gate length controls how long the Notes gates are held high for after a note triggers (the range is 0.1s to 4s edit: it’s actually between 0.1 to 4 multiplied by the master clock, not seconds). this is more for convenience of being able to control all 4 gates at once as you can just use AD style envelopes instead of ASR or ADSR, and control gate length on the envelopes themselves.
space is probably what you want, it introduces gaps in sequences (although in a slightly weird manner - i was going to change but several people commented they liked the effect it produces). it works well especially when being slightly modulated, this can bring more dynamics to a sequence.
i’m curious, how did you change space and/or gate length in the video? looking at the gate outputs it sure looks (and sounds) like gate length is being reduced around that time mark but i don’t see anything plugged into Gate Length input and the knob isn’t touched. great patch, i can almost hear bagpipes!
ha, some of the timbres reminded me of bagpipes (i love bagpipes).
weird, i’ll check what’s going on. space shouldn’t have an effect on gate length.
how did you patch gate outputs? also, how are you changing space there, i don’t see the knob moving and looks like nothing is plugged into Space input?
Okay, it looks like I totally forgot what i actually did and i’ve got the speed cv patched instead of the space cv. I am foolish. I’m using Jooper through a slew limiter so the value goes from 0 to 10 slowly. I don’t really know why that shortens the gate length.
ah that makes sense. i was actually incorrect: gate length is between 0.1 and 4 multiplied by the clock interval, so when you reduce speed it reduces the gate length proportionally.
strange that this would introduce gaps though. this will happen if you had gate length large enough so that notes overlap, and if you reduce it you’ll get to the point where you can hear more separate notes. changing speed shouldn’t have this effect (the main reason for having gate length be based on clock interval), i’ll check and see what’s going on!
Honestly, I really like it as it is- the interface is very clean and the module is just ridiculously powerful. If there was one thing that I think would be an interesting twist, it would be a multi-octave transpose for each Note CV output. If those were then modulatable to allow CV control over octave shifts for each note, I can imagine some really interesting possibilities. To keep things clean, that might be an interesting option for an expander instead of jamming it into the main module.
What I’m thinking is being able to layer octaves to create chord-like patterns that change over time or shifting in and out different oscillators to take on the role of bass lines or plucks. Having that in addition to the octave shift for the A and B sections would be really nifty.
Something like a +/- 5 octave transpose range, a rotary switch for octave shifts, and a CV in for note octaves would be really slick. I’m thinking something a little bit like the Repelzen Re-Win quantizer, but with CV control over the octave shifts.
the version 2.0.4 (that includes the bugfix) is now available in the library. it also includes some minor improvements (better labels and stepped controls for some of the parameters).
i’ve been working on a new version of orca’s heart - it still uses the same algorithm as the 1st version but can sequence 8 voices now instead of 4 and contains multiple other improvements that should make generated sequences more interesting.
the new version will be accompanied by additional modules (10+ modules planned) that will allow for some interesting abilities when working with 8 voices. 2 modules are pretty much done:
formation: it creates a set of 8 related voltages from a single source
lines: a simple voltage visualizer
these should be available in the library in ~3 weeks or so.
once you start sequencing 8 voices, you realize that you might want to use different parameters for each - say, you could use 8 braids modules but with slightly different timbre/color, different volume / pan for each voice etc etc. the other modules (and that’s 10+ in addition to the 3 above) will be utility modules to make it easier to control 8 voltages you’d use to modulate such parameters.
formation, for instance, takes a single voltage and creates a swarm of related voltages where you control the spread, how they are distributed etc. so you could use a single LFO to control 8 parameters but have them still be slightly different from each other. other planned modules will rotate the 8 voltages or apply modulation to all 8 etc.
additionally, there will be modules to compliment orca’s heart itself - i had other ideas but didn’t want to make it into a huge module, so you’ll be able to essentially build a sequencer that has the features you need. one module will serve as a set of 8 mutes for polyphonic gates, another will be a set of 8 octave adders controlled by gates etc. also a dedicated expander that will allow capturing the complete state of orca’s heart as a preset that can be gate or voltage selected.
i’ve created a new plugin for orca’s heart v2 called “eightfold” as there will be other modules to compliment orca’s heart, and the new version is sufficiently different from the old one, so it made sense to have a dedicated plugin for it. this means you can also continue using the old version if you prefer, or use them together.
here is what’s new/different in v2:
the number of voices and modulation CV/gates increased from 4 to 8
polyphonic outputs
16 scale presets
both scales can be selected at once, giving a 2 octave range scale
interface is easier to read when zoomed out
SPEED knob has improved response to allow for more precise control in lower range
max LENGTH increased from 32 to 64 steps
TRANSpose range increased to 6 octaves
SPACE parameter improved and sounds more musical
new VOICE parameter to control the number of voices
new SPREAD parameter - delay each voice for a “strum” effect
new ROTATE parameter - shift voice sequences against each other
new XMOD parameter - add internal cross modulation
the algorithm had some minor tweaks as well - this means if you use the same parameter values on OH and OH v2, you should get very similar sequences but they won’t match 1:1.
