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Soundmondo for MODX

Written by Blake Angelos on November 20, 2018. Posted in MODX/MODX+.

Soundmondo is a social sound sharing website that allows users to discover new sounds, share their own sounds and organize sounds. Soundmondo supports reface, MONTAGE and now MODX! This article shows how to connect your MODX to Soundmondo on the desktop and with the Soundmondo iOS app.

Sign Up and Connect

There are a few things you will need to have happening to use Soundmondo for MODX:

Up-to-date MODX OS Version: Your MODX should be updated to OS Version 1.10 or later. Go here to get the latest MODX OS Version (located under “Firmware/Software” as “MODX Updater”).
Google Chrome: To use Soundmondo you must use an up-to-date version of Google Chrome. Chrome uses a special connectivity protocol called WebMIDI that allows a hardware device like MODX or reface to connect directly to the site via the browser. Get Chrome here if you don’t have it.
Sign Up, Sign In and Connect: To use Soundmondo you must create an account. The registration process is simple and once you have created your user name and password you are good to go. After you have created your account connect your MODX via the USB TO HOST port to an open USB port on your computer (Make sure you MODX is set to use USB as MIDI IN/OUT. Go to UTILITY/MIDI I/O and select USB). There is nothing else to do: Once logged in and connected you are good to go.

Let’s check out some of the cool things you can do with Soundmondo.

Soundmondo on the Desktop with Google Chrome

GET PERFORMANCES

The number of free Performances available for MODX grows every day. To Browse Performances, click on “Browse” at the top of the page. Click on the MONTAGE/MODX graphic to show only MODX Performances. You can also browse by tag on the right:

In the screen below, I have searched using the tags. Below are some Performances returned for the tags “Funk”, “Jazz” and “Electric”. To clear the result, click on “clear” in the screen:

If you know the name of a Performance or the author you can use the Search box in the upper right hand. You can filter only MODX Performances by clicking MODX under “Browse by Instrument” on the left. Try it out: Touch the MONTAGE/MODX Icon then type in the name “Bad Mister” in the Search area and you will see all the Performances uploaded by the great Bad Mister:

Once you find a Performance you’d like to try click on the SYNC button in the top right-hand side, wait a few seconds and the Performance is transferred to your MODX. To save it to your MODX press the [STORE] button on MODX and select “Store As New Performance” in the screen. Some other Performances to check out:

DX7 Voice ROM: All of the original Voices from the DX7 ROM Cartridges are available on Soundmondo. Load them in MODX and edit them to your design!
HaPe’s Collection: This collection of sounds from the expert sound designer Hans-Peter Henkel is great and showcases the sonic power of MODX.
Richard Devine: Sixteen handcrafted Performances by electronic artist and sound designer
Bad Mister: Performances created by Senior Product Specialist Phil “Bad Mister” Clendeninn
Blake Angelos: Performances created by Yamaha US Product Specialist Blake Angelos

THE LEADERBOARD

Go to the Soundmondo Home Page and scroll down to the leaderboard. This will show you the most prolific users on the left and the top downloaded Performances on the right:

SHARE PERFORMANCES

Got some Performances you’d like to share with the MODX community? With your MODX connected select a Performance you’d like to share and click on CREATE. In the example below I have created a Performance called “Blake Jazz Guitar”. I tagged it with three descriptive tags (HINT: Try to limit yourself to a few tags that are most representative of your Performance):

Scrolling down the page you will find a few other important items. It is great to include a short audio example or video to accompany your Performance. In the example below, I have added a SoundCloud URL of this Performance. In addition to SoundCloud you can also provide a YouTube or Vine URL. Lastly, you can set your Performance to Public to share with the community or Private if you want to keep it to yourself:

Want to check out my Performance? Go here!

ORGANIZE PERFORMANCES

Soundmondo has some basic ways to organize your Performance collection. To do this go to your profile by clicking on the gear icon located right next to the “Search” box at the top right of the browser. Below is my profile:

At the bottom of the page there are 4 menu items:

Sounds: This shows a list of all the sounds you have uploaded to Soundmondo.
Favorites: This shows a list of all the sounds you have selected as a favorite. This is done when you are browsing other people’s sounds
Trash: Take any unwanted sound and drag it to the trash! It’ll still be there until you click on “Empty Trash”.
Set Lists: Organize your sounds in to set lists. Create a Set List then drag the sounds you want into the folder.

