How To

From Sequentix
Jump to: navigation, search

How to Enable MIDI Clock output

Out of the box Cirklon is not set to generate MIDI Clocks. To activate this on specific ports:

With Song, Scene or Track active (press one of those buttons first if in Pattern mode)

Press MENU

Select the More> option by pressing encoder 11 (it is labelled in the screen above the encoder)

Scroll to Midi Config in the pop-up menu using the Value encoder and press it to enter the configuration screen.

Enable clock (and other settings) using the encoders below the screen.


Port numbering

Colin says: The CV port is MIDI port number 6, but since it doesn't have any serial MIDI output as such, it doesn't have a slot in the array of MIDI output buffers. References to the USB port needs the port number adjusted by 1. I've forgotten to do that somewhere... It would be simplest just to re-number the CV port as number 12, and have the USB ports as (internal numbers) 6 to 11.


PSU problems

Symptoms: Display flickering, no power (?)

Colin says: I noticed the same problem with a PSU in the last batch shipped. I isolated it the PSU connector by testing with other PSUs, and Cirklons. Then I gave it a spray with contact cleaner, and it worked perfectly afterwards. Some contamination on the internal surface of the power connector must have been causing a poor contact. They are moulded parts, so I guess it may be release agent. I've been watching out for it since, but yours was shipped before I noticed this. Can you give it a clean with something suitable (isopropyl alcohol or electronic contact cleaner)

set up CV Tracks for multiple CV`s

Colin says:

From an initialised machine...

In play mode (SONG, SCENE or TRACK pages), press MENU, then "more>", then scroll and select "CVIO config".

In CVIO config, the VALUE encoder selects the output to configure. Each output has at least a mode and channel value. Set output 1 to mode = "note" usign encoder 6. Leave its channel at 1, and leave the other default settings.

Turn VALUE to see output 2. Set its mode to "velo". Leave the other default settings.

Turn VALUE to see output 3. Set its mode to "ctrl". One the line below the mode setting, the default of ctrl# = 1 will be shown. Leave as is for output 3.

Turn to output 4. Set its mode to "ctrl". Then turn encoder 5 to move to the lower line, and use encoder 6 to set the ctrl# = 4

Turn to output 5. Set its mode to "ctrl". Then turn encoder 5 to move to the lower line, and use encoder 6 to set the ctrl# = 6

Turn to output 56. Set its mode to "ctrl". Then turn encoder 5 to move to the lower line, and use encoder 6 to set the ctrl# = 10

Now CV output 1 will output the pitch CV, output 2 will be velocity, and outputs 3, 4, 5 and 6 will be CCs 1, 4, 6 and 10. These CCs are default assignments in a P3 pattern. All these outputs should have the default channel value = 1.

Press MENU to exit from CVIO config. Go to a track. Create an instrument and set it to output on port CV, channel 1. Then create a P3 pattern on that track.

Enter some note, velocity and aux values. Play the pattern. On steps with notes set, CV outputs 1 and 2 will output the note and velocity values. On steps with one or more auxes enabled, the values for auxes A, B, C and D will appear on CV outputs 3, 4, 5 and 6 respectively.

Q&A: transpose a pattern

from the beta-mailinglist: Question: Okay I have a 16 beat pattern. What I would like to do is have it play 4 times then transpose up a half step (semitone)for 4 cycles, and repeat.


Answer: (Colin)

Starting with a single bar P3 pattern in edit:

- go to bar edit (press BAR)

There should be one column of xpose, reps and gbar for the one bar of the pattern. Only one red LED should be lit under the step keys, to show the 1 bar length.

- hold COPY and press step 2

Your first bar is copied to the second bar, and the bar length of the pattern set to 2

- turn step endoder 2 up 1

That should increase the Xpose value for bar 2 to +1

- turn ROW to edit Reps

- turn both encoder 1 and encoder 2 up to 4, to set 4 reps on each bar


Track Values / Program Changes

colin says:

From the TRACK page, press TRACK once more to access the track values.

The track values are user-defined for each instrument, depending on what the instrument can respond to.

For an instrument which has no values configured, the page should show a message telling you to press the INSERT key to add one.

There are 6 positions for values on each row of the track values page, aligned with the 6 encoders under the display.

To add a new value, or change and existing one, press the encoder to select the position you want it to appear in, then press INSERT.

A menu appears which lets you choose from MIDI CCs or track control values. Program change is under track controls.

If you have filled all 6 slots, you can add futher values on other rows.

The ROW encoder is used to access other rows, but normally only rows with values (or the first row) are shown.

To access a new blank row, hold SHIFT and turn ROW one step clockwise.

