I started experimenting with Otis last night (after seeing your post) for an ambient piece I’m creating and it’s really wonderful.
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Thank you so much 
ha ha… I certainly have a few of them 
I don’t really have a favourite… they all have different uses.
so for example if you want to ‘embed’ something into an instrument - then Bela is great, as its already got analog in/out , so easy to get going - also reasonably powered … but perhaps you dont need that amount of CPU, so arduino looks attractive.
(boot times, power requirements also come into play)
or if you’re not a coder, then axoloti.
if you want something complete with case, then Norns / Organelle are great.
(Organelle, I find more ‘standalone’ - Norns, I think its cool if you are into the monome ecosystem)
RaspberryPi with a decent sound card (HifiBerry/PiSound) has so much support, but you have to consider whats you UI?
(there is also ‘Daisy’ from Electrosmith coming out, which Im waiting for )
then it’s also down to what programming environment do you want?
Pure Data or Graphical patchers are easier I think for beginners (but I also like to use it for ‘glue’), so thats Organelle/Axoloti/Bela
Supercollider, I like quite a bit, esp… for more live-coding type stuff - Norns/Organelle/rPI
or low-level, C/C++ … which its what I do most of my stuff in, this can you can run on everything, most efficient, but you need a bit more coding experience.
another aspect… that I think is important (and touched on above), the community really shapes your experience, some of them are more ‘music focused’, some more technical (e.g. Bela) - but generally Ive found they are all great - and the best source of information.
so yeah, lots of choice out there, depending on your project/requirements .
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Great answer, thanks! This actually helps very little if at all with fighting my interest in the new Organelle M 
Seems, as you said, a pretty self-contained package, and PD is a big plus for me, being a programming newbie. And the community seems to be alive as well… and ORAC <3
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Gahhh - you’re not helping my case for not getting a grid. Is this using the Molly the Poly engine, or are you sequencing something external? I saw your comments in the Animator thread on lines and looked into it. It looks like a really cool and interactive sequencer app that really makes the most of the norns/grid design.
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Hey, yeah, sorry about that this is my go to sequencer for now, easy enough to create sequences with some structure in them if you like, it’s polyphonic and the interface opens up for wild accidents with conditionals applied, if you want to go down that path. It also makes clever use of the grid, so it’s hard to imagine it existing on any other platform.
Yep, that’s Molly the Polly at work. I think it sounds really good, though I prefer Moln even more. If you could map Arc to any controller within a script, like a Script Learn kind of platform feature, I’d sell my other kidney and get one. Real time control over these parameters while playing the sequencer live … whoa.
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You may already be aware of this - but, I think there is almost such a thing as what you mentioned, except it’s not quite that simple. One would need to add some code to a given script to add Arc mapping functionality, and that’s what Arcify is for… it claims to make that process much more straightforward.
Maybe you could try exploring some of the scripts that were arcified to see how exactly how it has been implemented by others.
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I much rather code in C/C++ than lua and other similar languages so this Daisy thing looks almost exactly like what I want - including the various interfaces. Thanks for sharing.
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Ah, now we’re talking. This really opens up the potential of the Arc. Wonder why more devs don’t use this, almost any app could benefit from this support. Could be that there aren’t a whole lot of Arc users out there, I suppose.
That’s a really helpful summary. Thanks. I’m probably in the non coder category, although many moons ago i was a flash programmer and also web designer…
I do really enjoy my axoloti (and nord modular g1)
… My question would be… The axoloti obviously struggles with stuff like the mutable instrument ports (which you did! Kudos)… Are any of the other you mention better able to handle? I guess I’m asking where processing power figures into the equation?
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do you mean generally or specifically (Mutable Instruments ports?)
generally, there are some things that are computationally expensive, things like FFT … that we take or granted on desktops, but are ‘borderline’ for these more limited platforms (memory can be a limitation too) - really this is a matter of ‘expectations’…
I think most recognise this (though i admit its hard for many to know ‘what is realistic’) and enjoy these platforms because they are small, portable etc - often used alongside existing setups (rather than ‘replace’)
actually processing power for mutable instruments stuff is not really an issue.
