PS-PurrSoftware Plugin Modules

Ah, cunning! But doesn’t that still leave the volume of the Attack phase the same for all notes, regardless of their assigned volume?

I haven’t looked at the VCV ADSR source code, but I suspect the SUS CV controls the sustained amplitude level but the ATT, DEC and REL CV inputs (and knobs) set time constants. If correct, the ATT CV or knob setting just determines how long it takes to rise from 0 to the sustain level. At least it all seems to work properly when viewed on Scope.

I’m going to go back to standard gate for now, out of concern (mine and others) that sending CV over gate is a non-standard method and could cause compatibility issues. I may consider adding a button to turn this on with a warning, so that others could play with it if desired.

For now, I can do volume control by setting the SUS knob down to 0 and feeding my true “Volume” outs to the SUS CV in on the ADSR. I am going to experiment with doing bass accents in the same way, or the modulated bass volume could be sent to a second VCA as I was doing in the past.

Thanks everyone for your input on this question.

don’t dismiss the awesomeness of adding it as a right-click menu option to change the behavior of the module. you could end up with quite a few amazing customizations that way, with all sorts of amazing behavior.

3 Likes

That’s a good idea! Thanks for the encouragement.

Meander is nearing completion. Here is a screen grab of the new module panel. All of the GUI is done procedurally via nanovg now with basically only the logo text in the SVG panel file. As you can see from the CPU loading and timing indicator, moving to nvg did not significantly change the performance. Still at 1.1% on my system.

I’m currently working on the task of adding external CV control to several parameters. I have a question though as to any best practices or lessons learned that any of you may have regarding the CV input values. Some of my parameters are discrete and some continuous. Do you as a user prefer to send very specific CVs to set a value, or do you prefer to send a continuous 0-1V or 0-10V CV that gets converted by Meander to the allowable range and values of the parameter. For example, for small integers 0-100, the integers can be sent as 0.1V per unit. Controlling these via an external knob is not easy since the voltage increments are small. The other example is to send a 0-1V signal and Meander would sort out that and scale the parameter value withing the ConfigParam() range. I’m sure you understand what I am asking here, if you have played any with external CV control of parameters.

A related question is: How do you envision generating the CV for controlling the Meander parameters?

  • Via a Rack knob or control?.
  • Via a Rack sequencer, etc.?
  • Via MIDI to CV from the outside world?
  • Other?

A caveat is that if a connection is made to one of these input CV ports, it is fairly difficult to maintain Meander control of this parameter without setting up one or more persistent state variables per port.

I can think up so many possibilities of what to do via CV parameter control that my head spins. I don’t want the users’ head to spin unless they want it to. As such, CV parameter control is unnecessary for using Meander until the user wants to experiment with more complex possibilities.

I should add that I have not committed these changes to GitHub yet.

1 Like

Sounds like an opportunity for a side panel / expander

1 Like

That’s an interesting idea. Do I understand this as not putting any CV in parameter ports on the Meander panel but rather put all such inputs in the left expander module/panel? How would the user know which expander ports go with which Meander parameter controls?

Use labels?

Just thinking loud, you could make it as just a patch panel with inputs and text labels. Maybe for the clock section you can already add them to the main part. There seems to be room. Maybe it makes sense to have three or four smaller extentions with patch panels specific to a section, melody bass etc with just a smaller choice of options.

There is room on the Meander panel for all CV in ports. The question is whether those will confuse users or if they can just ignore them if they do not want to use them. I’m still thinking out loud here.

Standard-compliant modules are allowed to respond to triggers as low as 1V and as high as 2V. Most modules in the wild will respond to 2V. This means for a gate height V,

  • 0 \le V < 1: won’t trigger any standard-compliant modules
  • 1 \le V < 2: might trigger certain modules
  • 2 \le V: will trigger all modules
1 Like

Thanks @Vortico . I assume you are replying regarding my questions from a couple of weeks ago. I have abandoned my consideration of using the gate signal as a 2nd CV degree of freedom.

I may resurrect the idea of sending CV (e.g., volume) over gate in the 2≤V: range. I still have my code but commented out.

Thanks

Meander v1.0.1 has been submitted to the library team for review. This will mark the end of the Meander development thread. Here a screen grab of Meander showing external CV control input jacks for each of the 54 parameters. I think you will have fun with this. No CV parameter control is required to fully utilize Meander and is thus all optional.

14 Likes

I built the new version and have been having a boat-load of fun. The only thing I can’t figure out is the input for Presets. When I apply voltage, the whole module resets and reverts to preset #1. Other than that, it’s all intuitive, and I just noticed I’ve been up all night playing with it, so I’ll say thanks for releasing this and head off to bed now.

1 Like

Great stuff. Congrats! I eagerly await the final build in the library.

1 Like

A word of explanation for CV parameter is in order. Each of the inputs accept a CV of 0-10V and creates an internal control ratio of 0-1.0 . This ratio is multiplied by the range of allowable parameter values. You should be able to vary the Preset voltage from 0-10V and see the presets change over the 51 presets. It sounds as if you are applying a fixed low CV, close to 0V. I get the 2nd preset at about 0.27 volts. Changing the preset CV will result in a reset signal being output, so that all of the sequence timing and progression position restarts to the beginning. Is that what you meant by the module resetting?

Oh, also, the CV needs to be held at the desired level rather than being a pulse. I bet that is what is happening.

The arpeggiator pattern is the only parameter that accepts a ± 10V CV.

I’m working on the manual. I am glad it built for you.

Well, this turned out to be a good catch. I have now changed my CV input logic to allow input values of .01V-10V to trigger action. If a voltage source is turned off or otherwise drop to 0V, Meander will not interpret this as a CV value and the parameter will not be set to “0”. Changes are in the GitHub repository if you want to rebuild. It will probably make it into the library build, but we will see.

It works beautifully now. Thank you so much. I tested it with a sample & hold, and it works exactly as I would expect. A lot of territory to explore now.

1 Like

I’m glad you caught the issue so I could correct it before the release build. Thank you very much. This is all fun for me also. Even though I wrote Meander, it still fascinates me what it comes out with. The number of parameter state space permutations is truly astronomical. I’m excited to see what everyone comes up with Meander.