Omsonic/dBs Stochastic Inspiration Generator

[tiny333]

Ok love it ! Thank you Phin it’s so much more playful than I had expected and all the functions are very easy to get to

There are 12 notes not 11 .. I’m a bit confused about the time signatures but seem to getting away winging it

You have implemented it wonderfully

It’s a shame play and pause are both a solid green light

Anyway 2 hours in and happy as Larry



Thank you

[akavalve]

Another great patch! :-) (Left a comment too on your YT)

By the way, this leads me to a question: I've always put my SIG Expander to the right of the main module... I assumed that would be ubiquitous, but the more YouTubes I see the more I think I'm in the minority!

Votes for Expander lefties vs Expander righties?

That's funny...I never even considered putting it on the right.
Thinking about it now it seems like cables in the jacks might crap access to the upper right knobs on the main panel.
Intuitively it does seem like it belongs left to me though, regardless of practicalities.

[phinland]

Ok love it ! Thank you Phin it’s so much more playful than I had expected and all the functions are very easy to get to

Oh great! Really pleased to hear that! :-)

There are 12 notes not 11 ..

Bugger. You'd think after a quarter century of lecturing music I'd have spotted that typo...but apparently not. Corrected.

I’m a bit confused about the time signatures but seem to getting away winging it

Ah, yes, probably the most complex thing to get to grips with in SIG but I promise it's much simpler than it sounds. The basic idea is really really simple: 'force barline' just means force randomise. That's it: because a new event, if it's regular every, say, 16 x 1/16 puts the thing in 4/4. It just means you can guarantee it will force a new event after that many 1/16 clocks––and we'll hear that longer-term regularity as a down beat and thus an implied time signature.

It's that simple. In terms of dialling it in, you just count the upper number from the note LEDs that light, and the bottom number from the corresponding duration that lights. See p. 19 to get the sense of this (and p 10 for the detailed explanation)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ohj ... PvAIQsckwg

You have implemented it wonderfully

Haha, brilliant, thanks!

It’s a shame play and pause are both a solid green light

Ah, yes, we agonised for ages over this. The issue is that the buttons have to represent 5 actual states with only 3 LED states:

Empty (off)
Selected (solid)
Unselected (flashing)

Running and playing (???)
Running but muted (???)

The only solution would be much more expensive multi-colour LED buttons which are all but unobtainium and would have caused other problems too (probably adding a couple of hp). However, fear not! If you look at p12 there is a ProTip! –– Just look at each track's TrEG^ indicators! If the Track button is lit (solid or flashing) then it has notes on it: if the corresponding TrEG^ is firing too then the track is unmuted––if it's not, then it's muted!

[phinland]

That's funny...I never even considered putting it on the right.
Thinking about it now it seems like cables in the jacks might crap access to the upper right knobs on the main panel.
Intuitively it does seem like it belongs left to me though, regardless of practicalities.

Haha! See, I'm intuitively to-the-right...but then I'm left-handed! It's probably that.

[tiny333]

Ah yes look at the triggers ok good tip

[phinland]

Ah yes look at the triggers ok good tip

You got it.

[Naenyn]

By the way, this leads me to a question: I've always put my SIG Expander to the right of the main module... I assumed that would be ubiquitous, but the more YouTubes I see the more I think I'm in the minority!

Votes for Expander lefties vs Expander righties?

I’m still planning on putting mine on the left. However, I think if my SIG was going in on the right side of my case, I’d probably end up with the expander to the right of the main module.

[Dragonaut]

A plug-in version of this would be an insta-buy for me right now. Definitely watching with interest.

[Umcorps]

A plug-in version of this would be an insta-buy for me right now. Definitely watching with interest.

(Coughs gently). https://intermorphic.com/wotja/21/

[phinland]

A plug-in version of this would be an insta-buy for me right now. Definitely watching with interest.

(Coughs gently). https://intermorphic.com/wotja/21/

:-)

[phinland]

A plug-in version of this would be an insta-buy for me right now. Definitely watching with interest.

Well there's the old MIDI Python prototype I wrote back in 2013/14 but you need a Doepfer Drehbank to use it because most important (for me at least) is the performative aspect so central to SIG's (hardware) conception :-)

[Dragonaut]

A plug-in version of this would be an insta-buy for me right now. Definitely watching with interest.

Well there's the old MIDI Python prototype I wrote back in 2013/14 but you need a Doepfer Drehbank to use it because most important (for me at least) is the performative aspect so central to SIG's (hardware) conception :-)

I send control signals from my laptop to my rack using Expert Sleepers hardware so I’m looking for software solutions before I jump to hardware. I definitely see your point about performability but I’m so used to sequencing from a piano role that it’s more of an added bonus than something essential to me.

The layout of this module is the first that has really piqued my interest in generative sequencing so hats of to you. The ability to modulate a lot of these parameters in software would be really exciting as well. Perhaps a VCV rack version wouldn’t be a waste of time?

[phinland]

The layout of this module is the first that has really piqued my interest in generative sequencing so hats of to you. The ability to modulate a lot of these parameters in software would be really exciting as well. Perhaps a VCV rack version wouldn’t be a waste of time?

Thanks so much! VCV is definitely something to think about, but I wouldn't want to commit to a date on that. Right now the focus is on clearing the waiting list. But I take the point, and VCV is an excellent entry point to let people dip a relatively inexpensive toe into Eurorack before the hardware addiction really sets in... :-)

[Umcorps]

Background music for a studio tidy up.

SIG and Marbles duetting with a shared clock. Two very different approaches. SIG is a lot more steerable than Marbles - clues in the names I guess. But they worked well together for the most part.



