Mapping Note Value Controls (Beatmap + Combinator)

[Dionysus]

I am programming a Combinator with knobs assigned to Beatmap Player functions.

Is it possible to skip/bypass/remove the triplet values within the note rate options ?

Ideally for my requirements, the Combinator knob would select only 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64 and ignore 1/8T & 1/16T

And if that's possible, can the custom programming be pushed even further, to include a switch that toggles the Combinator knob bewteen regular values only and triplet values only ?

BEATMAP Triplets.png (148.17 KiB) Viewed 8621 times

[Bes]

https://www.reasonstudios.com/shop/rack ... assistant/

tinker is a free rack cv utility. put one in the combinator and enter this

select(K, 1/14, 3/14,7/14,11/14,13/14)

then CV from Tinker to the Combinator and in the matrix route it to automate the RATE of the player

the knob on Tinker is the selection control now but you can change that

[huggermugger]

Yes, I can isolate any subset of the list of rate options using two free RE utilities.
Aftermath's CV8x4 CV Generator to set the necessary CV values for the desired rates,

https://www.reasonstudios.com/shop/rack ... generator/

and Robotic Bean's Select CV Switch to select one of the desired rates (this would be controlled by a dial on the Combinator. (As a bonus, you can use MIDI notes to select one of the channels and therefore one of the rates).

https://www.reasonstudios.com/shop/rack ... cv-switch/

I can send you the Combinator patch if you like, or you might want to give it a go yourself.

[Dionysus]

Thanks Bes - that device is something I would rather avoid for now. Good to know though, and I might play around with it at a later date.

[Dionysus]

Brilliant. This method allows me to do precisely what I would like to do. Although I spent ages trying to work out why some of the switch channels weren't working, until I realized I had mixed up a couple of gate & CV ports. My eyesight is not the best at times !

So the next question is.. how might I do this with stock Reason components ? Once I grasped the concept of your build, I started trying to reverse engineer the configuration.

No screenshots for now, as I'm on the road, but my progress has been:

Using Europa's four envelopes, with the patterns set to 100% straight lines. (I'm OK to omit the 1/64 rate).

Assigning each one in the Europa programming matrix to send the signals to CV1-CV4, and tuning each one for the correct CV value

Mapping a Combinator knob to select between each envelope

And that's where I got stuck. Was thinking of merging those signals into CV spider, then back out through the single CV output (as we did with the Select Switch), but how can I switch each of those lines on/off. This would probably be before they enter the Spider.

Of course this is not necessary, as your solution works, its easy, and it's free. But I'm always up for diving deeper into Reason's modular approach and discovering new features and functions.

[deeplink]

Brilliant. This method allows me to do precisely what I would like to do. Although I spent ages trying to work out why some of the switch channels weren't working, until I realized I had mixed up a couple of gate & CV ports. My eyesight is not the best at times !

So the next question is.. how might I do this with stock Reason components ? Once I grasped the concept of your build, I started trying to reverse engineer the configuration.

No screenshots for now, as I'm on the road, but my progress has been:

Using Europa's four envelopes, with the patterns set to 100% straight lines. (I'm OK to omit the 1/64 rate).

Assigning each one in the Europa programming matrix to send the signals to CV1-CV4, and tuning each one for the correct CV value

Mapping a Combinator knob to select between each envelope

And that's where I got stuck. Was thinking of merging those signals into CV spider, then back out through the single CV output (as we did with the Select Switch), but how can I switch each of those lines on/off. This would probably be before they enter the Spider.

Of course this is not necessary, as your solution works, its easy, and it's free. But I'm always up for diving deeper into Reason's modular approach and discovering new features and functions.

For these types of things I would actually prefer using Thor.

Using multiple Thor's Rotary Knob and send it out 100% to Thor's CV output.
However, each one scaled 100% by Thor's Button.
All CV's are merged with a spider and then sent to Combi CV input (assigned to RATE)
The Combinator RATE knob will essentially turn each Thor button On at a specific location.

A bit of trial and error / fine tuning will be required to ensure each Rotary adds the right amount of CV to get the Rate Parameters at each of the desired values.

[huggermugger]

I followed your idea to use four Europa's. Merging the envelope CV outputs seemed to be problematic, but taking the CV outs directly into four Combinator CV ins and mapping each of them to a different rate select on Beatmap works. And to prevent all four Encore envelopes from triggering every time, I isolated their respective key ranges to four consecutive MIDI notes. This setup lets me use MIDI notes to choose a specific rate. However, the rate selection is sluggish, doesn't always switch rates immediately, or just fails to switch. Not sure why.

[Dionysus]

I followed your idea to use four Europa's.

Apologies for the miscommunication. I was actually experimenting with ONE Europa, sending each of the four envelopes to a CV OUT. That idea has since been abandoned in favor of the 'Two Thor Solution' as described by deeplink. As a novice to all this CV business, my last seven hours have been spent deciphering the suggestion and putting it into action. Finally, I'm getting close to working it out.

[huggermugger]

Oh, yeah, of course, I really just meant using Europa in general. I found it better to use four of them. Anyways, welcome to the rabbit hole of CV control

[huggermugger]

As a novice to all this CV business, my last seven hours have been spent deciphering the suggestion and putting it into action. Finally, I'm getting close to working it out.

In the world of modular synthesis, what Thor is giving you is sometimes called a Constant. That's what the CV 8x4 Generator is giving you too. The Europa solution requires you to trigger the envelopes in order to generate the Constant CV. Thor and the 8x4 are generating it constantly (no pun intended ).

