My first modem was a 300 Bd on my Commodore 64, my first digital and digital music love! :heart_eyes:

1 Like