Features request for next firmware versions...

KSD

Oh, and I was also relieved to find the manual updated with .96+. This was very helpful seeing that a lot has been added since I last updated.

Noticed a few things in there that might be worth adding:

There is a helpful table listing the on/off status of sound sources. It might be cool to add in the manual the same explanation as provided on pages prior. 0=nothing, 1=osc1, 2=osc2, 4=sub, 8=noise; add for combinations. If that applies still. I was actually surprised and overwhelmed to see the crazy array of Ons and Offs and for someone not actively reading this thread, remembering 4 numbers is better than having to check the manual.

In the operator section there is a redundancy and misspelling
= outputs a large value if source 1 is above soure 2, 0 otherwise.
= outputs a large value if source 1 is above soure 2, 0 otherwise.

And it might be picky to mention another way of killing the latch modes is by switching to any unlatched mode. Just saying.

Thanks for the fun.

pichenettes

I’ve updated the manual. I thought it was clearer to enumerate all combinations than to expect people to convert from binary to hexadecimal :D

schrab

i’ve compiled 0.96 firmware for chineese lcd’s with wrong charset

snk

Thanks for the updated manual, it is very helpful and cleverly written

toneburst

Here’s an idea: Would it be possible to sequence patch-changes? If EEPROM-recall is too slow, it’s a non-starter, but just thought I’d ask.

a|x

pichenettes

Eeprom recall is too slow, and the way it is coded, it totally freezes the unit (no sound generated) while it is happening.

toneburst

Gotcha. Just thought I’d ask.

a|x

Titus Raindrops

Pichenettes said:

“I’ve updated the manual. I thought it was clearer to enumerate all combinations than to expect people to convert from binary to hexadecimal :D”

Please enumerate. Some of us are old.

license

I know I'm the world's biggest whiner but the Ons and Offs in that table are a little tough to read. X's and O's might be easier. Or dashes and big dots. (shrug)

herrprof

I noticed the new features are in the manual now, does that mean they are here to stay?

pichenettes

Yes, I’m now shipping kits with v0.96. I’ll post officially about this today.

Fresh Pants

So far I've only played with the duophonic mode, and it has been a lot of fun.

Excellent work pichenettes!
The Shruthi that keeps on giving. Very nice.

Titus Raindrops

That’s a pretty impressive code update list Olivier! Thank you!!

license

I see you updated the table too :) Thanks for all your hard work!

pichenettes

Glad all of you liked it.

If you would like to pay something for this work (code development, testing… down to “replacing the On/Off with Xs in the manual” :D): buy filter boards, spread the good word about the Shruthi-1 to bring more kits sales to me; or send donations by paypal to sales@mutable-instruments.net (I will bill this as a software development fee).

From now on I am back 100% on new projects – Mutable Instruments urgently needs to release new products to continue existing.

herrprof

Awesome can't wait! Beer money sent!

qp

I try to incorporated Mutable products in any video demo’s I do, then post about it in other forums (Moog, mainly). I want you to keep pushing out the product! Think I will add a link to our bands blog page as well. Yipee! Is there an official MI facebook? That may help a bit too.

EDIT: done&done

Titus Raindrops

Can I use the Mutable Instruments logo as the album art (on SoundCloud) for the demo tracks that I did (and will continue to do)?

I promote MI everywhere I can. If you read GearSlutz you will get more than your fill ;-)

license

Also sent some beer money.

6581punk

Is there no Mutable group on Facebook? it’s another avenue of promotion I guess.

One thing that would be nice, although it may be inconvenient is if the Shruthi-1 digital control board could be ordered as a kit separate from the SMR4. It’s handy for those who want to build another unit but with a different filter board.

Of course this can create the situation where you have more filter boards than control boards, meaning you might not be able to provide a kit to someone. But some of us are keen to get all our parts direct with the boards.

license

I was thinking a little while back about a Facebook group too.

