This issue: 13 new finds across 9 devices in the dspm ecosystem, including 2 new connection ideas.
New connections
Connection: Bastl Kastle 2 → Orac CV-tools → Organelle (a hardware modulation voice)
The Bastl Kastle 2 has a tempo-syncable CV + gate pattern generator and now USB MIDI. Patch its CV/gate into Orac CV-tools modules running on the Organelle, so a hardware pattern generator modulates and triggers an Orac chain — while the rig's clock (over the CME USB host) keeps the Kastle's pattern locked to the set tempo. The crowd drives the norns barcode layer; this path gives you an autonomous, evolving hardware-modulated voice that needs no hands.
Connection: Octatrack as clock + MIDI brain → norns barcode + Rytm (web-overridable)
Use the Octatrack as clock master and modulation brain. Through the CME USB-MIDI host, its 8 MIDI tracks + MIDI LFOs send clock and CC to the Analog Rytm and to norns. The Node bridge already maps phone gestures → OSC params on thedspm_archivebarcode looper; add a thin MIDI-In → OSC translation in the bridge so the OT's MIDI LFOs hit the same barcode params. Result: hands-free hardware modulation and crowd phones drive the same controls — last writer wins, so performers can always override the machine.
Octatrack
Octatrack as the rig's MIDI brain — 8 MIDI tracks with LFOs + CC pages
The OT's 8 MIDI tracks (with MIDI LFOs + CC pages) can sequence everything else in the rig.
This is the cheapest path to making the OT the clock + sequencer master for the whole rig. The Node bridge is gaining MIDI out (the CME USB-host plan), but the OT can drive the Analog Rytm, the Organelle, and — via the host box — even nudge norns params, with per-step p-locks the bridge can't easily do. Its MIDI LFOs mean hands-free modulation of external CCs during a set, freeing phones to do the granular barcode work. See dspm-gear-integration and octatrack-midi-control.
Source: elektron.se
Neighbor machines — chain tracks to double your FX slots
Neighbor machines chain a track's output into the next, doubling effects slots for deep serial processing.
The OT is the natural live FX processor for the norns barcode output and any sampled crowd material. Neighbor chains let you build evolving send-FX (filter → delay → reverb → bit-reduction) that the audience's phone gestures — routed as MIDI/OSC CC — can sweep in real time. It turns the OT from a player into a performable effects rack sitting downstream of the granular looper.
Source: musicradar
Parameter locks + conditional trig locks = controlled chance
Parameter locks + conditional (trig) locks turn the OT sequencer into a controlled-chance generative engine.
dspm's whole premise is structured indeterminacy — a crowd of phones nudging a looper. The OT's conditional locks give the machine the same temperament: a sequenced layer that varies itself (1-in-4 hits, probabilistic fills) so a set breathes between phone interventions. It's the deterministic-randomness twin of the audience gestures logged in the dspm-archive-analysis-skill.
Source: elektron.se
Analog Rytm
Conditional locks for self-varying Rytm patterns
Conditional locks (probability, ratios, logic) make the Rytm self-vary drum patterns over long sets.
For long-form, mostly-hands-off sets where the audience is the variable, you want the drums to also never quite repeat. Conditionals give the Rytm a generative backbone that stays musical — ghost hits at 30%, a fill that triggers every 8th loop — so the rhythmic floor evolves underneath the phone-driven granular layer without you babysitting it.
Source: elektron.se
Rytm LFO TRIG mode + trigless-lock retrigger (and RND slew)
With the LFO in TRIG mode, a trigless lock retriggers it — plus new RND-waveform slew via SPH.
The Rytm is the rhythmic spine under the granular bed. Trigless LFO retriggers let you sync modulation sweeps to musical phrase boundaries — reset a filter LFO at the top of every 4 bars so builds feel intentional, not arbitrary. RND-with-slew gives smooth drifting movement (great for evolving pads/percussion timbre) that pairs well with the slow OSC interpolation the bridge already does for phone gestures.
