Steppingfilter 101 (what filter?)

  On 4/8/2012 at 12:52 PM, ZoeB said:

 

 

Maybe I'm missing something here, never having used one, but why would anyone still use an MC-4 (or MC-8 for that matter)? It looks nice enough as a museum piece, if you're into industrial design, but in this day and age, it doesn't appear to be very practical.

Do you only use instruments that are practical? That would make for a very boring studio experience to me. I've got an MC4, it's not practical at all but it's a load of fun and forces your mind to think differently to get around its quirkiness which leads to interesting results.

Also, you aren't limited to inputting the notes via the calculator keyboard, you can also plug in any synth that gives gate/CV out and enter notes that way, ie, plug your SH101 into it and play the keyboard.

As for its lack of portamento, you already answered the question of how to get around that: "use a slew limiter, great for portamento / slide / glide". I'd say most people who use an MC4 nowadays would have at least one slew limiter knocking around in their studio, if not the MC4 manual actually gives you instructions on how to make one! You can also get around this by entering ultra short notes before the main notes at different pitches which will trigger so fast it'll portamento the notes (I know portamento isn't a verb but it sounds good here).

A few months ago I worked with a guy called Dan Nigrin, testing a piece of software he wrote which converts midi files into MC4 saved sequence tones which you can play via audio in into the MC4 (it has an audio in and out to save and load sequences from tape, but you can hook this directly to Logic or whatever DAW you want). He finished the software and it works, so now you can take a regular midi track and import it into the MC4, obviously it'll only play a monophonic line, but you can import four tracks of midi at once, it works really well, here's mine playing Fur Elise:

So in conclusion, the MC4 is still amazing. Perfect timing, four separate channels with two CVs out per channel, I don't know any other analogue sequencer that has anything like that. But don't take my word for it, here's what that Analord guy had to say about it:

"You can patch in any one or a combination of the output channels or any

other interesting voltage into the tempo cv input for programmable swing or

other mental voltage controlled tempo changes,lots of fun when you have

loads of things running off it,especially when channels are different loop

lengths.

global tune is nice and so are the programmable triggers.

This machine makes you work in a certain way,which you wouldnt get from a

lot of other sequencers.

Its a deep box when you get to know it,has loads of tricks up its sleeve..

Also when you are making trax on it ,it can make you think you are in a

weird taxi journey.

"

First off, I realise I'm being an arsehole here, so sorry for taking such an aggressive stance of "OK everyone, prove to me, a random stranger on the Internet, what's so good about this thing you love!" I'm still trying to work out why it's so popular and how much of the reasoning is rational, but I should probably go about it in a friendlier way...

  On 4/9/2012 at 1:46 PM, TNT said:

Ok so you're saying that anyone who gives a shit about how a Minimoog looks or sounds is most likely due to nostalgic reasons. The violinist should not give a damn how his violin looks too?

It's not necessarily part of the nostalgia, but it's certainly part of the romance, yes. Like drinking water from a glass instead of a mug, it doesn't make any practical difference, but it has different associations in the person's mind. I'm willing to accept romance as a reason for doing something a particular way, although it's largely arbitrary which things get associated with which other things (such as, say, the wooden end-cheeks on seventies consumer electronics). Similarly, how a violin looks won't change the violinist's performance for physical reasons so much as psychological reasons, although it may indeed spur a better performance if she or he finds it more aesthetically pleasing. But that itself is an interesting phenomenon, no? And what's even more curious is that how the violinist herself is dressed, her own presentation, affects how the listener rates her performance, even when it doesn't have any impact on it at all.

  On 4/9/2012 at 2:47 PM, Rbrmyofr said:

Do you only use instruments that are practical? That would make for a very boring studio experience to me. I've got an MC4, it's not practical at all but it's a load of fun and forces your mind to think differently to get around its quirkiness which leads to interesting results.

 

Also, you aren't limited to inputting the notes via the calculator keyboard, you can also plug in any synth that gives gate/CV out and enter notes that way, ie, plug your SH101 into it and play the keyboard.

That's a good point, I forgot about the external CV+gate inputs. The manual seems a little vague on whether it pays attention to all the note lengths and rests or whether it patiently waits for you to play notes and stores them as if all equidistant... watching the MC-4 Hack videos again, I think the device is a bit smarter than I remembered... it looks like it's capable of remembering quite expressive, non-quantised playing, remembering each note length and following rest length, instead of what I was picturing, where doubling a note would involve storing the same one twice... That makes more sense. And the channels seem to have independent timings, which is nice. I think I was expecting it to be more tracker-like than it was.

It still looks like a pretty awkward step sequencer to me, but maybe thinking of it as such is missing the point entirely. It looks like a pretty decent freehand sequencer. So may I ask, do you use it more for expressive music, and less for acidlines or other rigidly quantised styles?