Got an iOS device? Get the Soundmondo app! It features all the functionality you see here on iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. All you need is a USB cable and the Apple Lightning to USB Camera Adaptor.

SOUNDMONDO FOR MODX ON IOS

If you have an up-to-date iOS device you should check out Soundmondo for iOS. You will need the following:

iOS Device like iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 9 or later
The Soundmondo iOS app located here
An Apple Lightning to USB Camera Adaptor (LUCA) like this or this
A USB to Host cable (like a USB printer cable:

Connect to iOS device to MODX

Connect the USB to Host cable to the MODX and your iOS device using the Apple LUCA and launch the Soundmondo app on your device. The app will automatically detect a properly connected MODX and you will see the Performance screen (Perf at the bottom) that contains all your Performances. There are a few that come with the Soundmondo app that you can either keep or delete. Below is an overview of the Performance screen:

CAPTURE A PERFORMANCE

Select a Performance you want to upload to your device and touch “Capture” at the bottom of the screen. You will first see a keyboard with an arrow screen. Touch that icon and your Performance will transfer to your device. In the example below, I captured a Performance I created called Blake Drive EP:

Touch “Perf” at the bottom to see all your captured Performances.

VIEW YOUR CAPTURED PERFORMANCE

Once you’ve captured your Performance you can view it at the bottom of the list. Touch on it and you can rename it, rate it and add descriptive tags:

At the bottom of the screen are three icons. The book icon is the set list. You can create set lists to quickly organize Performances for things like live gigs:

BROWSE SOUNDMONDO

Capturing, rating and organizing Performances is certainly useful, but browsing, uploading and downloading new content is arguably the coolest aspect of Soundmondo. The icon on the bottom right opens the Soundmondo site. Here you can browse through sounds and upload your own:

There are a few ways to refine your search in the Soundmondo app. You can search by attribute by typing in the search field or search by tagged description:

Once you start browsing you may find users that you particularly like. That’s where the community icon becomes helpful. For example, typing in “Bad Mister” will find all of his Performances:

The Soundmondo iOS app a great way to get free content for your MODX Music Synthesizer. Check it out and join the worldwide Soundmondo and Yamahasynth community!

Mastering MODX: Super Knob Morph

Written by Bad Mister on November 20, 2018. Posted in MODX/MODX+.

One of the most important usages of the Super Knob will be morphing (smoothly fading) between two, or more, different Parts. In this example Part 1 is using a Sawtooth wave, while Part 2 is using a Square wave. While Part 1 (Saw) is faded out, Part 2 (Square) is faded in.

The Sawtooth Wave is bright and buzzy – in includes all whole integer multiples of the Fundamental (all harmonics).
The Square Wave is the perfect case of the Pulse Wave where it is on 50% of the time and off 50% of the time – it is made up of only the odd numbered harmonics (3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, etc.)

Listen closely as you morph from all harmonics (Saw) to just the odd harmonics (Square) and back – slowly turn the Super Knob from minimum-to-maximum and slowly return. You will continue to hear and identify the odd harmonics as you morph the Square Wave back into the Sawtooth. It is as if the Square Wave “hides” inside the Sawtooth Wave – and indeed by this morphing action we are changing the harmonic content of the sound, but in a very different way than you could do with Filter. A Filter works to remove all harmonics above (LPF) or below (HPF) a center frequency called the “Cutoff Frequency”. Use the screen “MUTE” buttons to isolate each Part, in turn, to convince yourself that you are actually turning the Sawtooth down as you turn the Square up.

The Assignment

The Controller matrix of the MODX is huge. This is why we are starting slowly. The Super Knob, on the upper Common/Audio level of the architecture, can have 16 parameter Destinations (1-16); Additionally, each Part can have its own 16 parameter Source/Destinations. The Super Knob, on the upper Common level of the architecture, can control its 8 Common Assign Knobs and each of the 16 Parts has its own 8 Assign Knobs. Huge!