Use INSERT to add a value on this new blank row, and you'll see that you can now freely move between the rows.

Once you have added the program change value, you can turn the encoder below it to send the values.

Then, while you are on the track values page, if you press the SAVE key, you will see options to store the current value at the SCENE or SONG level.

Select your option, then you should see that the value is labelled [SONG] or [SCENE].

If you adjust the value again, the label will change to [EDIT].

This indicates that a stored value is present for the scene, but is not the current value.

On important point is that when you store a value to the scene, it is written to the scene edit buffer.

you must then save the scene if you want to make the value permanent.

Setup CC`s on Aux Tracks

colin says:

Got to the aux row.

Press, hold and turn the ROW encoder.

Up pops a scrolling picklist of all CCs.

From there, press, hold and turn ROW again, and you get the list of aux groups.


Save and Undo Structure

colin says (from the mailing list):

When you first create a pattern it is "unsaved". Each time you go into pattern edit, an undo copy of the pattern is made, so you can undo changes made since you entered pattern edit. Until the pattern is saved, that is as much undo as you have.

In pattern edit, if you press SAVE, then save the pattern, the status of the pattern changes to "saved". A saved pattern will not be permanently changed unless you manually save changes.

When you enter pattern edit for a saved pattern, an edit copy is made. Any edits now apply to the edit copy. The first time you edit a saved pattern, you will see the option to "recall saved version". That will restore your pattern as it was when you saved it.

As you work on an edit copy of a saved pattern, an undo copy is still made each time you enter edit mode, so you can "undo recent edits" as before.

If a pattern is assigned to a track when you save a scene, the pattern is automatically saved, and also marked as being in use by that scene. The "in use" count for a pattern shows how many scenes a pattern is used in. When you save a scene after having edited some of the patterns used (thereby creating edit copies), you are prompted to decide whether to save the changes to the original pattern, or save the modified pattern as new.

The principle is, if you create a pattern, and you get it to a point you think is worth keeping, save it. Then it will be safe. Or if you have saved the pattern as part of a scene, that's done for you.

If you save patterns in a scene, then edit them further, and save them to a new scene, you must decide whether the changes you have made should apply to any previous use of the patterns in previous scenes (save changes), or if the changed pattern is developing from the previous scene (save as new).

expanding lenght of CK patterns

from the mailing list

Q: I know it is possible to have CK patterned longer than 1 bar by setting REPS before creating the pattern.

Is there a way of adding/removing bars after this?

A: press REC and then MENU. turn stepencoder below "bar length" right under the display (display encoder 6). you see this option in the rec menu, when pressing rec


Aux Track Tips, User experiences and suggestions

from the mailing list

from Geoff:

The P3 manual makes a great job of explaining common techniques and uses of auxes but I thought a few more real world examples would do well. Note none of these are particularly special or new and I’m still getting to grips with interesting methods for creating patterns – so please do contribute. Some ideas are knicked from the manual or other peoples suggestions (namely Colin and Paul) so please don’t think I’m trying to get credit for these J

Patterns where notes and velocities rows have differing length rows

I find myself using this technique a lot (hence desire to have multiphasic patterns!) but this creates for some great sounding subtly different patterns. Use track 1 for your notes, and track 2 for your velocities. Set track 2 to an uneven number of steps. In an aux row of track 1 assign all steps (if you want) to grab velocity from track 2. I find works best when track 2 is set to a faster time base than track 1 and where track 2 has quite varying velocity values!

Patterns that speed up and slow down

Use an aux row of a track to affect the timebase (under pattern settings I think). As soon as you change how long each step takes it means the pattern won’t run directly in sync (similar to changing the pattern length to an uneven number) but I find this is great to get funky rhythms and basslines. Use in combination with an accumulator mask change how often the modulation occurs.

Patterns with repeats for percussion

I find works best with hats, claves and rimshots. Use an aux row of a track to set repeats on some steps and then use an accumulator mask to change how often these repeats happen. Can also work great for snare rolls and fills.

