SquaredHeads Nora: Arpeggiator (2.5 Released!)

[squaredheads]

Interestingly, Nora is the name of the protagonist in Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's famous drama from 1879, 'Et Dukkehjem' (A Doll's House).

Nora is living in an traditional, oppressive marriage, being treated like an irresponsible child. She finally decides, against the social conventions of the times, to leave her husband – and her children – to seek freedom.

So, the name 'Nora' is a symbol of going against prejudice, cutting loose from from stifling traditions. Rather fitting for an innovative musical tool, don't you think?

/Joachim

Well, Nora is a girl name. That's why one of our logos is a girl Just don't become abstracted about what does it means, but the program in itself

[magicmusic]

I notice strange sound when the note off time of 1 note in a chord (that trigger nora)is diffrent to other notes. it sounds as there come a short note on and then release. thats wrong. most it can hear on piano or staccato strings. Only when all 3 notes end exact at same time (are perfect quantise) it work ok. so realtime play or change note length without quantise is not possible.

I test 2.01 Demo. maybe there is a newer beta that i can test ?

[squaredheads]

Hi Juan,

I love NORA. I use OSX Ableton and NORA allows me to write chord progressions in track one (or an instance of NORAHarm or Cthulhu Chords), and then have separate instances of NORA listening to track one and play their own, instrument specific pattern to a linked instrument. So all instruments follow the same progression, but their own pattern with is super mega great. I prefer NORA over the (also very good) Cthulhu ARP, because NORA is more flexible, standard piano roll type interface and polyphonic.
And I love the presets, which are a great source of inspiration.

Two questions:
I have a Mac Magic Mouse, but that causes issues with the auto zoom etc. in the pattern editor. I switched back to an old USB mouse and that works fine. It might put of other users, so thats why I mention it.

That's the idea, I'm glad you're enjoying the program. Unfortunately I cannot adapt Nora to Magic Mouse, because we are a pretty small business and we should: purchase one piece and spend time working on it - sorry for the inconvenience. Apple should work in their compatibility like Window does. That's the reason I didn't develop Nora 1.4 for Apple. Windows = VST. Apple = AU/MIDIFX/VST. It requesst a lot of time from us! And the problem would be worse if we start supporting every single piece of hardware. If someday we get bigger, we could do it for sure

Two: could you foresee some kind of 'pattern exchange' or place where we can post and download additional patterns? Or maybe something like Microtonics 'Pattenarium'!

There is two problems here. There is little interest into sharing presets (the proof, I asked several times to my customers if they could help me with presets, only five did it), and I would have to study how to do it, which means aditional time from us. It could involve that Nora install some files in your system or tweak some parameters, like the registry in Window. However I would do it, if I would see to people sharing presets, or creating banks. At the moment it has low priority.

My penny's thought on further development: keep pattern and playlist options because people want the ability to chain patterns. I would however focus on a One NORA instance-One Instrument logic. There is no issue whatsoever to use multiple instances, and there is IMHO no advantage in having one instance playing several tracks. That is what DAW's are for. Just my view.

Keep up the excellent work, your work has already given me hours and hours of music making fun!

Well, it depends from the final user. Nora gives you the tools, you use what you need. There is some users that really love it, triggering a full song from just a chord. And the best part is, it is finished, it doesn't request more develop time.

One of the next updates will mimic an host feature. However you don't need to use it! In fact, you can hide it with an option. But other users (maybe yourself too) could take advantage of it. It was done only to do Nora and multi track more easy to route, since routing is the #1 problem that final user have with it. As I always say: you will be able to use Nora exactly as Nora 1.0 always, without cluster the interface

[squaredheads]

I notice strange sound when the note off time of 1 note in a chord (that trigger nora)is diffrent to other notes. it sounds as there come a short note on and then release. thats wrong. most it can hear on piano or staccato strings. Only when all 3 notes end exact at same time (are perfect quantise) it work ok. so realtime play or change note length without quantise is not possible.