Spot the SIG crib sheet...

[auxpin]

Background music for a studio tidy up.

SIG and Marbles duetting with a shared clock. Two very different approaches. SIG is a lot more steerable than Marbles - clues in the names I guess. But they worked well together for the most part.

[bbvideo][/bbvideo]

Spot the SIG crib sheet...

I really enjoyed the interplay of the two modules and the textures in this piece. Would love to hear more.

[jss9h]

I am drooling at the prospect of finally receiving my SIG (apologies if you have a strong visual imagination - think Gollum!), and I am terrified that when Phin (bless his cotton socks) does email my notification and invoice it will go into my ‘junk’ folder! I’m checking it virtually every day - amazing what DOES end up in there, I’d never really paid attention before. This thing sounds as though it is going to give ‘wiggling’ a whole new degree of freedom. Thank you Phin....

[Umcorps]

I really enjoyed the interplay of the two modules and the textures in this piece. Would love to hear more.

Longer retake before breaking the patch down

[phinland]

I am drooling at the prospect of finally receiving my SIG (apologies if you have a strong visual imagination - think Gollum!), and I am terrified that when Phin (bless his cotton socks) does email my notification and invoice it will go into my ‘junk’ folder! I’m checking it virtually every day - amazing what DOES end up in there, I’d never really paid attention before. This thing sounds as though it is going to give ‘wiggling’ a whole new degree of freedom. Thank you Phin....

Hahaha! Cheers dude (And, yes, definitely cotton, not wool or silk)

Joking aside, you make a very good point: there have been plenty of instances where the mail-merges I send out get missed, and then I manually chase a week later and people get that one, and find the first one in spam. I don't know exactly why because they come from exactly the same email account and all of the 'anti-spam' server settings are (I'm told!) correctly configured.

However, don't worry, rest assured we will get to you all. And, even if through some tiny fluke you do miss the email, as I've said before, once we finish the waiting list, I will post here and on the social channels that we have done so––that way, if you read that, know that you were on the list but don't think you've heard from us, just contact me through the site and I will get your your SIG ahead of the crowds.

As always, thank you all for your support––the kind words we've been getting really mean the world.

[phinland]

I really enjoyed the interplay of the two modules and the textures in this piece. Would love to hear more.

Longer retake before breaking the patch down

Loving this Director's Cut version! :-) Totally agree about the textural interplay too: I think I slightly missed a trick with the really early omsonic-era teaser vid I did in that we thought 'go more techno' to appeal to a wider customer base––so it was all 1/16ths, 4/4––but then I got an email asking "does it do longer durations?" So, yes, SIG is really good at texture too, as you can hear here under Umcorps' expert hand!

[phinland]

Update

Slightly annoying news but don't worry, all is now fixed, in hand, and everything is still moving.

We learned last week that the company that manufactures the microchip on which SIG runs has unexpectedly discontinued the chip. There was no reason to suspect this would happen because the company is huge, the chip was not old, and it has/had absolutely no issues associated with it. It's apparently just something that big chip manufacturers do. It's very annoying and we were very unlucky...but there's nothing anybody can do.

We discovered this when re-ordering the latest batch of SMT-complete PCBs from China: the chip suddenly dropped from very well in stock to zero, and after several rounds of emails with the fabrication house, it was clear a re-stock was not going to happen any time soon. On top of this, the Suez Canal incident threw other components stock out of kilter so we were also waiting on some simple things like pots and jack sockets, due in the next couple of days. (Obviously the components don't come by sea, but many things that did then had to be redirected to airfreight which of course delayed normal airfreight too!)

We still have SIGs in stock, because of course we re-order everything well before we run out, but we have had to act very fast on both fronts.

Dr. Stu therefore spent his whole weekend redesigning the entire board not once, but twice! We now have two alternate but totally functionally identical versions of the board, based on two new chips whose stock is well into the thousands. This means we can now deploy three versions of the board to respond to varying chip stocks (the original RevE, plus the two new versions RevF and RevG). You will not be able to tell any differences in use, functionality or looks––but it means if the revE board chip dips out of stock, we can just pivot and order the revF or revG board and we're good. The analogy is something like printing the same text on a different piece of A4 paper.

These are already being fabricated and tested, and the list is still progressing really well. We're powering through and because we were able to tackle this issue so quickly (thanks again to Stuart giving up his weekend) it's not significantly slowed progress either so we're all good. However, it has delayed things perhaps a week or so, so once again, following the communication issues last year with omsonic and my absolute promise that that never happen with SI, I thought it best to explain the issue.

Key points
1) The issue is solved
2) The list is still moving
3) We will get to you

Finally, this would also be a good opportunity for me once again to thank Stuart publicly for the astonishing work he does. I get all the limelight because he's hunched over a soldering iron being a genius but we all need to remember, no Stuart, no SIG so

Take care,
all the best,
Phin

[auxpin]

to Stuart, what a guy

[auxpin]

I really enjoyed the interplay of the two modules and the textures in this piece. Would love to hear more.

Longer retake before breaking the patch down

Nice work on the extended version :-)

Edit.
Slight aside, I accidentally had this playing in two tabs. I would recommend

[tiny333]

Yes big up to Stewart ! What a lot of work ...

Plus does that make my revE the classic ?

[tiny333]

So am I right if setting the forced bar line it’s the 12 notes and 4 octaves are the amount of clicks before it resets on the one ?

So if I have all 12 notes lit and 4 octaves thats 16 counts ?

[tiny333]

Also can a set a root note for the bar ?