  On 4/9/2012 at 2:47 PM, Rbrmyofr said:

As for its lack of portamento, you already answered the question of how to get around that: "use a slew limiter, great for portamento / slide / glide". I'd say most people who use an MC4 nowadays would have at least one slew limiter knocking around in their studio, if not the MC4 manual actually gives you instructions on how to make one! You can also get around this by entering ultra short notes before the main notes at different pitches which will trigger so fast it'll portamento the notes (I know portamento isn't a verb but it sounds good here).

My acidline creating quest is proving surprisingly difficult. The problem is I only want to put portament on some (eg overlapping) notes, not every note, and it looks like this will require me to get a slew limiter with CV input and then manually program in all the timings, which sounds like it's going to be pretty tedious if I can't write something to automate the process... I think my main issue here is mistakenly assuming the MC-4 was designed to be a sequencer much like the SH-101's and MC-202's, and I'm starting to realise it's not really a step sequencer like those, it's a fully fledged sequencer like the software kind, so it's not bad, it's just very ill suited to what I'm personally trying to accomplish.

  On 4/9/2012 at 2:47 PM, Rbrmyofr said:

A few months ago I worked with a guy called Dan Nigrin, testing a piece of software he wrote which converts midi files into MC4 saved sequence tones which you can play via audio in into the MC4 (it has an audio in and out to save and load sequences from tape, but you can hook this directly to Logic or whatever DAW you want). He finished the software and it works, so now you can take a regular midi track and import it into the MC4, obviously it'll only play a monophonic line, but you can import four tracks of midi at once, it works really well, here's mine playing Fur Elise: http://vimeo.com/27915215

Yeah, I saw that video a while back. It's impressive looking software. It's just that if you're going to all the effort of doing that, it doesn't seem like much more of a stretch to replace the MC-4 itself with a box of your own devising. If you can convert a list of notes and rests into the MC-4's arbitrary data format, it shouldn't be much trickier to convert it into the actual control voltages directly.

(I was telling my partner about this yesterday, and so far she's already programmed an Arduino board to play a C major scale when you hook it up to a standard 1v/oct oscillator, so this seems plausible to me.)

  On 4/9/2012 at 2:47 PM, Rbrmyofr said:

So in conclusion, the MC4 is still amazing. Perfect timing, four separate channels with two CVs out per channel, I don't know any other analogue sequencer that has anything like that. But don't take my word for it, here's what that Analord guy had to say about it:

 

"You can patch in any one or a combination of the output channels or any

other interesting voltage into the tempo cv input for programmable swing or

other mental voltage controlled tempo changes,lots of fun when you have

loads of things running off it,especially when channels are different loop

lengths.

global tune is nice and so are the programmable triggers.

This machine makes you work in a certain way,which you wouldnt get from a

lot of other sequencers.

Its a deep box when you get to know it,has loads of tricks up its sleeve..

Also when you are making trax on it ,it can make you think you are in a

weird taxi journey.

"

Ha, I had to re-read that a few times to realise he was talking about wiring up one of its CV outputs back to its own tempo input. I somehow haven't gotten around to wiring up something to itself yet. Clearly I'm not thinking anywhere near laterally enough.

I'm still a bit dubious of this one, but sorry for being so aggressive about it anyway.

it is what it is

  On 4/9/2012 at 11:51 PM, ZoeB said:

It still looks like a pretty awkward step sequencer to me, but maybe thinking of it as such is missing the point entirely.

Well I suppose that's the problem with people nowadays when it comes to technology, they expect everything to be entirely intuitive and easy to use and disregard it if it isn't. The MC4 is awkward at the start, you have to learn how to use it, like learning an instrument. "Learning" is a bit of a dirty word in today's iPad / Ableton Live / Fruity Loops era of instant gratification unfortunately. There's no real reason to use an MC4 , timing issues aside, over say, Logic with four channels of midi to CV conversion. The only reason people use it is because it's fun and interesting, not because it's productive and practical. If I only used practical things in my studio I'd say most of it would have to be sold off and I'd be left with a laptop and a pair of speakers. Then I'd die of boredom as my studio would almost exactly resemble my work desk.

All the music I make is rigidly quantized, or "grid music" as Brian Eno calls it.

Apologies to the OP as this has gone way off topic, I can't hear any SH101 in that Stepping Filter 101 track, but you never know, there's a few layers of synths going on in there.

haven't used one but i imagine you have zero spatial sense of where you r in a track when editing. its best for entering notes and seeing what happens i guess

  On 4/10/2012 at 7:27 PM, marf said:

haven't used one but i imagine you have zero spatial sense of where you r in a track when editing. its best for entering notes and seeing what happens i guess

That's not really true. You break up entries into measures to keep separate sections separate, also you can cycle through notes and measures (or sections as I refer to them as) you've already entered and delete, change position, length etc. Anybody who regularly uses an MPC would probably take to it pretty quickly. You can copy measures and transpose them up and down, it has quite a few clever editing options which, back in 1981 when it came out must have been pretty ground breaking.

