Merging CV...

[jallen97]

Alright... Hopefully I can describe what I am trying to do here.. I have made some 'intelligent harmonizer' combinator patches that I use to play parallel 6ths in a particular key. I have used like 30 NN XTs to accomplish this and was thinking maybe I could do it by merging CV data into a couple NN XTs and bring the CPU load down.
So... I was trying this and I thought it was working until I brought my second CV signal to merge into an NN XT. At that point my harmony notes disappeared.
I will try to explain by giving you the chain I put inside a combinator:
Arpeggiator(bc that's the only device I've found that will send out CV note data)>CV merger>NN XT
I use an Arpeggiator for each note and restrict the note range for one note and then transpose accordingly.
When I merged the second arpeggiator into the CV merger I didn't get any more notes.
Any advice or ideas would be greatly appreciated. The patches I've used with the multiple NN XTs have worked great but I just got Chambre and it is awesome but my computer is old and the patches are MUCH bigger than the stock string sounds.(which I guess is why they sound so AWESOME!)
I apologize if this makes no sense... It kind of makes my brain hurt to figure out

[eusti]

Not sure if I completely understand... But as far as I know you cannot merge two note CVs and expect notes to come out.

D.

[jallen97]

Not sure if I completely understand... But as far as I know you cannot merge two note CVs and expect notes to come out.

D.

Sorry, I had a feeling I wasn't communicating it very well...
I can merge multiple CV notes into the CV note jack of the NN XT though, right??

[jallen97]

With a CV merger, that is...
I did wonder if I am missing something in my understanding though because I wasn't getting the red light on one of the CV mergers I was using... can't remember if it was the gate or note one though..

[eusti]

Not sure if I completely understand... But as far as I know you cannot merge two note CVs and expect notes to come out.

D.

Sorry, I had a feeling I wasn't communicating it very well... I can merge multiple CV notes into the CV note jack of the NN XT though, right??

As I understand it you can merge several note CVs into a single NN XT, but only get the planned result if only one of them is playing at the same time.

Yep, just confirmed it.

D.

[eusti]

This https://shop.propellerheads.se/browse/?q=Distributor or this https://shop.propellerheads.se/product/ ... lar-synth/ should be able to merge different single note CV signals to make them polyphonic.

[jallen97]

Thanks so much eusti, I will check that out!

[Carly(Poohbear)]

You can get 2 CV signals into an instrument by putting the instrument into a combinator, attach one matrix\RPG to the instruments Gate and note CV and the other into the combinators Gate and Note CV. The instrument (if set to poly) will now play 2 notes together  :s0801:  

[eusti]

You can get 2 CV signals into an instrument by putting the instrument into a combinator, attach one matrix\RPG to the instruments Gate and note CV and the other into the combinators Gate and Note CV. The instrument (if set to poly) will now play 2 notes together  :s0801:  

Thanks for this! Didn't know that, Carly(Poohbear)!

D.

[bouwie]

You can use a hamu mingler. It merges two cv signals into one. More exatly: the second note will be played a little fraction later. But it works.

[challism]

You might also try DLD Techonology CV-8 gateway.  It's a free RE in the shop.  It's more of an "intelligent switch" but might work for what you are doing, too.

https://shop.propellerheads.se/product/cv-gateway/

[jam-s]

If you are trying to create chords then https://shop.propellerheads.se/product/chordset/ should be a very helpful RE.

[Raveshaper]

This is a topic worth digging into because not only am I stumped, the question keeps coming up.

In short format, the question is: How Does Thor Send Note CV and How Does CV Handle Polyphony?

I got the CV-2 Meter from DLD and set it to receive in bipolar mode.
In the modbus of Thor, I programmed KeyNote > 100 > CV Out1.
I connected the Thor to the CV-2 Meter.

According to the meter, a three note chord sends a value of zero, while each note individually sends a value relative to the midpoint (value 64).
When no notes are playing, the midpoint value of 64 is displayed as expected.

My Thoughts / Guesses

Since midi notes are numbered and represented as a specific number in the range of 0 to 127, it would seem that multiple notes would behave like arithmetic addition; sending some type of cumulative higher value indicating a specific grouping of notes. But instead, they send the lowest number possible.

Since CV is limited to the range of 0 to 127, it would appear that polyphony over a CV wire is not supported. Perhaps polyphonic information creates values in a range beyond those that CV can broadcast or interpret.
But this is not the case, because sending polyphonic events out of an RPG-8 is possible.