Source: elektronauts
norns
norns as an LFO bank → MIDI CC (cccccccc / changes)
norns scripts cccccccc and changes turn norns into a bank of LFOs spitting MIDI CC to the whole rig.
norns already sits at the center of the rig running the barcode looper. With cccccccc/changes it can also be the rig's modulation brain — sweeping the Rytm's filter, the OT's FX, or an Organelle param over MIDI while phones drive the granular layer. That folds neatly into the bridge's emerging MIDI-out path and the norns-osc-control workflow: expose the LFO rates as params and a phone can retune the modulation live. One caveat to respect: the norns MIDI constraint noted in pijoyosc2norns.
Source: github (awesome-monome-norns)
softcut loopers worth stealing from — reels & otis
softcut is norns' multi-voice looping engine; reels and otis are battle-tested loopers built on it.
The barcode script in dspm_archive.lua is itself a softcut granular looper, so reels/otis are direct siblings — sources of ideas (and code) for new performance behaviors: async multi-track capture of crowd audio, self-modulating tape delay under the granular bed. Because they're param-driven, they slot straight into the norns-osc-control inject flow — read the param list, the phone UI builds itself, and the bridge can automate them.
Source: monome.org/docs
Bastl
Bastl Kastle 2 — USB MIDI on a patchable CV/gate pattern generator
Kastle 2 (Alchemist + Wave Bard) adds USB MIDI to Bastl's patchable CV/gate pattern generator + syncable LFO.
This is the smallest box in the rig that speaks both worlds dspm cares about: patchable CV/gate (a hardware gesture source) and USB MIDI (so it joins the MIDI chain through the planned CME USB-host, alongside OT/Rytm). Sync the Kastle's LFO/pattern generator to the bridge clock and it becomes an autonomous, mutating voice that needs no phone attention — freeing the crowd to drive the barcode looper. Its CV outs are also a candidate "physical controller" feeding an orac-2-modular-chains-and-cv-tools CV module or a norns input. See dspm-gear-integration and midi-control-surface-skill.
Source: synthanatomy
Organelle
Orac 2.0 — the Organelle as a chainable modular host (+ CV tools)
Orac 2.0 turns the Organelle into a chainable modular host (serial/parallel chains, Pre/Post, 50+ modules) with MIDI mapping and CV tools.
The Organelle M is core to the gear-integration plan, and Orac is what makes it a flexible node rather than a single patch: build a chain (sequencer → synth → FX), expose its module params to MIDI, and the bridge/OT can drive it live like any other instrument. The CV-tools modules are the bridge between Bastl's CV gestures and the Organelle's patch world. Map a few Orac params into your midi-control-surface-skill CC layout so a phone can morph an Orac chain mid-set. See norns_organelle_top_scripts and dspm-gear-integration.
Source: critterandguitari forum
TouchDesigner
TouchDesigner: audioAnalysis + OSC/MIDI in (incl. Strudel → TD)
Drive TouchDesigner visuals from the palette's audioAnalysis component plus OSC/MIDI in — e.g. Strudel or the dspm bridge over OSC.
This is the engine behind reactive-visuals / touchdesigner-visuals. The key move for dspm: TD shouldn't only listen to audio — point the Node bridge's OSC straight at TD so the same phone gestures and norns params that shape the barcode looper also drive the visuals, frame-locked to intent rather than just amplitude. Layer audioAnalysis (the sound) + bridge OSC (the gestures) + Rytm/OT MIDI (the rhythm) as three reactive inputs. That three-domain split mirrors dspm-gear-integration.
Source: interactive & immersive hq
Nord Micro Modular
Nord Micro Modular — browser patch editor + use it as a live audio processor
A browser patch editor for the Nord (Micro) Modular, plus using its audio input to make it a patchable filterbank/vocoder/effect.
The Micro Modular's most dspm-relevant role isn't as a lead voice — it's as a patchable insert FX in the chain. Run the norns barcode output (or an OT thru machine) through it and design a bespoke filterbank/formant processor that no plugin replicates, then automate its params from an LFO patch for hands-free movement during a set. The browser editor means patches live as shareable files — exactly the kind of artifact the roomate archive should keep. Pairs with the OT octatrack-neighbor-machines-double-fx thinking about routing FX across the rig.
Source: nordmodulareditor.com
Auto-compiled by the dspm gear feed — an offline research archive of the gear behind the dspm performance ecosystem.
