Longer seqs

[PLaine]

I am doing jazzy stuff and often song structures / chord patterns are relatively long. So 128 steps max. is limited. Is it possible to push this maximum to 2x 4x etc.?

(Yes it’s possible to make playlist but to me it’s complicating things…)

[PLaine]

A bit quiet here on the forum…?

I came up with an old idea which might solve this (longer seqs) and be very useful anyway: SMF (Standard Midi File) player module. No editing needed, just play and repeat if needed. I’ve said earlier that sometimes I’d like to have for example a MIDI piano track (with all its nuances) alogside with Numerology seqs. In fact I’ve been searching for a 3rd party plugin to do that but it’s hard to find. Reason is obvious. Why would you need a plugin when 99,9% DAWs play midi tracks (and clips)? Well not Numerology.

And of course if SMF player module wasn’t limited to clip length it would kind of solve my wish for longer seqs as well. This been said, I wouldn’t mind if mononote (etc.) could handle these 2x 4x longer seqs too. I believe that many limitations are there just because this pattern based music is composed normally with very short repetitive patterns. Personally I use that approach but also want to expand the idea to more complex and longer structures.

[nreeves]

I know it's not as nice as a native solution, but have you looked at VCV? The AU plugin works great inside Numerology, and there are a number of MIDI file player and piano roll-style sequencers in there.

[Aramis]

I am doing jazzy stuff and often song structures / chord patterns are relatively long. So 128 steps max. is limited. Is it possible to push this maximum to 2x 4x etc.?

(Yes it’s possible to make playlist but to me it’s complicating things…)

I wish I could have more steps too ;-)

[PLaine]

I know it's not as nice as a native solution, but have you looked at VCV? The AU plugin works great inside Numerology, and there are a number of MIDI file player and piano roll-style sequencers in there.

Thanks for reply. Have a special VCV plugin in mind, perhaps one that has been tested with Numerology?

[PLaine]

https://dev.laurentcolson.com/steppolyarp.html

Ok, thx. But how does this solve longer seqs / SMF player module?

[Aramis]

Ok, thx. But how does this solve longer seqs / SMF player module?

My mistake ;-(

[nreeves]

Thanks for reply. Have a special VCV plugin in mind, perhaps one that has been tested with Numerology?

Check the free version of Entrian modules, here:
http://entrian.com/audio/entrian-free.html
I've tested it here with some MIDI files.

The only workflow thing is that there is no access to MIDI out on AU synths in Numerology, so if you want MIDI back, I think you need to use an IAC bus as a go-between (or another plugin like BlueCat Connector), and tap into that with a MIDI-In module in Numerology.

The other option is to also generate the audio in VCV, and use the AU's audio outs (there are native modules called Host, Host-XL, and Host-FX in VCV that you can load plugins into).

A very basic patch using IAC would look something like the attached (just keep in mind you can instance as many of these as you want, and have them pipe back to any number of destinations.)

num-vcv.png

[PLaine]

Thanks! Because I am 99% hardware synth guy this VCV rack is not familiar to me. Suppose you want to test this Entrian free player do you need to buy/install some platform plugin first or does it (Entrian) work by itself? I can see there’s Rack 2 free and Rack 2 Pro ($149) available.

To jim: what is the possibility to get longer seqs in future? Is this 128 steps somehow real limit or easily possible to rise to 2x 4x etc.

[nreeves]

Thanks! Because I am 99% hardware synth guy this VCV rack is not familiar to me. Suppose you want to test this Entrian free player do you need to buy/install some platform plugin first or does it (Entrian) work by itself? I can see there’s Rack 2 free and Rack 2 Pro ($149) available.

Was just about to comment on this, you can absolutely do this using only free versions of VCV and Entrian.

1. make a free account on vcvrack.com
2. once your logged-in, add the Entrian Free version to your library on the site
3. download and install VCV
4. launch VCV, and update its library (to download what you added on vcvrack.com)

I did a quick proof-of-concept, you can see the configuration below...

Main difference vs. the last one is that we use VCV standalone, so we have to send it sync manually - which is as simple as piping it over an IAC bus.

One thing to note is that you may need to adjust the playback rate of the Entrian module, if it's playing back too fast for example.
If so, you can place a clock divider between it and the MIDI>CV module.
SynthKit ones are free and pretty straight-forward UI, but there are many options.

Doing my best to keep this focused on your use-case, but it's worth noting there is a lot of creative potential here.

1-clock.png 2-stack.png

[jim]

To jim: what is the possibility to get longer seqs in future? Is this 128 steps somehow real limit or easily possible to rise to 2x 4x etc.

Some operations require the sequencer algorithm to scan through the entire sequence, which can become a problem with really short render buffers,
so yes, the 128 step limit is important -- it puts an upper bound on the cost of those operations. FWIW: One of those operations is Skip -- since the skip
value of a step can change at any time (via modulation or Launchpad control), the sequencer may need to scan the entire sequence to find the next
un-skipped step.

Jim

[PLaine]

Thanks jim for reply!

Because of what you said how about making ”XL mononote or XL polynote” with dropping out those consuming operations? At least to me this would be really helpful. And if these are new modules nothing is lost - you can have everything like before with normal mononotes etc.

And as said earlier… SMF player might be another solution. I want to keep everything as simple as possible. nreeves ’s solution with IAC midi bus is of course one fix but of course everything goes a bit messy when you need multiple apps synced together. I can already play Midi stuff with Logic and sync with Numerology but that’s something I don’t basically like.

[Aramis]

Some operations require the sequencer algorithm to scan through the entire sequence, which can become a problem with really short render buffers,
so yes, the 128 step limit is important -- it puts an upper bound on the cost of those operations. FWIW: One of those operations is Skip -- since the skip
value of a step can change at any time (via modulation or Launchpad control), the sequencer may need to scan the entire sequence to find the next
un-skipped step.

Jim

Unfortunately, that make sense ;-)

[Aramis]

Thanks jim for reply!

Because of what you said how about making ”XL mononote or XL polynote” with dropping out those consuming operations? At least to me this would be really helpful. And if these are new modules nothing is lost - you can have everything like before with normal mononotes etc.

And as said earlier… SMF player might be another solution. I want to keep everything as simple as possible. nreeves ’s solution with IAC midi bus is of course one fix but of course everything goes a bit messy when you need multiple apps synced together. I can already play Midi stuff with Logic and sync with Numerology but that’s something I don’t basically like.

I also understand you . I often dream of using only Numerology too. ;-)