Let’s begin by seeing how the Sawtooth Wave that we hear when we initially recall this sound, is turned down by the Super Knob, and the Square Wave in Part 2, which starts silent, is turned up by a single gesture.

Recall “Super Knob Morph A“

From the HOME screen (touch the Home icon in the upper left corner or press the [PERFORMANCE (HOME)] button)

The cursor highlights the PERFORMANCE NAME: “Super Knob Morph A”
Press [EDIT]
Select the “COMMON” option (lower left corner of the screen appears in blue)
In the screen select “Control” (left column of the screen) > “Control Assign”
Make sure the “AUTO SELECT” option is active (green)
Move Common Assignable Knob #1 to recall its settings
Then Common Assignable Knob #2 to recall its settings

Here you can see that Common Assignable Knob 1: Destination 1 = PART 1 Assign 1; Source = AsgnKnob 1
Translation: The first Control Set has Common Assign 1 as the Source, and as it is turned by the Super Knob it will influence the parameter destination that is assigned to the Part 1 Assign Knob number 1.

Move Common Assignable Knob 2: Destination 2 = PART 2 Assign 2; Source = AsgnKnob 2
Translation: The second Control Set has Common Assign Knob 2 as the Source, and as it is turned by the Super Knob it will influence the parameter destination that is assigned to the Part 2 Assign Knob number 2.

You can view both of these assignments by touching the DISPLAY FILTER and setting it to “”ALL” or by moving the “SUPER KNOB”
The “Display Filter” simply changes what you are viewing at the current time.

As you move the Super Knob, with “Auto Select” active, you can review all parameters linked to the Super Knob.

“Destination 1” is the currently selected item (it’s blue). Move the cursor to highlight “Destination 2”. When you do it will be ‘selected’ and it will turn blue. Highlighting each assignment in turn will allow you to review “how” the controller movement is being applied.

You will observe the Curve indicates as you turn the Knob toward maximum (right) the Volume of Part 1 will decrease.

When Destination 2 is highlighted, you will observe that as the Curve moves towards maximum so does the Volume output.

After that the assignments in the individual PARTS can be made. You do so by dropping into PART EDIT.
Let’s view PART 1, first:

Press the [PART SELECT – MUTE/SOLO] right front panel > Select PART 1
The screen will read “Edit – Part1 – Common”

Press [EXIT] or “X” to close the overlay.

For Part 1 the Common Volume will be reduced using Polarity Bipolar and a negative Ratio, the following settings basically works well.

We want to view the Assignment: “MOD/CONTROL” (left column of the screen) > “Control Assign”

If you move SUPER KNOB you will see that:
Destination 1 = VOLUME
Source = AsgnKnob 1
Polarity = Bi
Ratio = -64
Param 1 = 5

The Curve graphic shows (reading left to right) the Volume is full and that as you turn up the SUPER KNOB this PART will be turned down in Volume.

Select PART SELECT 2

In the lower left corner touch where it shows “PART1” for a pop-up menu and select “PART2”
The screen is now: “Edit – Part2- Common”

Now when you move ASSIGN KNOB 2 you will see that:

Destination 1 = VOLUME
Source = AsgnKnob 2
Polarity = Bi
Ratio = +63
Param 1 = 5

The Curve graphic shows (reading left to right) that as you turn up the Assign Knob 2, this PART, which starts at silence, will be turned up in Volume. In the minimum position you will only hear the Saw wave, in the maximum position only Square wave, in the center position a mix of both. These particular examples use the STANDARD Curve Type. This should be easy to follow, to hear and to understand.

Because both the Assign Knob 1 of PART 1 and the Assign Knob 2 of PART 2 are linked to the SUPER KNOB, moving the SUPER KNOB with “Auto Select” active, will show you these same two Controller boxes.

Return to the Main HOME screen.

Move the cursor down to select [PART 1] in the screen, move the Super Knob – observe the Assign Knob red indicator and value within.
Move the cursor to select [PART 2] move the Super Knob – observe the Assign Knob red indicator and the value within.