These last few posts make me sound like an MC4 fanboy. It's great but in a very vintage style way. Any modern DAW would be a lot quicker and less head melty to use nowadays. I've a soft spot for old technology myself though.

The thing is MIDI is rubbish, good luck trying to get tight timing with a DAW USB MIDI-CV kits.

Rbrmyofr, you said everything pretty much spot on, I couldn't have said it better myself.

the thing is midi is rubbish

yes lots of people agree MIDI is shit, Dave Smith still think its cool because its version 1.0

  On 3/27/2012 at 7:22 AM, bunyip said:

I think it sounds like the SH-101 which uses a custom chip. The SH-101 does not come with CV control of the filter but someone who was most probably Richard posted about adding filter CV to the SH-101 is one of the best mods ever on Analogue Heaven's forum a number of years ago.

You can getting the stepping effect on the filter by slapping S&H as the LFO. Each incoming trigger for the 101s sequencer clocks the circuit resulting in a new cutoff freq. fun to play around with even just running the 101s sequencer on its own, just patch the gate out to clk in.

edit: more 101 fun times. if you have any modular gear, route the CV out through your system and fuck around with the signal and send it back into the cv in. you can get so many wicked sounds this way

  On 4/10/2012 at 11:22 PM, TNT said:

yes lots of people agree MIDI is shit, Dave Smith still think its cool because its version 1.0

AHHHH... the thing is, MIDI is rubbish. i get it now. lack of comma made syntax confusing.

i actually like it.

sorry.

Yeah I like it too, I'm glad its around and its good with hardware MIDI sequencers and on Atari STe, but with a modern USB DAW its a pain...

Vince Clarke

"... CV and Gate is tighter. I can hear and feel that it's tighter than MIDI – we can even prove it using 'scopes. Because everything is clocked simply, it arrives bang on the beat. The whole production starts to 'tick over'. Just look at Kraftwerk's stuff. I think that 'feel' has been lost with MIDI sequencers. No matter what you do with MIDI, the music will never sound as good as it did in the good old Futurist days. That's why our tracks sound the way they do."

The MS-20 has amazing cross modulation possibilities and a depth that the pretend one doesn't. For example if you set up a patch that has the signal processor doing a zero input feedback loop going into the total input with a little bit of headphone out and rout that into the sample and hold you can get some amazing sounds ranging from smooth brassy sounds to more matrix like feedback patterns. Software is absolutely incredible, but when companies get sued for making something look like some hardware rather than sound like some hardware things get a bit silly. Thinking of the sequencing method of the MC-4, I tend to think its a bit like traveling and what you take in about the environment moving at different speeds. Fast is good, slow is good. Pianos make me write melodies differently to guitars. Sometimes sequencing on an MC-4 is a bit like an MC Escher drawing - the way the complex tessellations evolve from simple ones by taking a little bit from one side and adding it to the other and so on. The MC-4 can trigger VCAs, envelopes and lag processors so accent and slide are easily available depending on what synth you use with it.

there is expert sleepers now. im not sure if the computer clock is an issue though.

http://www.expert-sleepers.co.uk/

I like midi for convenience but yeah, fucking awful timing. It's not super noticeable or a big deal most of the time, but when you get going fast it can get pretty sloppy, and as I know my instruments are capable of being very precise, it can get pretty frustrating.

It seems curious to me how often analogue fans dislike MIDI so much. OK, so I'm coming around on the whole "imperfection sounds pleasant" thing, but by that token, analogue sounds and imperfect MIDI timing should surely complement each other well. Admittedly, the only time I use MIDI these days is either for freehand playing or monophonic, monotimbral quantised parts, so maybe I simply can't remember everything slowing down when you tried to output a whole bunch of note-ons all at once, as it's been so long since I've done that. Is it really that bad?

Expert Sleepers do sound like they've hit upon a nice way to sidestep the whole MIDI issue, letting you output CVs directly from a DAW. I can never get the stuff to work, especially with all that DRM, but it's certainly a nice idea.

I get that different sequencers have you writing in different ways, I guess I'm just curious as to what kind of writing you end up doing with one like the MC-4 or MC-8. The whole thing reminds me of ed. I'm all for learning new (or old!) things, but if you have to edit a lot of data one datum at a time, surely the tools are getting in the way more than they're helping. It sounds like they're not, from what everyone's saying, so I guess I'm just curious as to what it's like. Maybe we should all make videos of the songwriting process for a single track, to compare what it's like with such different equipment, or something? There are a few MC-4 videos, but mostly of someone entering a single pattern, not a whole song. (Or Für Elise via MC-4 Hack, bypassing the whole ed thing entirely!)

