Transit Module

Lemur is a great one. Been a long time since I’ve written any Lemurscript.

Another one that I think would be massive fun with the ER-301 is TC-DATA. In addition to all the controllers you’d expect like x/y coordinates, number of touches, it also has a bunch of less obvious ones like compass heading, camera brightness, touch size, Apple Pencil azimuth, elevation, force, speed.

I think pretty much anything you could possibly sense and measure with an iPad, TC-DATA can use it as a MIDI or OSC controller.

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I would definitely like to use both @scanner_darkly and @anon17137829’s options. And I like the idea about some kind of shared mappings if it doesn’t mean less possibilities/customization.

Say you use a synth/module (in or out) that can’t customize midi CC’s which uses CC 0-13 standard mappings, such as modulation, expression etc…

Really cool with the mockup @anon17137829 - I love that it might be possible in 2hp!

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I’ve been giving this some thought, and will toss some ideas out for your consideration.

Mod Wheel is really just CC 1. On a keyboard (where the terminology is relevant), there’s only one mod wheel, and it’s difficult to use it with 10 patches at once. You could possibly eliminate these 10 slots, and just make CC 1 another CC you can configure, and set the channel for. Ideally it’d be great if you could set the channel for each CC rather than hard coding to CH16.

There are also 10 channels taken by aftertouch. I like aftertouch/channel pressure modulations on a keyboard because it’s really the only one aside from velocity you can use without removing one of your hands from the keys. That said, I don’t know if I use it enough to merit having it available on each channel. Could possibly just leave it on the 2 poly channels, and maybe 2 of the mono channels? That would eliminate 6 more for a total of 16 free SC.CV slots.

For what it’s worth, in my experience using the Shuttle Control, I like having pitch bend CV separated from the note pitch CV. That way you can set the ER-301 up to do things like pitch bend up 2 down 12 semitones at full displacement. Or you can remap it to something other than pitch - it’s one of the only standard MIDI controllers with resolution > 128.

Would also be neat to do this just by editing the configuration map - i.e. if the voices aren’t specified on the config map, don’t use them. Another way to free up SC.CVs for use by other devices (Teletype, 16n). I.e. if all you need is a 4 poly with velocity, don’t map voices 5-8 pitch & velo, and that frees up 8 SC.CVs. Not sure how crazy that makes the code. Alternatively, could specify max voices for the two polys in the configuration?

Anyway, just some ideas. :slight_smile:

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as a side note, this is why i think maybe new dedicated units would be a better approach in a long run. so then instead of having to configure the firmware and the port number (okay, so knob 1 on my controller sends CC 72 which i mapped to SC.CV 35…) you could just add MIDI.CC unit and set it to 72.

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Do you mean ER-301 units?

If someone (not me) draws up a specification for MIDI-over-i2c that incorporates input from users of various devices (*) then I will be more than happy to implement some units for it.

(*) A discussion on lines perhaps?

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Wait… are you saying you will implement a MIDI interpreter on the ER-301 if the MIDI messages can be sent down the i2c cable?

Or have I misunderstood?

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That’s what it looks like to you :wink:

From my point of view, I have an i2c stack already implemented, so it would be unnecessarily obstinate to refuse to add a couple more message types to it just because I have no love for MIDI.

Oh and I am a fan of @anon17137829’s initiative.

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I share your view of MIDI, it was a friend for many years, simply because it was the only thing available, to me, at the time, but now I have other options I much prefer those :slight_smile:

Having said that, it seems that this is surprisingly low hanging fruit (an illusion created by the seemingly magical coding skills of @anon17137829 - I am still in a mild state of shock at how quickly this has come together) could be very useful and a ‘nice thing to have’, especially for me in the use cases I described above.

All that is to say, thank you very much for your consideration - very much appreciated :bowing_man:

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:cry:

while these words hurt, I appreciate having a clear direction for the 301 :slight_smile: . For me, Mr. Drillionaire is doing a huuugely beneficial thing <3

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Speaking for me personally, my collection of fine MIDI controllers doesn’t include anything that would be able to generate a custom NRPN message to send to the module.

I think this would be easier for me to remember. If I’m setting up voice 1 of a poly channel and know the pitch starts on 65, it’s probably easier to remember velo is on 66. Rather than, “hmm, I have this configured for 6 voices, so velo is on 65+6=71.”

Of course mod wheel doesn’t need to be per voice, and AT - well, guess it depends on if you’re planning to implement poly aftertouch or channel pressure. Poly AT would eat up ports pretty quickly, so unless you’re planning to make this really configurable I’d prob stick with channel pressure, at least for v1. Could always add more configurability and poly AT later? Just one opinion.

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yes, something like a MIDI note unit and a MIDI CC unit which you could use similarly to SC.CV and SC.TR units.

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The way I’m playing live right now, this would be a HUGE addition to my setup. Great initiative!

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It seems like the developing MIDI-to-I2C bridge might get people close enough to where they want to go that extra work on your part might not be necessary.

If you’re going to expend any effort on MIDI, I think it would be more interesting to support MIDI directly (i.e., receiving MIDI messages directly from the UART), rather than using I2C as a shim. If the ER-301 was able to interpret MIDI messages, conversion from MIDI to I2C to some I2C-ified version of MIDI seems like a lot of overhead.

Is the UART still available on ER-301 units with the I2C header? Can they be used simultaneously?

Yes, it is still there.

No. They are actually the same port.

That’s what I figured.

I’m eager to see what the likes of @anon17137829 and @scanner_darkly come up with. I think once there are a few working examples you will be able to better evaluate the costs and benefits of any 301-side MIDI development, and we can start specing out proposed units.

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Any chance that we could connect it to a computer to send MIDI from a DAW via USB ?

EDIT : it’s obviously possible, since you’ve posted a video with Ableton Live sending MIDI.
For some reason I was stuck on the idea of using a MIDI controller.
I’m now officially super interested and excited !!!

Yeah, but a USB MIDI to I2C CV that would be awesome.

@chapelierfou You could use a 16n faderbank for usb to I2c with the branch @scanner_darkly is currently working on :slight_smile:

Yes indeed ! And I have a kit on its way… !

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