As programs get more complex – the “Display Filter” will be a very important tool. Because many things can simultaneously be linked to movement of a Knob or the Super Knob. The fact that the “Display Filter” can show you what is assigned to the Super Knob movement, this makes it much easier to sort through deeper complex Motion Control programs. For now, just recognize that the “Auto Select” function helps you *Filter* the data that is recalled to the *Display*. The “Display Filter” can show everything assigned to a specific SOURCE (Controller). And remember the SOURCE box is where you see the Controller assignment

Recall “Super Knob Morph B“

Basically the same with a few small changes: The Super Knob starts at 127 (fully clockwise) thus starting with the Square Wave, and morphs to the Sawtooth as you move counterclockwise. And the rate of change is different. Let’s see what’s going on:

From the HOME screen (touch the Home icon in the upper left corner):

Highlight the PERFORMANCE NAME: “Super Knob Morph B”.
Touch “MOTION CONTROL” in the screen just under “HOME”.
Touch “SUPER KNOB” in the second column.

Here you can see that the SUPER KNOB is stored at a value of 127, effectively reversing its application:

Touch “OVERVIEW” top of the second column to view the routing scheme.
Change the “PART” from COMMON to “PART 1” to view the assignments to PART 1.
Touch the box “Edit PART 1 Control Settings”.

This will take you directly to the PART 1 Controller setup… Now you can toggle between PARTs 1 and 2 using the blue PART [1] pop-up in the lower left corner of the screen.

Try manipulating the shape of the Curve by highlight “Param 1” and altering the value.
Notice how the application of the control is being altered by the PARAM 1 setting of “3” (for PART1) versus “7” (for PART2). These determine how fast one PART fades out and the other PART fades in:

By setting PART 1 to the CURVE created by “Param 1 = 3” and setting PART 2 to the CURVE created by “Param 1 = 7” creates a different crossfade – changing how long they overlap…

EXTRA CREDIT

Let’s experiment by checking out using different Curve Types for getting a slightly different morphing process – because PART 1 has a Negative RATIO and PART 2 has the Positive RATIO, you can create these interesting mirror images with the CURVE TYPES:

For example, set the CURVE TYPE = “BELL” shape with opposite positive/negative RATIO settings for the PARTs;

Set PART 1 (Sawtooth wave) to RATIO = -64 (above)
Set PART 2 (Square wave) to RATIO = +63 (below)

This allows you to get the Sawtooth wave at the extremes (top graphic) and the Square wave only in the middle (bottom graphic) of the Super Knob travel.

Another example, the “AM” shape with opposite positive/negative RATIO settings, allows you to switch alternately between Saw and Square as you turn the knob from minimum toward maximum

NOTE: Navigating back and forth may, at first, seem to be a chore (because you must select the PART and then move the KNOB in order to view what you want) but as you begin to recognize that each PART has its own set of functions the power of this is revealed. Spending time navigating and experimenting here will be well rewarded as you get used to just how deep “scuba diving” with MODX can get! This is the first big step into the MOTION CONTROL SYSTEM.

Recommended: For example, the STANDARD Curve Type selection would work a bit more smoothly. Set the RATIO = -32 and +32 for the respective Parts 1 and 2, using the Bipolar CURVE TYPE for both. Set the PARAM 1 = 3 for PART 1 and PARAM 1 = 7 for PART 2. This PARAM (will change the CURVE TYPE structure. The graphic gives you a good indication of what is actually happening). Explore the PARAM 1 settings to see how it changes the curve.

At the RATIO’-32′ and ‘+32’; and both set as PARAM 1 = 5, you still get a bit of the PART that fades out when you reach the extremes – instead of silence from the faded PART at the extreme

For Part 1 (fade out of Saw wave) you could use alternately polarity Unipolar with a Ratio of 32, which works especially fine if the Super Knob starts with left position.

If you have any questions or comments about this article, please join us to discuss them on the Forum here.

Catch up on the previous article in the series – “Mastering MODX: Super Knob Bipolar” here.

Next article: “Mastering MODX: Super Knob Complex” here.