Whatever is going on, it is specific to Thor and is quite perplexing considering Thor is showcased as a polyphonic device. It should be capable of exporting polyphony as well.
Being able to pick apart what it is doing, why it is doing it, and how to interpret the result is worthy of research.

Is this another RTFM topic? I admit I still haven't read it.

[GRIFTY]

So, I have a similar question. Can I take two autotheorys and merge the chord outputs to the input of a korde sequencer? I have been excited to try this for days but haven't gotten a chance yet

[GRIFTY]

basically i  want to merge two or three POLYPHONIC cv note/gate signals into one single cv input.  is that possible? i'm trying it out now....and it is NOT working with a simple dual spider setup

[Raveshaper]

I don't believe merging polyphonic messages is possible or advisable.

Think of each note as a train, with all trains going down parallel train tracks. Each merge of polyphony would be represented by a track switch that would allow one train to merge on to the track beside it. If another train is there, then wham! The two collide.

I guess it would depend on what you want to achieve, so maybe I'm unclear on that?

[hydlide]

basically i  want to merge two or three POLYPHONIC cv note/gate signals into one single cv input.  is that possible? i'm trying it out now....and it is NOT working with a simple dual spider setup

merging polyphony in one cv input is possible, but the outcome is rather weird. Since polyphony CV is similar (not the same) as adding different Note info in to one CV signal.
Lets say C1 has a value of 64, and D#1 has a value of 67. The CV output value will be 64+67 and not the expected 64 and 67.

I hope this makes sense what I am writing down right now. 

[kloeckno]

Autotheory and Autoarp both achieve a sort of polyphony through one CV and Gate wire. And you can do it yourself with Thor or some CV utilities.

The key is that you can't let the CV values add up. So they have to be triggered with a slight delay between the different notes and they can't overlap. And there has to be a gate held the whole time to get a chord. There is just one downside: all the notes stay on until the gate is released, and they can't be released individually like real polyphony.

[jam-s]

There's also a PolyCV protocol that uses negative note CV, but sadly only very few synths currently recognize it.

[jallen97]

If you are trying to create chords then https://shop.propellerheads.se/product/chordset/ should be a very helpful RE.

Oh yeah! I remember when this came out but I wasn't trying to fix the problem I am now. I think I will give it a try cuz it looks like it may be exactly what I need.
I do have CV Tuner but the octave range seems to be a little narrow on it for what I need. Either that or there is something I just don't get, which is entirely possible. I had no idea CV note data was so complicated!!!

[jam-s]

I had no idea CV note data was so complicated!!!

In the hardware world CV pre-dates midi and midi was invented because of the limitations CV has. (It would be really great if Reason also had virtual midi cables.)

Reason faithfully emulates hardware CV (control voltage): it's just a cable that can have an analogue voltage, so only one value at a time. Therefore it is monophonic by design (and all those polyphonic CV things in Reason are using some kind of tricks to make it work somehow).

[jallen97]

I had no idea CV note data was so complicated!!!

In the hardware world CV pre-dates midi and midi was invented because of the limitations CV has. (It would be really great if Reason also had virtual midi cables.)

Reason faithfully emulates hardware CV (control voltage): it's just a cable that can have an analogue voltage, so only one value at a time. Therefore it is monophonic by design (and all those polyphonic CV things in Reason are using some kind of tricks to make it work somehow).

Ok, now it's making sense to me. I was wondering why it couldn't take 2 notes from different places and send them to one place... But I had totally forgotten that CV is control voltage.
And yes! Virtual MIDI would be nice for these types of applications!!!

[jallen97]

Something I think I figured out is that it seems like if a have a whole bunch of the same NN XT in a combinator they share one set of samples...? I was afraid my computer would freak out with all those samples being loaded up(thinking there would be a set for each instance of the an NN XT, I have about 30 of them in a combinator)
But it doesn't seem to be a huge load, so my guess is that they are just pooling the samples between all those combinators.
(Hopefully that made some sense to someone

[jam-s]

Another nice tip: If you just want to have two instances of the same instrument inside a combinator always playing a fixed number of semitones apart from each other, then you can simply transpose the notes sent to one of those within the programmer of the combinator. That way you can also build (static) cords etc.

[Raveshaper]

In my experience, each sampler you load will reserve system resources for its samples, even if they are the same. But maybe I'm wrong or 8+ fixes that.

I would choose a virtual midi cable system over a cv wire any day. If you need CV, send it out to a convertor on real modular gear. No need to emulate the oldest tech of the industry in a computer. 21st century and all that.