I test 2.01 Demo. maybe there is a newer beta that i can test ?

We're aware of that problem. The problem is the "Piano roll" technology with exact timing that Nora uses. Once the incoming host chord changes Nora re-calculate the new output notes and that's why it produces those annoying NoteOn. It isn't an easy problem to fix due to Nora nature (It's like how to do a car could walk in the water), but we are researching the solution for this problem.

[Musical Gym]

Is it possible to make latest/current betas available to owners for testing, or is this already available?

One dev, whose product I use, does it and it seems to be beneficial to everyone.
The users always can get the latest and the dev gets good feedback on the betas.

Will you be starting a squaredheads forum at KVR?

[squaredheads]

Is it possible to make latest/current betas available to owners for testing, or is this already available?

Lastest beta have been private ones, since they could have problems with saved files, they were corrupt. Now in the next series of updates there isn't any need of betatesting, and here is the reason. We're working on v2.5 but it will be released in small updates. It means that we quickly release 2.1, 2.2, etc, and patching the bugs or changing some details in each update before the next one. The first one is pretty close. I hope I can have it for the end of this month (january).

Will you be starting a squaredheads forum at KVR?

We emailed few times, since we released Nora 1.0, but there isn't any reply yet. Here is our last attempt:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 6&t=424727

Maybe we arent Steinberg or Yamaha, but hey, It would be nice having our own forum here, in KVR.

[Musical Gym]

I tried to view topic, but I get the message that I'm not authorized to read the forum. Maybe they are working on it.

[squaredheads]

I just realized that the topic is placed in a KVR section that only developers can read. You may upgrade temporaly your account to a developer one to see it, but it is a simple post where I ask for a subforum, without any reply at the moment:

Hi,

I've tried to request a company forum a few times since April 14. It's still awaiting processing, so I assume there is some problem. How can I proceed?

I'll try again when I release the next version

[magicmusic]

We're aware of that problem. The problem is the "Piano roll" technology with exact timing that Nora uses. Once the incoming host chord changes Nora re-calculate the new output notes and that's why it produces those annoying NoteOn. It isn't an easy problem to fix due to Nora nature (It's like how to do a car could walk in the water), but we are researching the solution for this problem.

oh, sound as there is no hope that it can work. near nobody build a car that can walk in the water. Do you know how long this short notes are ?. i do not understand, wy a note on come, when a trigger note is release. I never see such a problem on other arps. Maybe it is possible that there is a VST plugin out than can delete all notes with note on time lower as 1/32. I need no note time less than 1/16 . or maybe you can change that the recalculation from trigger notes is only done on quarters. I test the midichordhold VST that is suggest here, but problem is the same. maybe you have a idea what plugins i can use to avoid this problem. ? i currently have not buy yet, because before it not work, as i need i wait, maybe there are other arps out. The main reason i like your arp, is that your arp is able
to support more octaves. give much better melodies as only 1 octave. also the patterns in the demo sound very good and it have a good browser. I see no other arp that have this feature. but i have not all tests, i guess there are many out

[Musical Gym]

I just realized that the topic is placed in a KVR section that only developers can read. You may upgrade temporaly your account to a developer one to see it, but it is a simple post where I ask for a subforum, without any reply at the moment:

Hi,

I've tried to request a company forum a few times since April 14. It's still awaiting processing, so I assume there is some problem. How can I proceed?

I'll try again when I release the next version

Sounds good. If you are unsure of the process, let me know and I can try to help.

[kurodo]

Maybe it is possible that there is a VST plugin out than can delete all notes with note on time lower as 1/32. I need no note time less than 1/16 . or maybe you can change that the recalculation from trigger notes is only done on quarters.

Actually the suggestion to have an option to delete notes less than a user defined length seems like a good idea.
Occasionally I have also seen some very small notes appear in a sequence which I simply delete manually but an automated menu option seems like a good idea as it would further speed up workflow especially on larger sequences.
Option: Nora MidiOut self-record strip notes less than.

