Im a big fan of the C&G Organelle, anyone else interested in it?
its a great portable synth, which can run pure data patches which can support MPE,
and Ive also ported by MEC application over to it, so I can use the Soundplane and Eigenharp with it.
my favourite combo however, is the Organelle with an Eigenharp Pico, as the Pico is pretty much the same size as the Organelle - is a small/lightweight combo, and is very cute…
you’ll find quite a few videos on my youtube channel, but here is i think the first I made…
the next step for me with the Organelle, and expressive control is integrating MPE into Orac, my open source modular project based on Pure Data… more on that later
I’ve been away from Pd for several months, but the last time I looked there wasn’t a standard object to do MPE dispatch. (I was actually in the process of writing one in Lua/luapd when I got distracted.) Is there such a thing now? If so, just an Organelle thing? Do some of the Organelle library patches support MPE?
There is no explicit support for MPE as far as I know (unlike Max), perhaps someone has done an abstraction - again don’t know, as I found it very easy to add anyway.
at the heart of it , all you do is use midi channel, as the voice id in place of [poly] (which you’d normally use for voice allocation) … there are a couple of other ‘tricks’, but thats the essence for a simple MPE implementation.
you can see an example how I did it with my MI Braids patch for Organelle (used in above video)
… in the I above created a couple of ‘helper’ abstractions.
(oh dont be fooled by the poly in the above patch, that is only used for playing the organelle keys, non-ape, alongside the MPE implementation)
anyway simple stuff… hence why I want to add it too Orac.
a few notes:
this approach can be use on most things, Ive done the same for Max (before MPE support) and also Reaktor - they all follow a similar model.
the organelle uses pd 46 by default, but with newer versions of PD we have clone, which makes this all a little less ‘clunky’
I think the above video uses MPE, it could be using my OSC variant… as Ive also implemented the T3D OSC protocol, from madrona labs , into MEC
Yeah, when I started on MPE in Pd, I just automatically started writing dynamic voice allocation – one of the reasons for using luapd. (Also I just like Lua.) I don’t think I even thought of the channel == voice scheme until I finally realized that’s why Aalto wasn’t working for me; it also uses that scheme, and it was fine after I matched the expected channels on LinnStrument. Still, I rather not futz with that every time I use a synth with a different voice count.
My MPE object is a preprocessor to the clone object. On Organelle, is it possible/hard to update it to use 0.47+? And I gather luapd is an available object?
sure, Ive compiled PD 0.49 for organelle, Ive supplied to C&G, and will push for it to be in the next OS update.
(the issue is we don’t really want organelle users on different PD versions, as that’ll mean some patches wont work for some users)
luapd, should be no issue, might need compiling for arm, but given lua works on arm without issue, should not be a problem.
yeah, the voice allocation I mention is just the simplest approach,
you don’t have to use this, if you want dynamic allocation that’s possible too… simply send the midi channel into [poly] to get a voice number, rather than note, then use that for route (or whatever)
the only thing this lacks, is multiple notes on one midi channel which is allowed by MPE, but frankly is of ‘limited use’ imo … but even that is not that difficult to implement.
Thanks very much for this video. I have been intrigued by the Organelle for some time since we put it in PUSH TURN MOVE, but have been intimidated by the programming aspect of it; this raises some worthwhile options w/r/t live portable computerless MPE use.
Even more intriguing is that this video, for the first time, gave me a real sense of how tiny the Eigenharp Pico is! Wow, I might need to get one just on principle.
Yepp, cool video!
Hm, two MIDI host ports, battery and speakers - sweet…
I guess the usb host ports are fully accessible from PD, so it should be pretty simple to create a routing script that e.g. routes a connected Linnstrument to a connected ContinuuMini?
Then the ContinuuMini audio out could be plugged into the audio in of the Organelle which can apply optional effects (Orac) and outputs everything over the speakers - or out again into an Onde. All battery powered - sounds promising
So three questions:
a) usb midi routing should work, right?
b) Can a battery powered Organelle power two USB instruments like Linnstrument and ContinuuMini? And how long would such a combo last?
c) Do the USB host ports of the Organelle support usb hubs? So could I also attach four Morphs instead of the Linnstrument (which come with their own battery, so the Organelle would only have to power the hub).
Edit: Have also asked that in the critterandguitari forum now - probably nobody here (besides perhaps @thetechnobear) has the new Organelle-M yet I guess?
Oh yes… new OG-M; more capable then ever to handle a couple of scenarios( CMini
included)
a) There is some ways to do it ORAC patch is the most “configurable” but you can go from scratch in Pd.
b) battery draining is always high if you go depending on just one device. I think better is to have a power bank/pack of some kind.
C) Yes, it supports USB hubs, don’t know what power the sensel requires, but better to have a powered USB hub.
yeah, as @keymanpal mentions all possible - though their will no doubt be some current limits on the usb outputs - I think its around 700ma total on a rPI iirc?
so depends a little on the devices you have plugged in… usually I find things with lots of leds to be the worst
but ive had no trouble bus powering : pico, squarp pyramid, soundplane.
(alpha/tau are fine, but they don’t really draw power)
not tested push2, but it’ll probably be ok, but it goes down into a low power mode anyway.
I think the linnstrument has a similar mode, which might help prolong battery life
bare in mind the ‘batteries’ in side the organelle-m are 4 x AA, so that might limit you on multiple high current devices - but you can use rechargeables, and also as Antonio says, you can use a USB powerbank for prolonged periods - that’s what I do.
(ive a couple of different size powerbanks, to give options on battery life vs size/weight)
my plan is to bring the organelle-m at 3e, possibly as my main hub
as for routing between devices, sure you can use pd, but you can also do it directly with alsa.
I kind of showed this in this video:
btw: if anyone has anything they want to see/know about the organelle-m let me know.
I plan to do a video this week, that covers the organelle-m , so it’d be useful to know if there are any common questions.
(the C&G was very entertaining, but I think a few want to see the real M in action etc )
Thanks Mark and Antonio, sounds good! So a powerbank (and some y-cables?) might be in order.
Perhaps showing how to use the Organelle-M as a standalone MPE synth could be interesting for some (not so much choice in that area when it comes to “hardware synths”). Most Organelle videos I saw were either sequencing (thus Organelle standalone) or standard keyboards.
I know you were focused on the new features that differentiate M from the original, but I think the OP-1 question missed an important advantage Organelle holds over that, in supporting expressive controllers. Or even external controllers that aren’t so expressive.
OP-1 isn’t a USB host. Connecting to MIDI controllers requires plugging the OP-1 into a USB host.
Not only does Organelle not require that, it can be the USB host that OP-1 requires.
…while simultaneously providing additional voices and fx.
(As with most things, “either/or” isn’t so interesting as “both”)
yeah, totally agree… but only so much you can do in one video…
(I was already torn between should it be focused on current organelle users, or those new to the organelle)
… that said, I will be doing lots with expressive controllers and organelle-m, those extra cores really help me out on the eigenharp/soundplane side