Titus Raindrops

For those with too many filters and not enough digital boards, there is always the Sidekick ;-)

pichenettes

@6581punk

The biggest challenge Mutable Instruments has to face is the following: developing a decent synth kit like the Shruthi-1 (we’re not talking about a CMOS bleeper – we’re talking about something roughly on par in terms of R&D with some commercial hardware products), with appropriate documentation and support, requires almost the same amount of work as selling an assembled product. Production is equally tedious, support is more complicated. Yet, most customers are still thinking they are paying for bags of parts.

Publishing a price breakdown of the Shruthi-1 kit would be silly, but I hope it’s clear the cost of the parts themselves is only a fraction of it. If I were to prepare “Digital board kits”, there wouldn’t be such a big price different compared to a full kit. I am selling a product in a kit form ; but I don’t have the ambition / time / logistics to run a DIY parts business.

6581punk

So what you’re saying is the boards are the best way to make profit not kits?

If that is true then that’s cool. But we feel like we are depriving you of some money by buying all the parts elsewhere. But I guess unless you can buy wholesale and make a profit you would just be inflating the price further?

Titus Raindrops

I don’t feel that way. I figure it’s a lot less labor intensive to ship PCBs. The kits and pre-programmed chips take a lot of extra work, I’m sure.

6581punk

I guess so. Plus some people get irate when there’s a part missing, so it must be time consuming to check the parts.

pichenettes

PCBs are profitable (no labor), kits are profitable (lots of labor but high price because it is a “complete product”, can get good prices on parts if done in batches of 250 or 500), semi-kits are profitable (less labor to compensate for the small volumes involved). Something in-between is not.

fcd72

Besides the Profit: i don’t know if anybody of you has prepared 20, 50 or 100 times the same Kit. You can only survive the stupidity of this tedious task if in Knob-Count Zombie Mode – trust me there are pleasurable things to do than counting Resistors…..

6581punk

I can imagine, repetition really stresses me out and gives me chest pains lol.

loderbast

+1 beer money

i think the new features are awesome. i don`t know many boutique synths that have firmware this versatile. in fact, i often think the firmware is crap, compared to what should have been possible regarding the hardware.

yewtreemagic

Agreed - I've already been working on patches using the new duophonic mode, which is an incredible addition!

Martin

Fresh Pants

+2 beer money sent

FP

qp

There aren’t many large manufactures that have as versatile of firmware as the shruthi!

6581punk

Which is just as well, if the big boys were so great there would be no room for the more innovative smaller guys.

Jojjelito

Beer money sent! Mostly since there was super-sawy stuff in the demo clip ;-) And since there has to be something positive on Friday the 13th, besides the fact that it’s a Friday. Skål tamejfan!

Sometimes I wonder how Pichenettes can stand us needy, greedy customers…

Mathias

First of all, I finally got my Shruthi ordered, delivered, assembled, and updated. Everything has exceeded my (high) expectations, from the building process, to the user interface and the sound capabilities!!
I'm kind of glad that I didn't wait until the 4-Pole Mission came out - I would have spent my day in a fetal position, overwhelmed with sonic options. That can come later, with a new order.

A note on the envelope trigger option that I suggested a while ago. I'm delighted to find it in 0.96, although it doesn't quite work like I would have expected. From the wording in the instruction manual, I think it's by design. The trigger key, when routed through the matrix to an envelope, will trigger the envelope, but then passes over the "key-off" function to the regular played key. It ignores the key-off of the trigger key, which is a bit confusing, and not as useful as it could be. You couldn't, for example, hold a note on a regular key, and gate the envelope using the trigger key.

Once the modulation matrix has been set up, it seems that the only thing that SHOULD gate that envelope is the trigger note, not a vague shared responsibility. The modulation should go high, stay high while the key is held, and then go low (it might already do this, I forgot to check), and the envelope gate should respond to only that.

The manual says "Whenever the modulation source goes up, the envelope is retriggered.", with emphasis on REtriggered, so I assume it's on purpose. Too late to change?

qp

just wanna say, in duo mode, the SMR-4 sounds absolutely huge, amazing, hourswasting-tastic! When fed with a duophonic (poly has got to be insane!) signal, all of it’s subtle nuances and unique charm really shine! Duo was absolutely necessary!

dnigrin

Finally got time to try the new firmware this weekend – wonderful! I echo what others have said – the duo mode is really excellent, as are the other modes.