The main reason i like your arp, is that your arp is able
to support more octaves. give much better melodies as only 1 octave. also the patterns in the demo sound very good and it have a good browser. I see no other arp that have this feature. but i have not all tests, i guess there are many out

There aren't that many more powerful polyphonic Arps, well not to the same depth as Nora.
The Full version comes with a lot more usable presets as well.
And if that aint enough you can always start using the randomizer/mutator (not available in the demo) to come up endless new patterns.

[squaredheads]

oh, sound as there is no hope that it can work. near nobody build a car that can walk in the water. Do you know how long this short notes are ?. i do not understand, wy a note on come, when a trigger note is release. I never see such a problem on other arps.

Well, it's still possible, but we need to figure out the way to do it. The reason that other arppegiators don't have this problem is the free polyphony together with the unrestricted note timing. It's a bit hard of explain, but trust me that I'm thinking into a solution for it.

Maybe it is possible that there is a VST plugin out than can delete all notes with note on time lower as 1/32. I need no note time less than 1/16 . or maybe you can change that the recalculation from trigger notes is only done on quarters. I test the midichordhold VST that is suggest here, but problem is the same. maybe you have a idea what plugins i can use to avoid this problem. ?

It's imposible know the lenght of a Note, since the host only send "note on" and "note off" events in different "buffers". Since Nora is now sample accurate as soon as the "note on" is triggered, Nora must play it as soon as it receives. A buffer can have, lets say, 512 samples (very small amount of time). If I receive the noteOn in a buffer without noteOff, I must play it. Then if I receive the noteOff in the next buffer, I must stop it. I cannot delete the note because it has been already played. The other explanation is more complicated that this one

The only workaround is quantizing your keyboard input. You can record a chord progression, then quantize it. However I could do that Nora had some latency to remove these notes - but the most users wouldn't exactly love Nora with latency

i currently have not buy yet, because before it not work, as i need i wait, maybe there are other arps out. The main reason i like your arp, is that your arp is able
to support more octaves. give much better melodies as only 1 octave. also the patterns in the demo sound very good and it have a good browser. I see no other arp that have this feature. but i have not all tests, i guess there are many out

I think there is no perfect arp, in the same way there is no perfect daw/synth. Just purchase the one suit your needs better, I won't become jealousy

[squaredheads]

If you are unsure of the process, let me know and I can try to help.

Thanks! If you can help, I will PM you in a couple of weeks

[squaredheads]

Actually the suggestion to have an option to delete notes less than a user defined length seems like a good idea.
Occasionally I have also seen some very small notes appear in a sequence which I simply delete manually but an automated menu option seems like a good idea as it would further speed up workflow especially on larger sequences.
Option: Nora MidiOut self-record strip notes less than.

MidiOut self-record, however, can delete such notes easily, since I'm working with the full sequence information. However they shouldn't be produced. Could you email me a MIDI file with the result? How are you producing them? By keyboard playing?

[kurodo]

MidiOut self-record, however, can delete such notes easily, since I'm working with the full sequence information. However they shouldn't be produced. Could you email me a MIDI file with the result? How are you producing them? By keyboard playing?

The next time it happens I'll send you the midi, as I said it only happens occasionally and only ever after I've played from a midi keyboard never from anything I've produced in the piano roll.
Perhaps my midi keyboard itself is sending the phantom information?

Thought you'd like to know but last night I started experimenting using Nora as a Drum Machine.
I never really thought of using it as such.
I've long been a fan of Microtonic because it has a pretty good randomizer but Nora allows
for far better randomization control.
One for the wishlist though, the possibility to save a randomized sequence without having to first close the randomizer.
Currently the 'save as' menu function always greys out when the mini randomizer window is open.

I know I've said it before but I think you've done a very good job with the randomizer. One of the most comprehensive set of controls I've come across!