I decided to move the in-progress comments about Mutants and Monsters to this topic: they’re not quite releases; maybe they are just rants, or something cool I found
I’ve been sick these past few days and had a sleepless night… so… you know what that means! A new module!
Reticula is proud to join the Sanguine Mutants!
Reticula is based on the Grids hardware module; builds upon Valley’s Topograph, and adds some features not found anywhere else, not even in hardware.
Some of the cool features:
Grids’ clock output effectively kills Accents… not anymore! The clock output is always available on its dedicated port, Accent ports do what you expect them to.
Grids outputs a clock that needs to be divided to get the BPM set by its Clock knob… Reticula is quite flexible: the kind of clock it outputs can be selected: First beat, Beat (the BPM one) or Pattern (the multiplied one the module is using to produce its beats).
Tap tempo! Tap to your hearts content… Grids uses quite a simple detection method, and so does Reticula. To return to the internal clock, just move the knob and set your desired clock speed. Oh… tapping the tempo allows for lower and higher tempos than the knob does .
The Reset port is always available and active; though some users won’t like to use it as, effectively, an end of sequence output, so it can be set to just output Resets received in the dedicated port or via the button.
No need to set the knob to use an external clock: just connect it and off you go: the port is not used for anything else, so no need to tell the module you want the external clock.
If you want to play around with it now… it is, along with the latest fixes and additions, already making the rounds in the nightlies!
Funes got some more love and now includes the additional chord banks from Lyle Mills’ alternative firmware.
The new chords can be used in the Chords, Chiptune and String machine synthesizer models.
The last new chord bank, by design, may not work exactly as you expect, briefly: “[I]nstead of Frequency defining the root and Harmonics defining chord type, Frequency defines the key and Harmonics defines the scale position the chord is built from[.]”
The active chord bank can be selected via the new C.B button or the context menu.
The Aux output is now more versatile! The signal from the main Out port can be crossfaded with its signal or the new, optional, Aux suboscillator. The crossfader can be voltage controlled.
The Aux output can be converted to an Aux suboscillator using the convenient A.S button; in addition to the standard “Off” behavior, the suboscillator can be configured as a square wave or as a sine wave 0, 1 or 2 octaves below the current note.
When the Trigger input is patched, modulation values can optionally be sampled and held (just press the H.M button to toggle the option).
This was requested, so work on it has begun!
The Nebulae family will be polyphonic!
At the moment, only Etesia is done (why Etesia? It has extra controls and I needed to reorganize the faceplate…); but Nebulae and Fluctus will follow soon
Every jack is golden, so every parameter acknowledges polyphonic CV.
The L or R inputs set module polyphony, whichever has the highest channel count.
Separate modes for each channel can be selected using the new, black “Mode” input. The texture synthesizer modules are not really amenable to modulating modes while switching among them, so Modes are selected using simple, direct voltages from 0V to 5V (voltages above or below those values are ignored, fractions are rounded):
0V: Granular.
1V: Stretch.
2V: Looping Dly.
3V: Spectral.
4V: Oliverb.
5V: Resonestor.
Light behavior emulation of the hardware module when switching buffer qualities (Hi Fi and Stereo parameters); when setting parameter knob values (Blend, Spread, etc.), and when selecting modes has been removed: not conducive or entirely useful when dealing with the polyphonic version.
The module displays complete information about a single channel at a time (the VU meter, the slider lights, the display…). The channel to display can be set using the context menu.
A tiny row of lights below the display shows the number of active channels and their selected modes using different colors. A full table of those colors will be available in the manual.
The faceplate has been reorganized a bit, the other modules in the Nebulae family will be similar to the Etesia one.
There have been some other additions, fixes and changes to some of the other modules, you can read most of them in the changelog (Nebulae family polyphony is not mentioned yet).
Here’s a bit of an Aurora Borealis / woodland mystical patch using some of the new features.
Requires the following plugins or modules: Sanguine Mutants Nightly, Sanguine Monsters Library or Nightly, Venom’s Multi Merge and Multi Split, and Fundamental (that one you should already have :P).
Specifics will be detailed in the manual; but mode selection with polyphonic cables works as detailed in the Etesia entry above; voltage values are as follows:
Incredible news, thanks! I’m one of the people who requested polyphony for these modules, and I know this will have some amazing possibilities for huge, ridiculously over the top granular effects.
I don’t usually spend stupid money on hardware but I’ve just bought a Meris Enzo X guitar synth pedal, and it sounds epic into 16 channels of Clouds using Nimbus. I’m currently going through all my previous effects patches, but Etesia will be even more epic!
I’m not a guitar player (nor a player of any real-world musical instrument for that matter), so I had to look this up. This section of video I found most concisely gave me the idea. Very cool concept.
I’m guessing the synth pedal has a pitch detector and envelope follower inside it. Then it can convert those to MIDI notes and envelopes that come into VCV Rack?
Not quite - it just outputs audio, so it does pitch detection internally and produces synth waveforms at the same notes you play into it on the guitar. It does take MIDI in and allow you to use sounds like a regular synth module, but it’s not doing guitar to MIDI conversion.
I’m using VCV just to process the audio, so I’ve been loading up old guitar effects patches and basically playing synth sounds into it instead.
Yep, not many decent reviews online. I’m still on the fence to be honest, I’ve updated the firmware and tried different levels, a compressor pedal in front of it etc. I would be very dubious about using it live though, because it still triggers completely duff notes sometimes. There are dead spots on the fretboard too where sometimes notes don’t sound at all, and the poly patches seem to drone the same notes and not update when you play a new note.
The dilemma is the sounds are fantastic, but the tracking is awful!
Yeah exactly, I have a Boss SY-1 which is five years old and about a fifth of the price. I don’t like the sounds, but the tracking is loads better. Doesn’t seem like progress!
Might do a quick video on it, if that helps?
Also I’ve hijacked your development thread, sorry about that! This discussion probably belongs in the lounge section
A video would help create awareness; but it seems a number of companies (not saying Meris is among them, AFAIK) are using YouTube’s utterly broken strike system to take down videos with unfavorable reviews of their products (an eye of the beholder thing: how would “It sounds great but tracks like shi… itake mushrooms after they’ve spoiled” be taken), so it might not be good for your channel if they jump on that wagon (a few synth companies are doing it)
I don’t think it’s hijacking… the products mentioned can work with my modules, so it’s better for interested users to know which will do a better job than others. Also, I don’t post here that often: it’s not a development blog or anything like that , it’s more of a “I think this new feature is cool, you may think so too” or “Hey! This is new, it will probably end up in the library at some point, don’t know when I’ll submit it; but it if you want, you can play with it now… and if you find something wrong, you can tell me” also, I’ll post new surveys here when they are needed
