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astaplatz

Joined: Apr 01, 2005 Posts: 6 Location: amsterdam, the netherlands
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Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 5:10 am Post subject:
how make? send program up/down from buttons on G2 |
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hello!
i'm stuck! can you help?
I want to make two buttons on the G2.
Button 1 decreases a counter and sends a program change via MIDI.
Button 2 increases the same counter and sends a program change via MIDI.
Obviously I want to cap the counter at zero and at some upper number like 128.
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How can I do this? I'm having trouble getting my brain to wrap around the way logic and counters work on the G2. I'm quite good in Max-msp... but its quite a different way of thinking on the G2...
thanks!!!
seb. _________________ --
s.
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blue hell
Site Admin

Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 24422 Location: The Netherlands, Enschede
Audio files: 297
G2 patch files: 320
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monobass

Joined: Nov 30, 2004 Posts: 275 Location: UK
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Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 11:51 am Post subject:
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That would be a good entry in the building block section. _________________ Steve |
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astaplatz

Joined: Apr 01, 2005 Posts: 6 Location: amsterdam, the netherlands
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Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 7:42 am Post subject:
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excellent, thanks!!! i'm v ery greatful!!! very speedy reply!!!
it works, but erm... its confusing! doh, i need more brain cells...
would it be too much to ask to have the steps that are caired out explained?
might help me to eventualy make my own logic based patches...
and yes, this array of modules merged into one unit seems like a missing essential module for any avid user of the G2 as a remote control tool for 3rd party [software] synths...
wk,
seb. _________________ --
s.
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blue hell
Site Admin

Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 24422 Location: The Netherlands, Enschede
Audio files: 297
G2 patch files: 320
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Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 11:39 am Post subject:
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astaplatz wrote: | it works, but erm... its confusing! |
Yes it is ... actually the circuit I presented is an example of bad design, and I don't fully understand it myself either. I'll try to explain what I do understand about it. I really should be ashamed of myself though
The central idea is the S&H and the mixer below it. This really is an analog memory cell. When a signal of +1 is put on one of the mixer's inputs the output will go up 1 unit as well. when then the S&H is then clocked and the input value is removed the new value will be remembered. This is a very useful circuit to make counter circuits on the Nord Modulars, and you'll see it in more patches.
The clock pulse for the S&H is derived from the +1 and -1 units, the latter using an inversion first. This is the mixer labeled "or" and the `module labeled "invert".
Then comes the tricky part ... and I must confess that I didn't really design that ... it makes the up-going edge needed for the sample and hold at the right time, and this occurs by accident really ...
To do it the proper way I would have had to make the circuit clocked, but I didn't like the idea of needing the extra modules for that. Either that or I would have had to make an analysis of the circuit incorporating the time the signals need to travel through the circuit, and I was too lazy for that. So I tried intuition instead, which is why this is the tricky part, I was lucky to get away with it. Bad design.
The basic idea was that the NOR gate would pass on (and invert) the pulse from the module labeled "or" only when the output of the "hi limit" module is low, and otherwise the NOR output would be low. See : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_NOR
However from the lights on the modules you can see that this is not what is happening. The reason for this is that the input for the "hi limit" module is not taken from the output but from the mixer that feeds the sample and hold. At the moment you press the up button the output of the "hi limit" module will go high and a lucky race condition in the circuit aborts the output from the NOR just in time to not cause the pulse to be seen as valid. But OTOH I sort of needed behaviour like this because when the pulse would not be passed on when the high limit was reached it would not be possible to make it go down anymore.
The part around the XNOR circuit is equally messy. The idea here was that an XNOR gate can be considered to be a conditional invertor. When one of it\s inputs is high it will invert the other input. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xnor So the XNOR can be considered to be an invertor when the output signal is above (or equal to) the low limit. The idea here being that the circuit would stop working when the output signal would go below the low limit. But again, here is a race condition because the input of the "low lim" module is not taken from the S&H output but from the mixer. And again the race makes it work. I would have expected an XOR to be needed, but due to timing again it needed an extra inversion.
And this is where my understanding stops. It's a mess really
I think this circuit has a flaw BTW, when for whatever reason the output value goes out of range it might not be always possible to get it in range otherwise than reloading the patch ... _________________ Jan
also .. could someone please turn down the thermostat a bit.
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BobTheDog

Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 4044 Location: England
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Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 12:48 am Post subject:
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Hi Jan,
Aren't race conditions a little dangerous, is it possible that a new firmware might stop this working?
Cheers
Andy |
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blue hell
Site Admin

Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 24422 Location: The Netherlands, Enschede
Audio files: 297
G2 patch files: 320
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Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 2:42 am Post subject:
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Yes they are, even when no new firmware comes rearranging the modules might stop it from working. Maybe one day when it gets cooler I'll make a proper one  _________________ Jan
also .. could someone please turn down the thermostat a bit.
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astaplatz

Joined: Apr 01, 2005 Posts: 6 Location: amsterdam, the netherlands
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Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 2:53 am Post subject:
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lol
i dont know whats more confusing! the patch or the explanation!!!
  
oh humble me thanks thee for taking the time to decifer it, i'll print your text out and go over it with a cup of coffee to try and figure it out at some point soonish.
what really surprises me, is that such a simple mathematical operation needs to be so coomplicated? i dont know if you are familiar with max-msp [its a visual-object based language] but making a counter that increases/decreases value is just a question of slapping on one "module" [its called an "accumulator"].
a lot of my ideas for [nord] patches involve working with sums, adding and reducing values based on knobs or other internal processes... so the lack of direct math driven operations feels to me like I'm having to learn how to speak chinese to get my modular to articulate... and many of my patch ideas are thus far unexpressed because of this/my mental-approach-barrier...
Anyways, enough rambling, the nord is of course a beautiful environment - I'm probably just too fixed in my way of thinking.
thanks again!!!!!! i shall do my best to learn the way of the red one!
wk,
seb. _________________ --
s.
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ian-s

Joined: Apr 01, 2004 Posts: 2672 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
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blue hell
Site Admin

Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 24422 Location: The Netherlands, Enschede
Audio files: 297
G2 patch files: 320
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Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 5:20 am Post subject:
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Thank you Ian for allowing me to go on being lazy
This is a better candidate for a building block. _________________ Jan
also .. could someone please turn down the thermostat a bit.
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mosc
Site Admin

Joined: Jan 31, 2003 Posts: 18240 Location: Durham, NC
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Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 1:19 pm Post subject:
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astaplatz wrote: | what really surprises me, is that such a simple mathematical operation needs to be so coomplicated? |
The Nord Modulars are the natural evolution of analog modular synthesizers. The original beasts weren't intended to do math or logic functions. That the NMs allow some of this is a nice thing, but it is not the object of the instrument. Many people use G2 and MAX/MSP. They are good for different things. _________________ --Howard
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BobTheDog

Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 4044 Location: England
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Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 1:48 pm Post subject:
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astaplatz wrote: | what really surprises me, is that such a simple mathematical operation needs to be so coomplicated? i dont know if you are familiar with max-msp [its a visual-object based language] but making a counter that increases/decreases value is just a question of slapping on one "module" [its called an "accumulator"] |
Hi,
Actually its not actually that simple a mathematical operation, it is being made easy for you in max-msp as someone else has actually done the work.
If you have a look at http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/Faculty/Parhami/text_comp_arit.htm you will see that what we see as simple arithmetic is actually quite complicated when you try to get a machine to do it.
I must admit I find most things I look at very complicated
Cheers
Andy |
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