Critter & Guitari Organelle User Manual Download Page 1

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Welcome to Organelle

™

The User Guide for a New, Multipurpose
Digital Instrument from Critter & Guitari

Critter & Guitari

Summary of Contents for Organelle

Page 1: ...Welcome to Organelle The User Guide for a New Multipurpose Digital Instrument from Critter Guitari Critter Guitari ...

Page 2: ... Organelle is whatever you want it to be 9 So is it hardware or software 9 What are these patches you speak of 9 What is Pure Data And do I need to learn it to use Organelle 9 What other concepts may be useful to understand 10 How to Use This Manual 10 Chapter Two The Hardware Unit 12 Acquainting yourself with the box Layout of the Unit 12 Back Panel 12 Right side Panel 13 Main Face 14 A Few Confi...

Page 3: ...p 22 Outgoing MIDI 23 The Keys 23 The Knobs 23 The Aux Button 23 The Pedal Port 23 Incoming MIDI Messages 24 Note On Messages 24 Control Change Messages 24 Program Change Messages 25 Other MIDI Messages 25 Using a USB MIDI Device 25 Chapter Four Loading Patches from a Computer 27 Bringing additional patches from your computer to Organelle The Required USB Drive 27 General Information 28 Folder Str...

Page 4: ...d Pure Data Communicate 34 Remote Messaging 35 Reserved Remote Busses for Organelle 36 Overriding Standard MIDI Behavior 39 A Few Tips on Patch building 39 Things Unsaid 40 Chapter Six Attaching an HDMI Display 41 Using Organelle as a computer Keyboards and Mice 41 Operating Organelle as a Computer 42 The mother pd Helper Patch 44 The Patch Load Sequence 45 Other Operational Tips 46 Appendix A Fac...

Page 5: ...user guide was written by Dave Linnenbank First Edition January 2016 Critter Gutiari is a registered trademark of Critter Guitari Inc Organelle is a trademark of Critter Guitari Inc HDMI is a trademark of HDMI Licensing LLC Any other included product and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders By using them herein we are not implying affiliation with or en...

Page 6: ...pter for the shape of your wall socket Getting Started For the simplest configuration follow these steps 1 First connect the power adapter to a power outlet and then connect its plug to the leftmost port on the back of the Organelle Once the Organelle is receiving power it will begin booting up The screen will indicate when this process is done 2 With the volume all the way down connect your headp...

Page 7: ...y a different patch simply turn the Selector encoder and select another patch 5 When you have had enough fun for now properly shut down Organelle This is achieved by turning the Selector encoder so that the menu screen appears again From here scroll upward by turning the encoder to the left until you go past the PATCHES and reach the SYSTEM options Select the first option Shutdown and then press d...

Page 8: ...nd a sound producing device such as headphones or an audio cable to connect to a sound system no additional peripherals are needed for performance Organelle is an effects processor In addition to audio output ports Organelle also has an audio input port Accordingly patches can access and make use of incoming audio in various ways This can range from a simple effect processor like a filter or basic...

Page 9: ... to the settings and parameter values that create one sound in a synthesizer or some other predefined system Pure Data patches are a bit more expansive Each patch represents the entire software system for taking any all input received by Organelle processing it as desired and then delivering the output as audio etc via Organelle s output ports So by analogy these patches are closer to both the syn...

Page 10: ...decide to create patches a little bit more will be required but we will get to all that in later chapters How to Use This Manual Certain chapters such as this one are relevant to everyone But depending on how you will start using Organelle some chapters may be more valuable to you than others Regardless of your intentions the quick start chapter zero and concepts information chapter one will benef...

Page 11: ...n working off of the internal microcomputer itself chapter six will need some review Finally the various appendices can be useful to everyone And do realize that your uses of Organelle are likely to change over time If a chapter is not important to you today don t feel bad about that the chapters are happy to wait for you Page of 11 51 ...

Page 12: ...ts six faces containing either controls ports or other interface items We will start with the back and right side panels where all the ports are housed before moving to the controls of the main face Back Panel If you have turned on Organelle then you already have some familiarity with its ports but there is a little more here than you realize and a little more than is labeled Again our orientation...

