MindMeld Competition - Win ShapeMaster Pro!

Announcements
1

Citizens of the Rack Federation!,

MindMeld are running a competition.

'Tis the season of goodwill for a subset of Earthlings, so MindMeld are giving you the opportunity to win a free license for ShapeMaster Pro!

The competition will last for 2 weeks, so if you find yourself with some free time over the holidays, or you just need a short break from your wonderful friends and family, who you love so very dearly, why not make a cool patch?

The Rules:

Make a patch using only MindMeld modules (as many instances as you like) in VCV versions 1 or 2 (standalone), plus you may also use:

• One reverb and one delay of your choice on the aux sends of MixMaster.

• One instance of VCV Noise.

• VCV Audio module

• The VCV Midi > CV and Midi-Map modules may also be used for live performance (a video of the performance is required if those modules are used - no DAW sequencing/modulation)

• You can also use the CV-Map and µMap modules from Stoermelder’s Packone plugin. This is not in the v2 library yet (hopefully it will be soon) but in the meantime you can download builds for all platforms here:

• You can use VCV Notes and/or Stoermelder Glue to describe/markup your patch and provide any key information we should know about it, such as “Click here to run” for example.

One entry per person. The competition closes at midnight UK time on 3rd January.

The prize: The winner will receive a license for MindMeld ShapeMaster Pro. The winner will be notified as soon as we have had a chance to judge all the entries.

What if I already own ShapeMaster Pro? If you are lucky enough to already own ShapeMaster Pro then fear not, we will run a separate competition for you too! The same rules will apply but the prize for the ShapeMaster Pro winner will be fame and glory throughout the Federation - your name will be whispered in the halls of power from Romulus to Kronos. We will also list your entry in the MindMeld hall of fame on our GitHub page. The kudos shall be yours. Please make sure you use the Pro version not the free version in your entry so we can easily tell which competition you are entering.

Only MindMeld… seriously? If you are thinking that making a patch with only MindMeld modules might be rather limiting, we urge you to explore the possibilities offered by ShapeMaster … ShapeMaster can be a: Clock, VCO, Envelope, LFO, VCA, Low Pass Filter, High Pass Filter, Sequencer (CV and Trigger/Gate), Random Source, Quantiser, Slew Limiter, Scaling tool, Offset, Wrapper, Clamper, Attenuverter, Window Comparator, Voltage Utility, Rectifier, Waveshaper, Saturation/Distortion, Clipper, Wavefolder, Bitcrusher and probably a few other things too… so there is considerable scope for exploration!

If you need some inspiration, we recommend you check out Jakub Ciupinski’s awesome Youtube series on ShapeMaster where he takes some deep dives into what ShapeMaster can do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq87VzR-37I…

and of course, Omri Cohen also made an excellent video about it which you can see here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL6e4Mqqp2Y&t=85s

How the competition will be judged: We will be looking at your creative and varied use of MindMeld modules, particularly ShapeMaster, to make an interesting and musical patch. The one we like most will win!

How to enter: Upload your patch to patchstorage.com and post a link to it as a reply to this post. Please also upload a video of the patch playing and link to that too.

This competition will also be posted on the VCV Facebook group and our MindMeld Facebook page. All entries from these 3 places will be considered.

Happy Holidays!

Edited on 20.12.2021 to include the use of Stoermelder’s CV-Map and µMap modules in the rules and to add a separate competition for ShapeMaster Pro users

Edited on 28.12.2021 to include the use of VCV Notes and Stoermelder’s Glue modules in the rules so you can provide us with useful patch information

20 Likes
ShapeMaster - wave sequencing oscillator
2

Cool idea. I was thinking about something like this with a different plugin set each week/month.

2 Likes
3

One thing I didn’t understand: how to use Shapemaster as a VCO. Even in videos they always use external VCOs.

I’ll try anyway, I haven’t celebrated Christmas for 20 years so all my time will go to Shapemaster.

*Solved :grin:

4

:frowning:

5

OK - you’re not the first to say this and we hear you!

I’m going to change it so there is a competition for ShapeMaster Pro owners too :slight_smile:

Is fame and glory throughout the Federation prize enough for people that already own Pro?

Edit: Done.

2 Likes
6

Absolutely! And thanks, sounds like a super fun challenge.

