Electra One VCVRack Preset User Guide - rjsmith/rsbatech-modules GitHub Wiki

User guide for the Electra One Mk II VCVRack preset. This is designed to work with the VCVRack Orestes-One module.

When the VCVRack E1 preset is first opened, it will start sending a custom (MIDI sysex) polling command every few seconds looking for an Orestes-One VCVRack module to receive and respond with its plugin version. Page 1 of the preset shows a group with "Searching for compatible Orestes-One".

When a VCVRack patch is opened with an active Orestes-One module, or you add an Orestes-One to a patch (NB: Only add one to each VCVRack patch!), it will pick up the polling request, and return the RSBATechModule plugin semver version (e.g. "2.1.0"). The E1 preset will check if that is going to work with its own internal version (major and minor versions must be the same).

If versions match, the warning disappears, and Pages 1-6 will show the current loaded mapped parameters in the Orestes-One plugin (if any).

If versions do not match, the warning turns red and shows "Incompatible Orestes-One v!". The E1 preset will continue polling.

Each Orestes-One parameter mapping list (for either rack - level, or individual module) can have up to 216 mapped parameters, spread over the first six pages of 36 controls each.

When a new mapping is selected, the mapped E1 controls across the six pages shown the controlled VCVRack parameter label. Unmapped E1 controls are hidden to tidy the screens up. You can only see the first 15 characters of each control label.

Each control page shows the name of the controlled VCVRack module (or "Rack mapping" for the special Orestes-One rack - level mapping) along the top. If there are mapped controls on the page to the left or right of the current one, the top row shows "< PREV PAGE" or "NEXT PAGE >".

Twist the E1 pot for each mapped control you want to change. The E1 display will show the reported VCVRack module parameter value.

The E1 info field on the bottom right-hand corner of the display shows the current displayed module's position in the module selection grid (as shown on page 12). So "r=3/6,c=2/8" means the displayed module is on the third row of VCVRack modules (out of 6 rows with mapped modules), and is on the 2nd column on that row.

The E1 VCVRack preset implements extra functions by tapping different combinations of the 12 E1 pots (numbered 1 - 6 left to right on the top row, 7 - 12 on the bottom row). These touch actions can be individually disabled on the "Settings" page (page 11).

Pots	Action
Double tap any single pot	Resets the mapped VCVRack module parameter to its defined default value
Single tap pots 1,2,3 together	Navigates to Page 1
Single tap pots 2,3,4 together	Navigates to Page 2
Single tap pots 3,4,5 together	Navigates to Page 3
Single tap pots 4,5,6 together	Navigates to Page 4 **
Single tap pots 7,8,9 together	Navigates to Page 12 to change the mapped module
Single tap pots 8,9,10 together	Switches to the mapped VCVRack module to the left of the current mapped module
Single tap pots 9,10,11 together	Switches to the mapped VCVRack module to the right of the current mapped module
Single tap pots 10,11,12 together	Resets all E1 controls, e.g. ready for mapping a new module (does not send any changes to VCVRack)
Single tap pots 1,2,7 together	Switches to the Orestes-One "Rack mapping"
Single tap pots 5,6,12 together	Remotely set Orestes-One to "Apply" mode - then click on a pre-mapped module in VCVRack to switch the mapping to it

** Use the standard E1 page switch button to switch to control pages 5 & 6.

Page 11 of the VCV Rack 2 preset lets you control some of the behaviour of the preset, by toggling controls on and off. You can also optionally save the settings in the E1 unit's internal storage, so they are automatically restored when you next reset or restart the E1 unit again.

Button	Action
DOUBLE TAP	Enables (or disables) double tapping on a pot to reset the parameters value
POTS 1-6	Enables (or disables) tapping pots 1-3, 2-4, 3-5, 4-6 at same time to jump to Pages 1 - 4 of the of the preset
POTS 1,2,7	Enables (or disables) tapping pots 1, 2 & 7 together to switch to Rack - level control mapping in Orestes-One
POTS 5,6,12	Enables (or disables) tapping pots 5, 6 & 12 together to turn on the Oresets-One Apply mode (then click a pre-mapped VCVRack module using your mouse to switch mappings to that module
POTS 7,8,9	Enables (or disables) tapping pots 7, 8, & 9 together to jump to Page 12
POTS 8,9,10	Enables (or disables) tapping pots 8, 9 & 10 together to navigate to the previous mapped module
POTS 9,10,11	Enables (or disables) tapping pots 9, 10 & 11 together to navigate to the next mapped module
POTS 10,11,12	Enables (or disables) tapping pots 10, 11 & 12 together to clear the current displayed control mappings on pages 1-6
RE-LOAD LIST	Enables (or disables) re-loading the mapped modules from Orestes-One when opening Page 12. If there are a lot of mapped modules in your VCVRack patch, it can take a few seconds for all the data to be copied across each time. If you are not adding any new modules, once you have loaded them once, you can use this to disable re-loading, to spped up your performance workflow.
SAVE TO E1	Tapping this will save the current enable / disable state of these settings into the E1 internal storage, so they are recalled the next time you switch on the unit and use the VCV Rack 2 preset again.

Page 12 of the VCV Rack 2 preset presents a list of all known mapped modules (as stored in the current Orestes-One mapping library) in the current rack patch. The modules are shown in a grid in their correct row order, and in the correct left to right column order. If the mapping library has a mapping for every module in the patch, then the displayed grid will include all those modules, in a 6 x 5 visible window.

Pressing a module button will load the mapping for that module in Orestes-One, and jump back to Page 1 with the first page of mapped controls ready to be played with.

The 6x5 window can be moved across the grid up and down and left to right using the grid navigation sliders in the bottom right-hand corner (use pots 11 & 12).

The Recent Modules list shows the four most recent selected modules, to help quickly jump to those directly.

The bottom right-hand E1 display info field shows the current top left-hand window position in the module selection grid. For example "r=5/8,c=1/49" means: The 6x5 window starts on the 5th row of the select grid, and the first column. There are 8 rows in total, and up to 49 columns (ie. one of the rows has 49 modules on it).

Multi-tap pot actions available in Page 12:

The E1 VCVRack preset implements extra functions by tapping different combinations of the 12 E1 pots (numbered 1 - 6 left to right on the top row, 7 - 12 on the bottom row):

Pots	Action
Single tap pots 7,8,9 together	Navigates to Page 1
Single tap pots 1,2,7 together	Switches to the Orestes-One "Rack mapping"
Single tap pots 5,6,12 together	Remotely sets Orestes-One to "Apply" mode - click on a module in VCVRack to switch the mapping to it

For now, these pages are left empty, reserved for future use. Maybe for custom controls, x / y grids etc.