Cartesian Sequencer: Difference between revisions

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Jo El

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-The inspiration for making this device was the old "A-174-1 Joy Stick" Module by Doepfer and the famous Eurorack Interface ES-X series by Expert Sleepers. The reason for our interest in a Joystick as Control element for analog devices is simply the functional advantage its having, meaning the possibilty to tweak 2 Values with 1 Movement. The interest in dc coupled Interfaces like the Expert Sleepers series is obvious. The idea of generating and receiving control voltage in a digital environment on the pc with software like "CV Tools" by Ableton seems to be pretty interesting. Not just for the sake of an easier and accurate way to generate Control Voltage, no also in the sense of communication between devices and softwares. For example, to make generative Computergraphics with Software like Unity, TouchDesigner or Blender and use control voltage from your Modular Synth to control aspects of the generative Video Output. Or the other way around to generate Video Output inside such software through different functions and to use this data also for the generation of sound through Analog Synthesizers. Not to mention feedback loops. So, we think a dc coupled interface that bridges the world of analog and digital without the use of the extremely quality dropping MIDI protocol is a thing that holds a very big potential for many artistically interesting uses.
+In the course "Acoustic Interfaces" we wrote a C++ Machine-Learning library based on a K-Clustering Algorithm. It's purpose is to classify Microphone Inputs into different frequency based classes. After this cluster (training) process the algorithm is able to classify similiar microphone input in realtime. The algorithm is running on a teensy 4.0 with an audio shield.
-Anyway, as dc coupled interfaces appear to be not very common and quite expensive on the market of audio interfaces we wanted to create a similiar device ourself thats able to send and receive analog Signals over USB connection.
+I have to say, that it was quite hard for me to come up with an idea for the creative, musical use of this technique. As i dont wanted to implement this algorithm for the obvious purpose of sound detection issues, i came up with a more abstract idea of use.
+My idea was a intention based gesture/timbre detection through the piezo microphone input. This input is expressed through Midi Notes and muscial scales. For example the aggresive touch on the interface surface should express in a, somehow, corresponding sequence of notes (or melody).
+So the project i came up with is basically a sequencer.
+In thinking about what kind of sequencer i wanted to build, i was very inspired by the sequencer eurorack-module by "Make Noise", which is called "Rene´ ". It's a sequencer based on motion inside a cartesian coordinate system. What i found interesting in this is the fact that this way of sequencing dont have one main tempo which is driving the sequences, but instead more tempos (depending on the amount of dimensions). Each tempo or clock is driving the sequences only on one axis. That means when clocks (or gates) of different speeds (or ryhtms) are fed into the sequencer, the outcoming sequence can be very diverse. With an normal( 1-dimensional) sequencer, such or similiar results from only one sequence would need modulation of pitch values or radomnization in the rhythm patterns.
+So i decided to design my own little grid-based sequencer. Im calling it grid-based because it only has 2 dimensions. My plan was to build it in a hardware format, with analog parts. That means i didnt wanted to build a Midi-Sequencer but instead a digital CV/Gate-sequencer for analog gear.
 So we we decided to use an Arduino Uno for our project. The starting point was this great, creative common released, open hardware device we found on github.