This is a preliminary version of my new sequencer. You feed it a sequence using the keyboard or some other source. It will hold 16 steps. To record, trigger the REC button or put a high on the record input. Recording begins on the first note. Recording ends either at the end of the 16th note or when the record is turned off. To accommodate legato playing, a new note is triggered on a gate > 0 or a change in the note value. As each note is recorded an indicator will light. The "note” values can be any 32 bit value so CV, Hz or 1/octave values can be recorded. When REC is switched off the sequence can be played back with the PLY trigger or input. A pulse on the input will play the sequence once and holding it high will repeat the sequence. The record timing is done in units of 64th notes relative to the record BPM. A beat clock is available. No quantization is done on record. When playing back the sequence, the playback BPM is used to control the playback rate. You can quantize the loop to the nearest beat and/or quantize the notes to 1/4 to1/64 notes(4/4 timing) using the toggles and knob. Reset clears the buffer, as does re-enabling record. Let me know if you find any bugs or have suggestions:
recording sequencer.audulus (1.7 MB)
It needs a clock sync.
Is ‘overdub’ possible + a non recorded through, so when you get something going you can still transmit gates.
The unit is self clocked. The idea was to allow it to capture notes or other values as they occur rather than locked to a fixed clock. For example you might have it connected to a trigger where it would capture the trigger on events or even use it to sequence a CV loop. It has a BPM/output so that playing can be synced to the unit if desired. The quantize switch will force playback to occur on the quantize boundrys selected. The loop is quantized to the nearest beat and the notes to the selected value. It should be possible to add circuitry to sync the clocks with an external beat clock as an alternative to the knobs. The playback input acts as a gate, but at the moment a single gate plays the whole loop. Perhaps the playback gate should retrigger the loop if it goes high again while the loop is playing. I added playthrough during record, but since it can only output one pair of values, I didn’t see how play through would work during playback. It would be simple to split the signal before it entered the unit. Overdub would be difficult. It would have to be some kind of punch-in, punch-out approach, but the overdubbed section would have to end before the next note. It’s kind of CPU heat as it is, so I didn’t think an edit capability would be worth the added load. It will certainly become obsolete when we can record samples, but given the current lack of storage, it seemed like a good step forward.
For my application I am interested in capturing midi information in a ‘set it and forget it’ way. Its funny, for years I have been working towards a setup but there are always roadblocks.
I wanted to run Audulus within BM3 so I could record midi. But I cant do that because BM3 and Audulus fight over the ES-8. However @biminiroad’s CV Recorder got me excited about even just getting 16 step captures happening.
Coming from the guitar world, I am picky about looping. I like my Ableton setup. I use a wooden box that was converted from a usb video game controller and has 6 foot switches. Unfortunately the ipad requires mfi devices, so I can’t use it with my proper setup. I would have to buy an mfi joystick. For some reason, in Canada those joysticks are hard to get a good price on. I couldn’t find a good one for less than $80. I got the one I ripped apart for $2 at a Sally Anne.
So the master in my system is the elektron A4. It sends clock to my mBrane midi interface, which clocks Audulus through the ES-8. Audulus is the routing playground, where everything is organized (multiple midi devices, synth voices—>audio out, gates going back and fourth, etc…). If I can record, I can work in loops which is what I like. But I need two way clock syncs, I mean if you are wondering what features make or break key modules for some users. I am trying to get a setup going where I can get into flow states. When you record Midi in a host with Audulus as IAAP there is no issue. But like I said, I am interested in Audulus being the host right now.
I understand your issue. Unfortunately I don’t see any easy fix at this point (at least in the iOS world) Audio routing within iOS has always been a bit of an issue, particularly multichannel audio. Since the IAA interface for Audulus is currently limited to 2 channels, you’re pretty much stuck having to run it standalone to make effective use of the ES-8. I would think that either an AUv3 which would allow you to run multiple instances of Audulus or support for multichannel audio in the IAA app would make life much simpler. I doubt anything we can build in Audulus will match the MIDI recording and automation found in most DAWs. As much as I like the intellectual challenge of building sequencers in Audulus, I would much rather record MIDI in a DAW and feed that to my patch.
I’m facing a somewhat similar situation on the Mac. I love using Audulus standalone, but when recording I either have to use Soundflower, which introduces significant additional latency, or use the plug-in where I lose the ability to control the Audulus patch via MIDI CC as well as having to run the earlier audio engine which is much less efficient. I’m hoping the new AU will remedy both of these issues and I can simply run Audulus stand-alone for design work and in a DAW for performance.
I also wanted to mention that the gate input on the sequencer doesn’t have to come from the MIDI node. Like the ADSR the "gate signal acts as both a clock and gate. In record mode, when the gate first goes high the time is captured in a S&H node, the gate value is captured in another and the signal on the “o” input is grabbed by a third. When either the “o” signal changes or the gate goes to zero, the ending time is captured and recording moves to the next unit. I had to include the change detector because in legato mode the note can change without the gate returning to zero. This continues until either record is turned off or all 16 notes are full. Using an external clock, you could step note to note if desired. I was trying to get closer to a typical MIDI recorder where the notes aren’t necessarily together. I even think it would be possible to build one with a polyphonic output, but I suspect it would be a real CPU hog. I try to keep my designs as simple as possible so that I don’t introduce a lot of unessary overhead. I would rather combine several smaller modules together for a given purpose rather than trying to build massive all-in-one units. “Less in more” and all that.
So tried seeing how it would fit into a master routing patch. Its too much for the iPad Mini 4 for the light use of it I would make, but if it were being used more for what it is intended and I wasn’t using Audulus to do other things it would probably be pretty good.
CPU utilization is always the challenge when working with the iPad. I’ve got some ideas that might make it more efficient which I intend to try. I could also make an 8 step unit which would be less of a drain.
Between what you and @biminiroad made, I am close to being able to record drum lines thats all. My midi signals are all getting converted to crude knob tweaks anyway (recreating variance in the drum face), routing these to Dinky’s Taiko, so I convert the midi inside then send cv out. It is somewhat refreshing to think about having a setup where you live loop audio in, rather than recording and quantizing midi clips (seeing as I am using Audulus standalone/Dawless).
- I should clarify that I am able to do this by running a MacBook + Ableton using the elektron overbrige to capture the audio (record), while running Audulus on the iPad in standalone.
Hopefully A4 will include some type of MIDI piano-roll record capability. In the meantime let’s hope that at some point Audulus will support multiple channels in IAA mode. Then perhaps you would be able to use Audulus and the ES-8 along with BM or another iOS DAW. I haven’t actually played around with BeatMaker, but they offered it free a few months back when they released BM3 so I picked up a copy. I hope to get a chance to try it out at some point. Busy trying to learn Live and Max/DSP at the moment. Finger drumming is a lot harder than it looks!
Elektron boxes are 64-step sequencers, you can do some piano-roll type of recording but it’s limited to 4 bars.
I think he means Audulus 4 not Analog 4.
What he said! 
LOL, I have been on the Elektron forums too long. A4, OT, MnM, MD, DT, DN, and so on…