Prototype for the new MI Plaits in VCV Rack

Development
1

Hi guys,

Disclaimer: This is currently just an unofficial hobby project without any support and not connected to the original Audible Instruments developers.

Because nobody took care of porting the new Plaits 1.2 model into VCV Rack I wanted to have a look into it. See this thread for more information: New Plaits modes, including a DX7! - #28 by Tobi The changes in the new firmware are explained very well here: Firmware - Mutable Instruments Documentation

I started this thread under development because I feel the other thread should be more about the new version itself, and I don’t want to clutter it with my prototype and potential bugs and feedback for it.

Short summary: I have a working version of Plaits 1.2 in VCV Rack for Windows, and currently I am working on getting the import functionalty done. There is an editor available for Plaits 1.2 (GitHub - pichenettes/plaits-editor: Editor for Plaits hidden models) and the exported data should in the end also be usable in the VCV Rack version of Plaits. More details on that later on.

The current version is available on my GitHub (I am just starting out with this whole workflow):

I want to get automated builds as well, but it will take some time. The version includes the enabled main functionality and my first tries regarding the import. You can simply ignore this code for the moment. I also had to disable one of the Tides modules because there is an overlap in the original Eurorack repository, I need to check how this can be solved. Apart from that my version uses the latest Eurorack repository for all the MI modules, this might include some minor fixes here or there for other modules as well. There is no official forking yet though, I need to look how this can be done.

Greetings, Tobi

18 Likes
2

I found a solution for the import, it is still not perfect and I need to adapt the plaits editor at some point as well, but for now it works.

On the left we have two new 1.2 Plaits with two different custom wavetables, and on the right we have the original Plaits without a custom wavetable:

grafik
grafik1630Ă—578 242 KB

This is possible via the context menu, you can load custom data for the current engine, and also reset it to the initial state without custom data. The custom data is not shared between modules, therefore you can have different ones for each of them.

grafik
grafik527Ă—639 90.9 KB

Keep in mind that this custom data right now is not saved in your presets!

I also adapted the MI source code to allow both Tides modules, similar to what Andrew did for the original Audible Instruments build.

Greetings, Tobias

7 Likes
3

Final update for today. I adapted the Plaits Editor to now also export to bin files directly. It worked fine for the Sysex data, haven’t tested the wave terrain yet. :slight_smile:

You need to download the files from here: GitHub - tobiza/Plaits-Editor Because it is based on Javascript you can just copy the content of this directory somewhere on your machine and open the html files directly. If you download via the “Download .bin” buttons you get the data which is needed for my Plaits 1.2 prototype.

For everybody using Windows and not being able to build here is a version available for you to test:

5 Likes
4

sorry, but where do I find the “Download.bin” buttons?

5

You need to download this repository: GitHub - tobiza/Plaits-Editor and then open one of the *.html files. Afterwards you should see the Plaits Editors in your browser:

grafik
grafik1055Ă—457 13.7 KB

Clicking on the “Try me” link in the repo doesn’t help because it still links to the original Plaits Editor page.

If you load a Sysex file into it it should look like this with the “Download .bin” button at the bottom:

grafik
grafik1081Ă—551 19.5 KB

For the “Patch bank editor” the download buttons are only visible after you imported a Sysex file. For the other two editors they are visible all the time.

5 Likes
6

thx
:+1:

7

Thanks a lot ! I’ve built and tested it on my Mac M1 Mini (Rosetta mode only so far), it works beautifully. The new stuff is very exciting, I’ll test the sys-ex stuff later this evening. Nice work, Tobi, and what a sweet gift from Emilie.

[Edit]: The sys-ex transfer appears to be working well for the FM engine, thanks for the enhanced editor, that’s another handy tool.

3 Likes
8

Nice layout of the new and old modes, very helpful.

5 Likes
9

Excited to try this! Is there a Mac build?

10

Here you go auxmux, I made one for myself, checking it out now:

6 Likes
11

This is great, even without using the editor right now, it’s awesome to finally have a rack version of Plaits that behaves like my hardware version. I’ll often use the hardware one for inspiration, and then duplicate the setup in VCV and I always find it fascinating and a little inspiring how similar they are, and I start to tweak little differences between them and I really enjoy it.