[Dionysus]

In the world of modular synthesis, what Thor is giving you is sometimes called a Constant. That's what the CV 8x4 Generator is giving you too. The Europa solution requires you to trigger the envelopes in order to generate the Constant CV. Thor and the 8x4 are generating it constantly (no pun intended ).

Using CVA-7/PONGASOFT CV Analyzer for testing values, I have come across pulsing signals coming out of various sources, but this is not how I'm interpreting the Europa Envelope outputs. Referring to these two examples with a CV of 25 and 70, you will see a steady signal. there's no notes or automation in the sequencer, and the transport is in a STOP state. Isn't this therefore a constant CV ?

Europa Envelope Output.jpg (615.52 KiB) Viewed 8390 times

[huggermugger]

Curious. That's not the behaviour I"d expect. The envelope should be outputting a 'voltage' of 0 unless it's triggered,. That said, yes, it's a fixed 'voltage' output so I"d call it a Constant.

[Dionysus]

You are astounding !

It took me an hour to even begin to comprehend what you described. Also news for me was that THOR provides a CV output. Then another six hours working out how to make it happen, based on your words.

and finally, SUCCESS !

Well, sort of.

Taking advantage of the free utility CVA-7/PONGASOFT to measure voltage outputs - before merging those lines - the onboard THOR knobs can be precisely dialled to the values required to trigger specific rates. I had previously determined these values, in a middle-position for each bank as highlighted:

RTF_CV Table_BEATMAP_RATE.png (19.17 KiB) Viewed 8376 times

RTF_CV_OUTPUTS FROM THOR.jpg (441.57 KiB) Viewed 8376 times

Here's where the values begin to fall apart, for precision programming. When the 4x merged CV lines enter the Combinator CV1 input, they accumulate in value as each THOR switched knob is activated. The numbers look like this:

005
005 + 021 = 026
026 + 064 = 090
090 + 106 = 196

Can you see the problem here ? The actual CV exceeds the upper-limit of the 0-127 range. Here are four stacked screenshots of the pre-Combinator merged signal, as each THOR button is engaged.

RTF_CV_SUMMED.jpg (310.42 KiB) Viewed 8376 times

The assignment of a Combinator knob, to proceed switching the THOR buttons, and in turn activating the CV values, is

THOR_1 - Button 1 - Source Range 0% - 24%
THOR_1 - Button 2 - Source Range 25% - 49%
THOR_2 - Button 1 - Source Range 50% - 74%
THOR_2 - Button 1 - Source Range 75% - 100%

Inexplicably, this does not align each important knob position as equal distances apart. No idea how to calculate the correct numbers to configure this in a logical way. The 25%/25%/25%/25% source range config might be failing because of the total sum of the merged signal is outside of the CV range of 0-127, therefore skewing all the numbers.

[Dionysus]

How about I share the test project file ?

This includes the free CVA-7 Analyzer for reference, so it might break the routing if others don't have the utility installed

CV Project.zip

(162.14 KiB) Downloaded 23 times

I'm just about ready to rebuild this into the proper project, thanks to everyone's suggestions.

The only other thing that would be great is to somehow modify the behavior of when the THOR switching occurs. I noticed in the SELECT CV SWITCH/ROBOTIC BEAN utility, that there's the option to switch either instantly or at the start of a new bar. Same way Octorex works when switching slots.

And to use a Combinator button to switch the knob behavior between 'free' and 'fixed to a new bar', if that makes any sense. I wouldn't even know where to begin

[deeplink]

Glad I could help, and thank you for detailing exactly how you got you there - it may help someone else in thr future.

Sorry you had to decipher what I said, but it sounds like you had fun doing it! and learned a lot in the process..

[Bes]

heck yeah to control voltage discourse in public

[selig]

I accept the "Yes, but can you do that with ONE Thor?" challenge!

The trick here is not original, and in fact took me a bit to remember how it was done by others.

The idea is to use the Step Sequencer to program the values for each of the non-triplet settings in BeatMap, one for each step (five steps total). Step one gives you 1/4 notes, step two 1/8th etc.

The "trick" is how to use a Combinator knob to access the individual values in the step sequencer, which involves setting the Run Mode to 1-Shot and the Direction to Reverse (there may be other ways to do this, this was the first I found that achieved the desired results). Assign a Combinator knob to control Step Count and restrict it from 1-5 in the Combi Editor. I had to hit the Run button once with the set count set to step "1" to get it to work, which is the wonky part (someone may know a short cut to avoid having to do this?). That's it, just route either Curve row to CV out and set the knobs for each step accordingly. On the Combinator, use a CV input set to UNIPOLAR for this to work.

Oh yea, you also have to set the Combinator to control Rate in BeatMap. But don't worry about all that, I've already gone and done the work, little as it was, for you.

This takes but one line in the mod Matrix and of course could be expanded to include up to 16 discrete values using this approach (plus you can also program the other lanes in the Step Sequencer to do other things in parallel with the main function, multiplying your control!). Enjoy!

SeligBeatMapRateControl.cmb.zip

(3.16 KiB) Downloaded 22 times

[Dionysus]

I accept the "Yes, but can you do that with ONE Thor?" challenge!

Such a simple and uncluttered solution. Thanks.

I actually messed around with the THOR step sequencer a few days back, but couldn't get anything out of the sequencer output jacks. Not sure I selected 'curve' either. Your example shows me some new features to explore for future projects.

Any suggestions on how the rate change can sync to the beginning of a new bar ? Presently, both THOR solutions in this thread operate as an immediate response to the user control changes, such as the combinator knob. This behavior can be found in the SELECT CV SWITCH rack extender mentioned earlier.