1 Like
7

Oooh this sounds like a fun challenge! Will have to make sure I also spend time with family…

1 Like
8

*Patch deleted

1 Like
9

Excellent - I love it when a plan comes together :slight_smile:

And thanks for entering the competition. As of right now at least, you are winning! :wink:

1 Like
10

how did you figure out how to control the pitch once youve got it as a vco?

asking for a… Me

11

I’ve been trying to get it to track 1V/Oct using Stoermelder microMap and the length knob. Didn’t work out. The pro version has the CV input expander, but that doesn’t help me with the competition :slight_smile:

1 Like
12

The “Length” knob. With a right click on the small display you can choose whether to display seconds / milliseconds, frequency or notes. The sound result does not change, but if you have to select a note it is undoubtedly better to view the notes.

The problem is that without a 1v / oct input (available with the pro license), the oscillator will play a single note, so to create a fairly complex and interesting melody, you need many instances of Shapemaster, create many oscillators and each of them plays a note, positioned at different times in the sequence. A job that I didn’t want to do, so I limited myself to creating a patch-loop.

Edit: Out of the competition I have never used it as an oscillator (I didn’t even know it could do, is a novelty for me)

Those few times I used Shapemaster, I brought the CV Out, into the 1v / oct input of an external VCO.

13

that was the way id also figured out, but didnt know if there was a better way. also, i didnt wanna go back to v1… ill see if i enter, but thanks you! ^^

14

It’s definitely possible to get it to track 1V/Oct. Stoermelder is your friend…

I don’t want to give too much away as figuring this stuff out is part of the challenge and I know at least 2 people have already figured it out on their own.

I’ll speak to Marc and see if we are prepared to give any clues on how to do it.

For now I’ll just say think about what the issues are in getting the length knob to track 1V/Oct and about how ShapeMaster can help you solve those problems.

While not covering this specifically, Jakub’s videos definitely cover some relevant ground…particularly the “Behemoth” one.

4 Likes
15

this is really motivating to hear. so, do you mean to say that stoermelder modules are somewhat required still? if so, ill get the pre release :slight_smile:

16

The free version of ShapeMaster doesn’t have any CV inputs - so if you want to modulate it, then you will need to find a way of doing it.

The list of non-MindMeld allowed modules was carefully chosen, for good reasons, so you might be doing yourself a disservice by not taking advantage of all of them :wink:

17

So… I’ve spoken to Marc.

On the one hand, we understand that it’s going to be more fun if you can figure out the 1 v/o sequencing thing - and it’s quite key to being able to make anything melodic.

On the other hand we don’t want to spoil things too much for those who have already figured it out.

So we are not going to say how to do it exactly, but we can give some more pointers.

Most have probably figured out that you will need Stoermelder’s CV-Map or uMap to modulate the length - but how to get it to track 1 V/Oct? What problems do you have that need to be solved? In what ways is the length knob different compared to the frequency knob on a regular VCO?

I’m prepared to engage in a little bit of discussion about this :slight_smile:

1 Like
18

Someone cleverly opened another discussion on how to control any knob without a dedicated input, like the Shapemaster Lenght.

The solution proposed in that discussion looks the same as written here, I messed around a bit with CV Map without concluding anything, I’ll try again.

I ask: is it necessary to have some hardware controllers or the computer keyboard is sufficient?

…I add: In my previous post there is a less sophisticated alternative method, a more ignorant, more beginner, but working solution. Only have to waste hours doing what maybe takes five minutes with CV Map :rofl:

19

haha yes I saw that!

No hardware necessary - not even a keyboard. ShapeMaster can output a quantised 1 v/Oct sequence - that’s easy and Jakub made a video specifically all about that (in his series I linked to in the original post). The tricky part is getting the length knob to respond to that sequence in a 1 v/o way (such that a 1v difference in the input voltage results in a 1 Octave change in frequency), which it does not do by default.

Your entry was actually really good considering it had no 1 v/o sequencing going on. Btw if you ever want to update your entry before the deadline on 3rd Jan you can. It’s one entry per person, but we won’t officially look at the entries until the deadline has passed - so as long as you have one entry in the thread then, that’s the one we will look at.

1 Like
20

This is not a rhetorical question btw - I’m looking for some answers here. Who’s going to put their hand up?