Page 13: ...ur patch should receive a continuous range of values In our experience various expression pedal models and settings tend to deliver different ranges of values This can be addressed at the patch level The HDMI port delivers the video output of Organelle s internal microcomputer For additional information on using the HDMI port see chapter six The microSD card slot contains a card that acts as the i...

Page 14: ...s a window into its microcomputer brain serving as the on board method of monitoring and adjusting both the system itself and your patches The Selector encoder accompanies Organelle s display because they are dependent upon one another While a patch is loaded turning the Selector causes the display to show the menu screen By leaving the Selector alone for a few seconds the display will revert to t...

Page 15: ...any configuration can be mixed and matched Minimal Performance Setup Here we start with a variation on the setup proposed in the quick start guide chapter zero This bare bones approach is the most compact performance configuration possible Note that the power is connected to the wall and that the first USB port has a flash drive inserted with our Patches folder Without both the power adapter and U...

Page 16: ...is not problematic in and of itself but it could affect your setup choices and expectations And while we will no longer note the inevitable presence both of the power adapter and the USB drive containing our Patches folder we will observe here that our USB drive is now connected to the second USB port instead of the first one The point is that Organelle s two USB ports are completely interchangeab...

Page 17: ...d Computer Peripherals This example uses headphones for audio output a USB hub for connecting more than two devices and an HDMI monitor for seeing Organelle s microcomputer at work Connecting an HDMI monitor to Organelle shows the internal microcomputer s command line interface and graphical user interface For additional information on using the HDMI port see chapter six Our USB drive is still con...

Page 18: ...n go and we will also go through the default MIDI operation of Organelle and how connected USB MIDI devices interface with Organelle These topic areas will prepare you for general use of Organelle So let s start using it now and get the pretty box singing The Selector and the On board Display To interface with Organelle we will primarily work with two of its components The Selector encoder allows ...

Page 19: ... move up and down respectively in the patch list If we scroll too far to the left we will navigate past the patches menu and up into the system menu In that case simply move back down to the patches menu To load the selected patch press down on the top of the Selector encoder After the patch is successfully loaded Organelle s display shifts to show us the patch information screen which we will dis...

Page 20: ...lect the desired option by turning the Selector and then press down on the top of the Selector Eject safely unmounts an attached USB drive The display will notify you when it is safe to unplug the USB drive Reload rescans the Patches folder of the attached USB drive and then refreshes Organelle s patches menu This also unloads the current patch so note that all sound will stop until you load anoth...

Page 21: ...ated Shutdown safely prepares Organelle to be powered off The display will notify you when it is safe to unplug the power supply from the unit Once the unit has been shut down you must remove and reconnect power to start using it again Patch Information Screen Once a patch is loaded you will be taken to the patch information screen which serves as your main performance interface Once a patch is lo...

Page 22: ...h 1 2 3 and 4 each representing that respective knob Following the knob number is usually a short name for the parameter being altered and then a numeric representation of that parameter s current value So in the example shown above Knob 2 is controlling a parameter named Vibrato Rate that is current set to 8 Hz The bottom line is prefaced with Aux as it tends to provide more information about the...

Page 23: ...e number 83 B4 with all keys in between following this scheme When a key is pressed down a velocity of 100 is transmitted When a key is released a velocity of 0 zero is sent The Knobs Knobs 1 2 3 and 4 transmit control change messages using controller numbers 21 22 23 and 24 respectively The full range of controller values from 0 to 127 is utilized The Aux Button The Aux button transmits momentary...

Page 24: ...gs are a bit of a mirror So let s take particular note of how incoming MIDI messages interact with and can sometimes override Organelle s on board controls And similar to the outgoing messages incoming messages should be sent on channel one Note On Messages Incoming note messages can happen concurrently with note messages created by playing Organelle s keys If incoming and internal notes are occur...

Page 25: ... Just as they are displayed in the patches menu all currently available patches are taken in alphabetical order and each patch is then dynamically assigned a program number based on its position So if Organelle had three patches available called A Patch B Patch and C Patch program number 1 would call up A Patch program number 2 would call up B Patch and program number 3 would call up C Patch If th...