But there were enough changes in the new firmware that I couldn’t do that any more. And being able to play with the FM stuff in rack where I can save a setup is going to be awesome!

Thanks @Tobi !

3 Likes
12

Thanks @demcanulty!

13

Thank you very much for the feedback, very appreciated! :slight_smile: I am especially interested in potential differences in the workflow between the hardware version and this one, and if anything could be improved while having it still close to the original. And of course if you encounter any bugs or sound differences. I don’t own a real modular rack therefore I only have videos for comparison.

Does anybody know how we could bring this into the official Audible Instruments version?

14

Is there a way to set the frequency knob to octave mode, which is also part of the 1.2 firmware?

Otherwise thus far all seems to work fine. Great job, and thanks!

15

Good point, I read that also in the firmware update and checked the original behavior: Hold the second button **(A)** and turn the **HARMONICS** knob to adjust the range of the **FREQUENCY** knob. The first 8 settings correspond to **C0 +/- 7** semitones, **C1 +/- 7** semitones, and so on. The last setting, with all LEDs lit, corresponds to the **full 8-octave range** from C0 to C8.

I don’t think the current Plaits version in VCV does support this, or am I wrong? But I will check how it is implemented and if we could also have a context menu entry for it.

16

You’d have to add it to the right click menu (as is the LPG edit mode which also requires holding button 1 and turning the Timbre knob if I remember correctly)

17

I had a first look into the code, below you can see the configuration for each knob (the first &xyz value is the main one, the second one is about the “hidden parameter”). The LPG parameters are part of “patch”, therefore easy to adapt from the VCV module code, the fine_tune_ and octave_ parameter are used directly in the UI code of the Plaits hardware, which is not used in the module code.

// Bind pots to parameters.
  pots_[POTS_ADC_CHANNEL_FREQUENCY_POT].Init(&transposition_, &fine_tune_, 0.005f, 2.0f, 1.0f);
  pots_[POTS_ADC_CHANNEL_HARMONICS_POT].Init(&patch->harmonics, &octave_, 0.005f, 1.0f, 0.0f);
  pots_[POTS_ADC_CHANNEL_TIMBRE_POT].Init(&patch->timbre, &patch->lpg_colour, 0.01f, 1.0f, 0.0f);
  pots_[POTS_ADC_CHANNEL_MORPH_POT].Init(&patch->morph, &patch->decay, 0.01f, 1.0f, 0.0f);

Not so easy to solve, but let’s see. :slight_smile:

I am just not sure if it is worth the effort, couldn’t you just simply put a quantizer in front?

1 Like
18

if it’s troublesome then ignore me :wink: All good as is, was just wondering if it could be implemented without too much hassle.

19

If you have anything specific on the audio front that you want to A/B with the hardware, I (and several others here) can help; sonically though, I am not expecting to see any differences.

Workflow is apples and oranges though, because the button presses are harder to deal with. You might want to compare the way Softube implemented Braids with how it is implemented here (see the manual). They went with sticky setup buttons (they have no right click menu) that allow the alternative parameter changes (I have no idea whether that is an option here). I don’ think it is an easy one to solve, and is possibly why it is passed over in the stock Audible modules(?).

Thanks very much for your work. I’m overjoyed with what you have achieved thus far.

20

A/B comparison is too much for me, as long as nobody complains that it sounds noticably different to the hardware I guess it’s fine (for now). I am not a DSP expert, and I want to focus on storing the custom user data in the presets first anyway. Thank you for your nice feedback by the way. :slight_smile:

Regarding the frequency mode, I learned now that firmware 1.1 already provided a new mode:

The frequency range/octave setting has a new setting (represented by a "chasing lights" pattern) for LFO operation. In LFO mode, the FREQUENCY knob goes from about 0.015 Hz (1 minute) to about 16 Hz.

Perhaps I can incorporate this mode as well.

I would have one more question to somebody owning the hardware:

In this mode, the right button and **FREQUENCY** knob combo adjusts the root note

Is this root note simply quantized notes in one octave or is it more complex?

1 Like