Hi!
This is my first post, after scrambling on the announcements threads, of course!
I will probably pick up the current trifecta, and for now I’m absorbing all the content I can find on sparks,
I did a search for “key tracking” and it only appeared as a feature request for ribbons.
Wouldn’t it be neat if MIDI in could tune the filter while the sparks passed a signal? One could make relationships / grooves with a sequence, or tie in different parts of an ensemble with related harmonic rhythm. Even use it as a smart eq/mixer by carving out a frequency for one instrument as it’s impacted by another. Or tune a kick drum rumble to a bass line. Bring the resonance to self oscillating and have another synth sound, or track FM with the LFO. Many applications come to mind.
For some reason, I thought it can do this. But if it isn’t, it would be nice. As far as I know, Prismatic Wall does this (not implying that every similar device should have the same feature set, but it just happens to be a great feature). For example, you can send notes from a sequencer while playing a guitar or running drummachine through Ghosts.
Yeah, we’ll need someone with an actual unit to weigh in on the matter
It could fall under “expression” as converting a midi note to a frequency or a scalable value might be diminishing returns. We’ll see what answers come in
oh, I see what you’re saying. Maybe a maxforlive device would suffice. Something that could convert note in values to a scale on a CC parameter. Then take advantage of a note sequencer or a mappable lane for control values. Lots of m4l sequencers add an additional tab for mapping modulation
a hardware sequencer could also change values on CC24, but on it’s own that would take some dialing in.
the fact is that a filter, now that I think about it, unless it was a really tight Q, band pass, and high resonance with just anything playing through it, would still not remind most ears of a pitch centre. I can see why sparks is implemented the way it is
The filter is analog and has no temperature compensation, so drift and getting consistent tuning might be an issue. At the shop we manually calibrate every unit’s filters for C3 and C8 after a couple minute warm up period to guarantee the left and right channels stay in tune with one another - but connecting this to a MIDI mapping that produces predictable results would be a big undertaking for a niche use case that only a handful of people might use.
As @vscomputer is getting at, MIDI notes already have a full time job in Sparks - it has a SID chip inspired synthesizer that you can play polyphonically with MIDI notes.
In general, if you are interested in tuning resonant filters with MIDI notes and playing them… check out Ghosts!