  On 4/11/2012 at 11:20 AM, ZoeB said:

It seems curious to me how often analogue fans dislike MIDI so much. OK, so I'm coming around on the whole "imperfection sounds pleasant" thing, but by that token, analogue sounds and imperfect MIDI timing should surely complement each other well.

Things a bit out of tune with each other usually sound pleasant. Things not exactly in time, but not far enough out of time to sound human, usually sounds shit. Vince Clarke said it best with that thing about Kraftwerk.

  On 4/11/2012 at 12:14 PM, Rbrmyofr said:

  On 4/11/2012 at 11:20 AM, ZoeB said:

It seems curious to me how often analogue fans dislike MIDI so much. OK, so I'm coming around on the whole "imperfection sounds pleasant" thing, but by that token, analogue sounds and imperfect MIDI timing should surely complement each other well.

Things a bit out of tune with each other usually sound pleasant. Things not exactly in time, but not far enough out of time to sound human, usually sounds shit. Vince Clarke said it best with that thing about Kraftwerk.

spot on. I find that perfect timing is especially important when you have weird detuned analog patches dancing about, because it gives a necessary organized feel to it so it doesn't sound like a mess, and because it makes you really feel like it's being generated by a machine, which when done right, can be a pretty amazing thing in music. Slightly imperfect timing makes me think of computers, and IMO, there is nothing with less soul than a computer when it comes to music.

  On 4/11/2012 at 5:54 PM, ganus said:

spot on. I find that perfect timing is especially important when you have weird detuned analog patches dancing about, because it gives a necessary organized feel to it so it doesn't sound like a mess, and because it makes you really feel like it's being generated by a machine, which when done right, can be a pretty amazing thing in music. Slightly imperfect timing makes me think of computers, and IMO, there is nothing with less soul than a computer when it comes to music.

I doubt most people would make a distinction between a machine and a computer, and I generally associate single-sample-accurate timing with a track made entirely in software, so maybe we just have different associations. For me, part of the whole happily-mucky analogue synth vibe is the imperfections, and that includes timing. You know the bit during At the Heart of It All where it sounds like the sequencer can't quite keep up, as if he's overloading it somehow? I like that in the same way I like the tape hiss on SAW 85-92. It's an endearing imperfection that I wouldn't want to have to constantly put up with, but it certainly adds character, which is a nice option to have.

  On 4/11/2012 at 8:34 PM, ZoeB said:

  On 4/11/2012 at 5:54 PM, ganus said:

spot on. I find that perfect timing is especially important when you have weird detuned analog patches dancing about, because it gives a necessary organized feel to it so it doesn't sound like a mess, and because it makes you really feel like it's being generated by a machine, which when done right, can be a pretty amazing thing in music. Slightly imperfect timing makes me think of computers, and IMO, there is nothing with less soul than a computer when it comes to music.

 

I doubt most people would make a distinction between a machine and a computer, and I generally associate single-sample-accurate timing with a track made entirely in software, so maybe we just have different associations. For me, part of the whole happily-mucky analogue synth vibe is the imperfections, and that includes timing. You know the bit during At the Heart of It All where it sounds like the sequencer can't quite keep up, as if he's overloading it somehow? I like that in the same way I like the tape hiss on SAW 85-92. It's an endearing imperfection that I wouldn't want to have to constantly put up with, but it certainly adds character, which is a nice option to have.

Sure, but tape hiss and a few hit misfires are different than entire tracks being out of sync. I've been wrestling my DAW to CV setup for a while now, and it is a nightmare. I used to just sequence everything from my 1040ST and record tracks in a single take to tape, and there were zero problems. Now that I've built a decent modular and want to multitrack it into my DAW, everything just falls apart. If I play everything at once, it sounds fine, but if I try to record one synth part, and then record a second synth line over it in the DAW, it is so out of time that I can't even bare to listen to it. Garbage.

Analogue Seqs track way tighter than DAW's to CV do (keep in mind I haven't used Silent Way), and because of how MIDI runs on PC's, they will always be better. That said, new technologies like Silent Way that are coming out may be the answer. However, like someone previously said, they aren't solving the problem with wonky PC MIDI, merely circumventing it.

Zoe, there is a whole post about this topic in a certain place by a certain someone

~|

  On 4/12/2012 at 7:20 PM, marf said:

Zoe, there is a whole post about this topic in a certain place by a certain someone

What, the one that Rbrmyofr posted at the top of this page? :)

  On 4/12/2012 at 8:40 PM, ZoeB said:

  On 4/12/2012 at 7:20 PM, marf said:

Zoe, there is a whole post about this topic in a certain place by a certain someone

 

What, the one that Rbrmyofr posted at the top of this page? :)

No, this one:

http://forum.watmm.c...-message-board/