(excluding smaller arduinos/teensy) as the most powerful thing that MI used was a STM32F4 - same as axoloti.
with many platforms you can run multiple instances (axoloti not really for more cpu intensive things like elements)
honestly the MI ports I did, had a couple of issues primarily because I did them ‘blind’ - at the time I didn’t have eurorack - and vcvrack had not been released, so I ‘guessed’ their functionality by reading the code and the manual…
I’ve now got a few of these modules in my eurorack case, so know a few assumptions i made were a little off 
Axoloti is very cool because of its ‘instant on’ nature - I absolutely love that, but I’ll admit the current ‘confusion’ about release is a bit problematic for me 
(e.g. if i wanted to fix the MI ports would i do it on 1.x or 2.x)
as for other platforms that could run the MI code?
well I also ported them to Pure Data, so I know quite a few are running them on the Organelle, rPI and recently Qubit Nebulae (Clds on Nebulae is nice match).
You can also run Orac on Norns which includes all my MI modules.
I was thinking perhaps at some point to add a ‘standalone’ clouds for Norns too (Clouds seems to be most popular), this is not that hard since its already run within Orac on Norns.
though, I need to think a little more about my approach to Norns - I added a lot more features to sidekick recently, which means i could do things a little different.
Bela also runs my MI stuff, again via Orac, or using my PD external.
But I’ll say Bela is not as powerful as a rPI, and you don’t actually get much more processing power than the Axoloti, as a it has a more limited FPU. ( * )
tldr;
out of the box, the organelle is the one I’ve supported most…as its the one i initially released orac and things like clds~ on.
if you don’t need a UI, as you’ll build your own (like axoloti) , then perhaps Bela (with caveats mentioned)
but all the others can be made to work too…so if you can , ‘use what you have’ is my motto
note: ive backed a daisy (by electrosmith) on KS, but no idea what I’ll use it for, I might port some MI modules (even if i don’t, id be surprised if others didn’t ;))
( * ) this is an over simplification, it has a much more powerful CPU, its just the lack of a powerful FPU can offset this quite considerably - and unfortunately, its not an easy thing to optimise… without re-writing all your code!
EDIT: Im perhaps wandering a little off-topic here, perhaps there is a better topic for discussion of these platforms… so this can stay more norns focused.
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Great answer. Thanks for taking the time to explain. Very interested to hear that axoloti runs on the same chip as the old mutable modules. Gives me loads to consider. Nebulae I’d not heard (edit : ah ok euro) of so I’ll take a look.
Sorry for briefly taking thread off topic a bit. NORNS does look interesting… Just a bit too expensive for me to consider
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Well, okay. Norns and Grid solved the issue I’m having with coherence over longer set. Thanks to the Timber script, I’m now putting together a longer ambient session which wasn’t possible on my rig before (due to me like having just the Blackbox from where I perform and … uh, yeah, that’s it, kind of?).
The envelopes take care of the smooth transitions. LFO applies organic movement across the samples. Throug the Grid, I just basically launch stuff as appropriate, and that’s it.
Since it has quantization and clock sync, I suppose this would work for just launching more beat-oriented stuff in sync as well. Though I don’t have the guts to try that live just yet
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How difficult is it to install/switch patches on this?
My main uses would probably be effects box / looper, would you say it fits the bill?
Been eyeing this for the longest time…
installing is pretty straightforward - if its in the community library, you can install from maiden (their web browser front end), if not… then its usually just a matter of copying a folder to the norns,
switching, afaik… you have to do this from the main menu. not difficult.
I don’t think they have remote switching ( * ) e.g. via program change messages - though, I cant imagine it’d be hard to implement (in the core matron code, not possible in a patch really)
if you wanted to have uninterrupted audio whilst switching, you would need to combine patches that you want yourself… so that means ‘coding’, which might be hard or easy depending on your experience and the patches you are trying to combine.
(of course, there might already be one patch that has fx that you need… so no need to switch )
( * ) I might be wrong on this, but I don’t remember it being a feature… but for sure would be handy.
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I recommend keeping an eye on features of the kind. Norns has received substantial updates during this year, and I know for a fact more is on its way of some significance.
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Just purchased a new 4ms pod & Monome Crow to build out a tiny Mannequins modular system (to compliment my Make Noise Tape & Microsound System). Excited to connect Norns with the modular world. I’ve been having a blast writing tiny programs and getting used to the language.
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Okay, so as far as live rig and putting songs together go, Norns and the Grid is now my new kit. The platform compressor and reverb are really good for shaping the mix, and the filters do a lot to bring out the character.
Still trying out workflows to make it my place for actually writing and creating the pieces that go into the song. There’s plenty of options, but the immediate snap and record of the Blackbox is hard to beat, so instead of trying to find a replica for that, I’m learning new methods, recording stuff to the Norns tape and see what I can do with it. It’s certainly free form different from the tight control of the Blackbox.
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don’t worry - we will get the blackbox’s quantized sampling built into the norns 
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