Page 26: ...currently loaded patch Reloading a patch will recognize all currently connected USB MIDI devices That s about it By remembering to reload your patch and knowing what MIDI messages are understood by Organelle see the immediately previous section and or those understood by the particular patch you have loaded you should be all set to use MIDI with Organelle Page of 26 51 ...

Page 27: ...to our properly formatted USB drive which can then be connected to Organelle for running our newfound patches And yes that computer could be running Windows Macintosh Linux or some other operating system No additional software is required the computer is just being used to download files possibly decompress them and then copy their folders to the USB drive In this chapter we ll look at how to work...

Page 28: ...a folder named as you would like the patch name to appear Each patch s folder must contain a file named main pd that contains the top level patch itself If any other files are required by the patch they must also be included in the patch s folder Folder Structure An example directory listing of an Organelle friendly USB drive would start like this You can see here at least four patches each with a...

Page 29: ...ected to Organelle properly Eject the disk before removing it This option can be found by accessing the system information screen from the system menu See the end of this chapter for specific instructions When using the included USB drive be sure it is flipped the right way before connecting to your computer The drive that comes with Organelle has an extremely low profile consisting of the bottom ...

Page 30: ...n pd file that serves as the primary file for that patch As long as this file is in place that patch will appear in Organelle s patches menu as the folder name So in the example shown above the first four patches shown on Organelle would be 32 Oscillators Analog Style Arpeggio Double and Basic Poly Making Changes to the USB Drive Assuming your USB drive is formatted correctly and the Patches folde...

Page 31: ... it something like 1 Basic Poly This allows you to order the patches you will need while preserving their names Additional USB Information Here are couple other procedures and facts to bearing in mind while working with USB on Organelle To safely unmount a connected USB disk from the patch information screen turn the Selector knob to call up the menu screen Turn the Selector to the left upward to ...

Page 32: ...nelle s display the status color to be shown on the Aux button s LED and of course the rendered audio that is delivered to Organelle s outlets While this might sound a bit dense we have created a system that makes adapting and or creating Pure Data patches for Organelle as simple as possible This allows your patches to keep working in their normal fashion with you lightly amending them to receive ...

Page 33: ...ds yes like patch cords The clear analogy here is to modular sound synthesis and many of the same concepts apply in programming Pure Data Since the low level objects are already built for us our task is to think and work at a higher level creating a patch that achieves our desired objective This higher level approach is the key to Pure Data you focus on concepts and functionality trusting that the...

Page 34: ...ratch As such newcomers to Pure Data and those who are on the fence about programming should begin here Create patches of your own Not for the faint of heart this approach is more suitable for those who have some familiarity Pure Data or a similar dataflow patching programming language already But if you get inspiration from staring at a blank canvas and reading a lot of documentation you can try ...

Page 35: ...ose first argument critter sets the remote buss where incoming messages are being sent When that send object receives the number 22 it is passed on to all receive object who are similarly set with the argument critter And as we can see in the above example the receive critter object did indeed receive 22 while receive guitari did not As the send and receive objects may get a lot of use you can als...

Page 36: ...ts indicate that messages are flowing over the air Finally we have discussed the obvious feature of remote transmissions in Pure Data no patch cords But there is another benefit to using these methods the transmitter send send throw and receiver receive receive catch objects don t need to be in the same patch This is at the heart of how Organelle and Pure Data work together Reserved Remote Busses ...

Page 37: ...rising the key number 60 83 depending on which key is sending the message and the velocity 100 for a key being pressed 0 for a key being released receive inL Incoming signal from the hardware s left audio input audio signal represented in the standard range of 1 to 1 receive inR Incoming signal from the hardware s right audio input audio signal represented in the standard range of 1 to 1 receive v...

Page 38: ...status of Knob 4 any message type will be accepted including list and symbol send screenLine5 Outgoing messages that set the first line of Organelle s display after the level meters usually this line displays the status of the Aux button and any function under its control any message type will be accepted including list and symbol send led Outgoing messages that set the status of the Aux button s ...