Use of note gate mask and velocity / tie modulation for acid lines

Use aux rows to hide and unhide notes (based on either randomisation or accumulator masks) and to modulate when tie / velocity changes happen (with velocity affecting whether accent is turned on in 303 style synths and tie affecting whether slides occur in monophonic/legato synths).

from Paul:

One of my fave tricks is using P3 patterns for percussion - things such as hand drums, djembes, talking drums etc. Great when they're responsive to velocity in more ways than mere volume. I typically use event masking so that the patterns are always different, but in pre-determined ways. Some examples that come to mind:

Aux A Random Mask Aux B Aux B Repeat Note based on length Aux C Randomise velocity Aux D Random Mask Gate

Aux A Random Mask Aux B Aux B Set Note (set alternate notes to be played from time to time) Aux C Random Mask Aux D Aux D Repeat Note *3

Aux A Random Mask Aux B Aux B Grab All Track n (replace the step with the contents of track n) Aux C Accumulate Velocity Aux D Randomise Note

Remember that setting up the auxes is one thing, you mask on a per step basis, set repeats on a per step basis and you can copy the bar to a second bar and have different steps masked, different probabilities of masking too. Accumulators let you build patterns, often producing similar-sounding results compared to using rows of different lengths on other machines. The Aux D accumulator lets you accumulate anything - try it on last step, direction, MIDI CCs etc. :)


step manually through P3 Patterns

from Colin

You can trigger the individual notes in a P3 pattern while stopped - hold the step encoder, then press the step key below.

calibrate VCO`s

from Colin

At the moment, the method I use to calibrate a VCO is to hold a reference note on another synth, then play two notes an octave apart on the synth being calibrated. For the lower note, I adjust the synth so it's in tune, then play the higher note, and adjust Vscale until it's in tune. Then repeat, until the error is tuned out. The next update to the CVIO menu will automate this process, so you'll just need to tune for a low note, then tune for a high note, and the Vscale value can be calculated from the two adjustments.


shift Steps in P3

in p3 pattern mode press menu - first step - press the step which shall be the first one in your pattern.


change note length in ck patterns

from colin

Length is there, but a bit hidden.

In drum grid edit, if you press ROW you'll switch between the grid view and the bar view of the current row values.

The bars default to velocity, but if you press SHIFT + ROW they'll switch to lengths.


In the alternative event-list edit for CK patterns (hold SHIFT while pressing PATTERN), you always see the length.


debug pages

(from colin, 0.68d)

There is already a debug option to view an event list pattern in its raw form, which will give you an event count and block usage for a pattern. The event data itself may not mean much, it's all in hex. Select a track with a ck pattern assigned. From play mode, do SHIFT + INSERT, then choose option 9, 'Evlist view'. Press SHIFT to scroll each page of event list, or hold FILL/X to scroll without stopping. At the end of the list you'll get a count of blocks used.

memory optimizations

(from colin, 0.68d)

Something to try if you have high memory usage... Go to the debug page, using SHIFT + INSERT from play mode. Press the DELETE key. This will call a routine to remove any undo copies for edited patterns. Check your memory usage.

Backup copies of P3 patterns were being cleared out on exit from edit mode, but this wasn't happening for CK patterns. The recent build fixes this, though there was some clear-up happening elsewhere, so it may not make a huge difference.

bar copy

colin says

Hold COPY and press BAR.

A popup should say "Copied BAR".

Then move to another bar and press INSERT.

A popup should say, "Clip inserted", and the events from the copied bar should appear.

label MidiCCs

If you set up a track value for a CC for an instrument and give it a label, then that label appears instead of the CC number (in aux menu)

How can i increase the patternlenght to 4 or 16 Bars ?

colin says

In P3 edit:

- press the BAR encoder to switch to bar edit

- hold the LAST key

- press the step key for the desired length

New empty bars are added up to the length. Instead of the LAST key, you can hold the COPY key and select a new length. New bars added will be copies of the current bar.

In ck edit:

- hold LAST

- turn the BAR encoder to adjust the length

How can i change the CC# on the aux tracks to other numbers ?

colin says

With the aux row selected, press, hold and turn the ROW encoder. That pops up a list of CCs to select. Use ROW to scroll and press again to select a new CC. You can press MENU here to cancel and return to the previous setting. A second press/hold/turn of ROW while on the CC select list will take you to the aux group select list.

How can I reorder track values ?

That can be done by INSERTing the same value in a new location - it will be moved from its previous location, with any stored values intact.


How to set a default length for newly created patterns ?

The number of bars defaults to the current scene length. Try making your scene 4 reps and you should see new patterns 4 bars. [tkx to softroom]

Change instrument-track assignment in different scenes

  • Track to Instrument relations can refer to a scene or to a song. It depends if the SONG or the SCENE key is lit when assigning instruments to tracks.
  • Colin: When you have brought up the instrument select list on the track page, normally the SONG key will flash, to show you're making a song-level instrument assignment. If you press the SCENE key, it will flash instead, and the new instrument selection will be at the scene level. A [SCENE] label will appear just below the instrument name to show this. Remember to save the scene to store it permanently. If you select the same instrument for a scene as is set for the song, the scene level setting is removed.