An attempt at a FM step sequencer for dx / Dixie. The obsession continues…
I’m feeling my way slowly with this, inspired my my earlier scripts and the volca fm, trying to get something going…
I say ready to go, it’s a mess still but it works and with patience yields results… steps are selected along the top row, parameters cycled with the labelled pad… shift to the ugly mess if you must, mutate works quite well and the effects page of params is not yet functionated… much more to come!
Addendum for v0.09a
So I’ve pushed hard on this the last week or so, achieved a great deal but also made the inevitable mess that an amateur programmer makes with a bigger project…
When start the script, you are in a default view of 4 pads (none of which have functions yet), ten knobs (most of which do stuff, the asterisked ones are not functional) and an X/y pad which is magic.
The Param dial chooses which of 12 things that can be modulated over time (Pitch, Velocity etc but mainly of interest are the synth controls – carrier and modulator frequencies as well as limited envelope controls)
The start / end knobs determine where the sequencer will loop playback as well as where the XY pad will edit – any movement on the pad will produce massive effects, changing parameter settings from 0-128 steps over 0-99 or 0-31 values for six operators per step.
The mutate dial randomises the order in which steps are played back – it’s a remnant from the seq8 script this has grown from…
A long hold on the shift button will lead to the step editor – I really only advise using this to add or remove played notes at this point as this is where my amateurism has broken things somewhat – a short tap on shift in this view will cycle the knob’s parameter effects – these are per step so are much more fine grained. A long hold on a step will select it for editing, a short tap will activate or deactivate it as a played note…
There will be a refactor after this version as I’ve over complicated the way that sequences are stored, and affected by the knobs – currently, each operator’s values are stored in an array that rotates through series of six steps per sequencer step and this is where my trouble has emanated from. In many cases, the knobs only affect certain things and not in the way I hoped – the xy pad is much more functional in this regard and much fun can be had sweeping in massive changes over the sequence – I particularly recommend setting release values low (in this case this extends the time a note play – a DX synth quirk – and then using the carrier / mod parameters to warble the sound. Also low pitches seem to work well with this technique.
The refactor will change the way that the sequences are stored – a simple single value per parameter per step, with operator effects being applied as the step is played / transmitted out. This matches well with my next stage plan which is to have a performance page of just knobs that globally affect the parameters as the sequence plays. It might be a quick turnaround but I’m not sure as I might just break everything in the process and have to start again – possibly even a whole new script, I’ll see…
have fun, questions welcome, this guide probably isn’t that great :)