I kept thinking that these modes were begging for a MIDIpal filter on the inbound MIDI data stream. Imagine if somehow in duophony mode, if the MIDIpal could make it so that any MIDI note above some threshold was played on the OSC2, and below it on OSC1. Would likely require you to do something fancy in MIDIpal, to generate “dummy” silent notes if only one note was playing… I clearly haven’t thought it through all the way, but maybe you see what I mean….

license

Yeah this thing is tasty. I finally had the chance to play with my Shruthi some more yesterday. I didn't even think you could do it, but it's great with the arpeggiator. You can get some really juicy textures that way with delay and light pitch modulation, and of course tweaking the offset - a fifth or octave lower is really nice.

toadstool

I’ve fallen in love all over again! :D Huge compliments to Olivier again for the new firmware. It adds a whole new dimension. I just updated mine and have lost the past couple of hours playing with the new features. No synth I’ve ever heard makes noises like this! Thanks pichenettes, beer money on its way.

fcd72

@toadstool

Now i know how all these StarWars Imperial Industrial sounding Bleeps and Bloops were made. . . .

Jojjelito

That’s a great way of showing just how bizarre you can get using a Shruthi! Kudos!

toadstool

:) next it’s R4D4, when the Mission arrives…. excitement is building….. I mean my excitement is increasing however, building is exciting too ;-)
One of these days I will write some music but in the meantime, and in the words of Titus Raindrops, I shall continue on the crusade for bizarre noises until I’m “drooling excessively and one pupil has dilated” :D

Titus Raindrops

God I love that track. Would you please upload the sysex for that patch? I’ll upload the quacking ducks/throat singers in return.

This sounds like barfing in a subway. I must have this.

What filter board were you using BTW?

toadstool

Barfing in the subway pretty much sums it up :D :D Using just the regular SMR4 Mk1 filter. Bah… I can’t get Ctrlr on Linux to detect my MIDI device so have used MIOS studio to dump the sysex file.
I started with patch #1, Junon and then made both oscillators vowel wave and tweaked the oscillator parameters. There are also some other tweaks to sub-osc and the LFOs.
The recording was done using combo patch mode with the sequence from Junon on ‘seq+lt’ and then making it loop by using the test button. Then tweaking the ‘prm’ and ‘rng’ parameters on each oscillator makes for mind bending aural pleasure ;-) Try adjusting the mixer operator from ring to the others too.

toadstool

....Oh and after activating test mode on the latched sequence, change the bmp to ‘extern’ to get rid of the ticking sound and let it run free.

KSD

I was thinking how cool it would be if the test note could trigger the test note or sync the lfos and envelopes of other shruthis down the line. So releasing the test note would cause all Shruthi sequencers to start at once. I've been playing with a couple Shruthis and nothing else lately and and it sure is cool. Kinda like each Shruthi is a separate "track" in a sequencer. I don't know how ideal it would be to do so. Also I'm not sure if this falls into the category of "just buy MIDIpal, dude". Does the Shruthi send out master clock in any mode?

pichenettes

It wouldn’t work anyway because the Shruthi-1 doesn’t send the MIDI clock. A MIDIpal could indeed be use a global MIDI clock and start/stop message generator.

defenestration

wow so many sexy new features, I sorely need to update my firmware! just amazing work olivier, I think we have a timeless synth on our hands here

I am curious why the shruthi-1 doesn't transmit midi clock in any output mode? I was messing with unison shruthis and discovered this fact just today, was hoping to sync their sequencers from an external clock source by chaining the clock through one of the shruthis - curious why even the 'thru' mode does not pass an external clock signal along? is receiving and transmitting clock a big hog on processing cycles?

pichenettes

The Shruthi internal clock is at 4 ppqn (yes, four), which is not enough for deriving a MIDI clock signal. So the Shruthi can sync to an external clock signal, forward it, but cannot generate a clock signal for its internal sequencer.

This is something I plan to fix, but this is a can of worms as it touches many subjects (sequencer, arpeggiator, LFOs) ; and I’m pretty sure testing it will be a very complex task.

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