Page 39: ...g the standard MIDI messages used by Organelle see chapter three The assumption is that your patch will then provide its own methods for dealing with MIDI But again it s your prerogative A Few Tips on Patch building Here are a few thoughts and suggested guidelines for preparing and or making Pure Data patches for Organelle Build the simple version first Particularly if this kind of programming is ...

Page 40: ... a working version that you can go back to Just in case Things Unsaid In summary we have covered all the messages that Organelle is either providing to or expecting from your patch By equipping your patch to use those remote busses you are enabling your patch to be Organelle friendly and live well in this ecosystem But we have not told you how to make a patch And again this is by design Aside from...

Page 41: ... also recognize that you might want run Organelle with a monitor keyboard and mouse some folks might find it particularly nice to edit patches in this fashion So our main theme has reemerged it s your choice This chapter will walk us through the general use of Organelle along with HDMI which presumes the use of a keyboard and mouse as well We will do this by going through a general narrative of us...

Page 42: ...uter After you have connected an HDMI monitor and powered it on you will immediately see a semi cryptic terminal window for text entry To optimize performance Organelle runs in this fashion with no graphical user interface or GUI by default This window helpfully suggests that you run the command startx to start up the standard graphical environment So if we want to go beyond this screen we will ne...

Page 43: ... is started The red octagonal icon at the bottom right of the screen represents a stop sign When you are done working in this graphical operation mode you should click this icon To exit Organelle s graphical operation mode click the red octagonal icon at the bottom right of the screen This will close out all open windows and unload the current Organelle patch interrupting any ongoing audio output ...

Page 44: ...cenes implications of loading a patch Our patch in this case Basic Poly has been loaded and its main pd file is taking up most of the screen But sitting atop the patch we expected is one we did not The mother pd Helper Patch mother pd exists at the root or top directory of Organelle which is located on the microSD that comes preloaded within the Organelle hardware This helper patch is the other ha...

Page 45: ...his The Patch Load Sequence To better understand the full relationship at hand let s take a step back for a moment Anytime a patch is loaded Organelle goes through a sequence of steps 1 If a patch is currently loaded it receives a bang message over the quitting remote buss This allows any cleanup processes to be executed 2 If a patch is currently loaded it then prompts the Pure Data application to...

Page 46: ... that you can build upon you will also encounter some external objects that are not part of the Vanilla Pd distribution To use an external in a patch of your own copy it to your patch s folder NOTE Externals that you encounter here are built for the Linux operating system that Organelle is running If you are building patches on your own computer these externals will only work if you are also runni...

Page 47: ... all keys of the keyboard The knobs control tempo amplitude envelope for the sample and a selection of eight different arpeggio patterns A foot switch via the Pedal port can be used to turn on latch mode for hands free operation Arpeggio Synth Categories synthesizer arp Similar to the Arpeggio Sampler but with a synthesizer for the audio engine The knobs control tempo a selection of arpeggio patte...

Page 48: ...re wave oscillators with this patch The keyboard controls the base frequency of one oscillator which is also tunable from Knob 2 The second oscillator plays a selectable harmonic of the base frequency The third oscillator plays a variable amount of random junk frequencies at the beginning of each note You can also adjust how the oscillators to glide to their next frequency the Slidiness factor The...

Page 49: ... sequencer engine as Nice Surprises but here we are using sine waves instead of squares This allows for some cool weird organ tones It is also four voice polyphonic Tuned Delay Category synthesizer delay sequencer A percussive impulse sample is fed through a delay line The delay line is tuned to the keys allowing you to pitch the sound The effect is similar to plucked string algorithms think Karpl...

Page 50: ...ontrast OLED display screen Four parameter knobs Rotary Selector knob with push button select Volume knob 25x maple key RGB LED Processor Specifications 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 with 512 MB RAM Linux operating system Boot time 12 seconds Storage 4GB USB Drive included patches and any required files audio samples etc are stored here Additional Connections 2x USB port 2 0 standard A type connector USB hos...

Page 51: ...1 0 Amp power supply included Physical Characteristics Size 10 5 x 3 25 x 2 125 Enclosure anodized aluminum top ABS plastic bottom rubber foot pads New patches are available at organelle io Visit our forum at forum critterandguitari com Page of 51 51 ...

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