Book plate

“A Book is a Journey” Bookplate found at Vons in West Lafayette, Indiana. I somehow did not take a photo of the cover but I believe it was a 1950’s or earlier Math Dictionary or Encyclopedia.

Wonderful, tight passageway in the basement of Von’s.

I also found it notable t hat Von’s has a whole room full of the typical college dorm room accessories unchanged from what a similar store would have sold in the 90s.

An above average selection of vinyl and used cds was for sale (including a bin of left over Record Store Day items). Another room was packed with beaded style necklace and new age-ish crystal type items. An interesting comment on a world that loves science and shuns traditional faith. A touch of the spiritual that demands little in the way of action, awe or adoration. All in all, a brisk business was being done throughout the store this Friday afternoon in July and I was happy to see it.

OPZ midi sequencing

Note: Any track can be used for midi sequencing.

Ensure midi out is enabled on the opz:

Hold the screen button and press the metronome button three times, then pressing the “3” key to turn midi out on/off. You may also use the app to turn midi on and off

Set the midi channel for your chosen track

Select the track on the opz, in the app adjust the channel or hold down shift then hold down the instrument until the step lights flash. When lights flash, select the new midi channel.

By default, the internal synth will still play on the track. Turn off output from the opz internal synth for the channel: hold mixer + shift then instrument. This will mute the internal synth.

Set up midi cc:

You must use the app to set the midi cc’s for each track.

Go to midi setup on app,

Mutable Instruments Peaks Calibration

To enter calibration mode on the Mutable Instruments peaks, power the module on with the second button pressed. The first and second knobs act as coarse/fine adjustments for offset on channel 1 (The third and fourth knobs do the same for channel 2). Check both channels with a multimeter and adjust until they’re at 0V.

To complete, press the top button to save the calibration and restart.

The wonderful, perplexing MFB-503

Ah, MFB. Maker of wonderful instruments and usually bewildering user interfaces. Today we look at the MFB-503 Drumcomputer

To start, press play. My unit seems to sometimes set the tempo of empty patterns to zero causing the pattern to appear to not play. Each pattern has an a and a b section.

To select a pattern:

Hold the Pattern button then enter the pattern number to play using the step keys one to zero. For example, to play pattern 23, press 2 then 3. The Pattern changes at the start of the next measure once you release the Pattern button. To delay pattern start, keep Pattern held down.

To program a pattern:

Start the target pattern playing. To delete the pattern, press record and play at the same time for two seconds.

Hold record and press a step key to select the instrument to record. Adjust the step keys to turn triggers on and off.

Mutable Instruments Clouds Clones: Monsoon vs uClouds SE

I mistakenly thought that the Tall Dog uClouds se was an expanded clouds (similar to monsoon) but smaller. This is a not correct. uClouds se is only a shrunk down clouds. I believe my confusion came from the “se”. I previously, mistakenly, thought the Instruō uClouds was by tall-dog and that the “se” was another tall-dog version with improvements.

Currently Monsoon is, in my opinion, the best Clouds implementation.

OriginaluClouds SeMonsoon
Inputs121215
Pots7710
HP18 hp8 hp12 hp
Notes

Op-z notes

It’s easy to forget how to use the Teenage Engineering opz if you’ve been away from it. Here are my notes.

To select a pattern:

Hold the “P” key along the top edge of the opz then press one of the number keys to select the bank then one of the trig keys (the 1st row of keys above the number keys) to select the pattern with-in that bank.

Select the track:

Hold down the “I” key near the left-hand side (underneath the words “OP-Z”) then press one of the buttons in the same row. The icons above the buttons indicate the track type (Kick drum, snare, hi-hat, percussion, bass, lead, arp, chord, etc.)

Select a patch:

Hold down the “I” key (track select) then press a number key and or a note button (the last row of buttons) to select a patch. I believe the number keys may be banks of patches

Set the tempo:

Hold down the 3rd button along the top edge (next to the metronome icon) then use the number button to type in the new tempo.

While holding down the 3rd button you can also do the following:

  • turn the green dial to change the tempo
  • turn the blue dial to adjust swing (when the green light is lite you are at zero swing)
  • turn the red dial to adjust the metronome volume.

Mute tracks:

To mute a track, hold the “mixer” button – the second button along the top of the opz then press a track button to mute it.

Change track length:

Hold the track key, press shift + a step number to set the last step

Saving patches:

Press track (“I” button) and any white key for a second or two (white lights will progress to the right)

Randomize synth:

Press track + record

Move a pattern:

Hold down project, press shift (shift turns orange-ish), keep holding project, select new project and pattern to paste

Delete a pattern:

Make the pattern you want to delete the current pattern. Hold down project, hold down stop. The step lights will light up sequential order, keep holding until the final step light is lit.

Booting an Asus x200ca from USB

Here is the procedure to boot an Asus x200 (x200ca in my case) from USB (ie. to install Linux on it).

While booting, press F2 to enter the bios

Go to the “Security” tab and disable “secure boot”

In the boot tab, enable CMS and Enable PXE boot

In the boot tab, disable fast boot

In USB options, set all to enabled.

Save your change the press Esc while rebooting. A boot menu should appear.

This worked for me on bios version 300-something. A Youtube video implied that you needed version 500 or above on some x200 version. This was not the case for me.

I was able to boot into a Manjaro Linux live distro on USB and everything worked great. In particular the touch screen seemed to work better than under Windows (I seemed to get a lot of false touches under windows).

Juno 106 All notes off

The Roland Juno 106 does not have a built-in midi “All notes off” button or function. If you get a stuck or hung note you need to either turn off the synth or use some outside midi tool to send the all notes off command.

I did find a work-around though – if you change the midi channel on the Juno 106 (press midi plus a bank number button), all voices will stop sounding.

As a side note, I’ve never experienced stuck or hung notes from the Juno itself. I only get them when using various sequencers and experimental code sending midi to the Juno.