Chain Slots - TheTechnobear/Orac GitHub Wiki

Overview

There are 10 chain slots available in Orac labelled A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, B4, C1, C2, and C3. The Chain Slots are where you can load modules as you design your own Orac presets. They differ from the System Slots that only contain the Router and Clock utility modules, and the Pre/Post slots that typically will be an effect applied either to everything after or before the Chain Slots.

On the Organelle we can see how they are laid out over the keyboard. (To access a Chain Slot in Orac on the Organelle hold down on the encoder while pressing the corresponding key shown in the image below.)

Other information

Note and Control passing thru a chain

Generally:

• modules do NOT pass things like notes down the chain.
• midi goes to the head of the chain e.g. A1, B1, C1
• notes go to the active module (this can be changed in the router setup)

usually this is what we want, e.g. imagine: A1 seq2 -> A2 brds mono -> A3 reverb

however, if we want to have multiple synths play the note (in unison), then we might want to change this e.g.

A1 seq2 -> A2 brds mono -> A3 basic mono -> (chain midi output enabled)

How do we achieve this?

Each chain slot has a Note Thru property. Note Thru is necessary when MIDI note messages need to be passed along the chain to subsequent modules. For example:

Without Note Thru, just A2 plays (brds mono), not A3, and no midi is sent out.

If Note Thru is 'on', on A2 only, we A2 and A3 respond to the sequencer producing a unison effect, but no MIDI is sent out. If Note Thru is 'on', on A2 and A3, then A2 and A3 play (unison effect) and also MIDI is sent out as well.

another interesting scenario is for using multiple sequencers on a single chain. e.g. b1 seq2-> b2 brds mono -> b3 euclid -> b4 czz

now imagine what happens when you turn note-thru on and off on b3. (I leave you to experiment to find the answer!)

Note Thru is off by default because it can create unusual side effects. Imagine seq2 -> brds mono -> clds. The clds module will respond to note messages by changing its pitch. This may be unexpected by many users, but might also be a desirable outcome.

Audio passing thru a chain

Generally:

• all audio is passed down the chain, from module to module
• all audio is stereo

Under most circumstances this works exactly as you would expect. however, there are two things to be aware of...

there is a special property (available in the router module) for each module which called 'audio thru' (default on/true) - this tells Orac to pass the audio between each module. this means if we setup a unison chain (see above) e.g. seq->brds mono->czz->rhodey

the audio will automatically pass thru, so we hear all synths

however, this automatic pass-thru would be potentially problematic for FX modules, since we often have a dry/wet mix, and this pass thru would mean we have a dry signal all the time SO... FX modules automatically turn this audio thru off.

when do I care about audio thru? - generally, you don't ;) the only time it really becomes important is when we have hybrid modules that could be considered as a FX or a synth, at which point the default behaviour of audio thru might not be what you want.