Monome Norns Shield: An Introduction

[@MDWeezer]

Great stuff,, just built one myself and paired with a Grid and a fun esoteric sequencer and you've got yourself a crazy amount of endless happy surprises

[@CarlColglazier]

Love the norns ecosystem so much I upgraded to a varibright 128 grid a few months ago. You get so much free value from all the brilliant, independent norns developers coming out with new uses for it.

[@BsYtHandle]

could you talk a little about Grid vs other controllers? Trying to understand where it sits in the midi controller functionality column.

[@skeletonmeat6010]

very helpful man. love your channel. (peel the stick off the bottom acrylic!!)

[@videoartduo]

wonderful video! thank you for posting this. I've been pondering over a norns for a while now

[@kutuzov79]

Cool stuff, please do more videos for Norns!

[@christdolphin69]

oskillators

[@arielgerardo6475]

pro tip : you can watch series at Flixzone. I've been using it for watching lots of of movies during the lockdown.

[@frederickreece4256]

@Ariel Gerardo definitely, I've been watching on flixzone for since december myself =)

[@TedBrownMedia]

I wish I knew more about this earlier. its pretty slick!

[@williamthazard]

thanks for this wonderful introduction to one of my favorite pieces of hardware!

[@kylerogersmusic]

Great demo, only just found out about norns and excited to learn more

[@stevensims3342]

I mean the regular Norns uses Raspberry Pi too just is put in a metal housing with larger monome pcb board and price doubled just for you :3 Lol and don't come at me with expensive screen you can get a 128x64 OLED screen for 20-30 dollars and this is a large pixel single color OLED. Latest version of Pi board they use is 30 bucks so the board they make is consuming a lot of that price. Technically speaking you're paying for the whole package and the aluminum housing is likely the most expensive part but in general I feel like the norns are too expensive. You might think the shield is not as good as the norns but you would be wrong because the PI is where the norns gets its processor, it's the computer brain for the norns.

[@johnkrummrich4948]

Different audio in and outs on the Norms

[@clemhepburn403]

@@johnkrummrich4948 1/4" jacks cost like ten cents. You really do pay for the whole package as its own unique object greater than the sum of its parts, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. We don't value art based on the sum of its materials! If I could afford it, I'd totally pay the price for a Norns, its a well-made, beautiful tool.

[@BsYtHandle]

audio quality? Quoting the website here.

[@brmbkl]

ethically sourced and produced, smaller scale than most operations drive up the cost too

[@musicalpop-tart4869]

Looks like a gameboy for synth fans!

[@DMC-mp9sx]

Loving this...looking at both Norns and Empress Zoia. Wondering about the differences...they seem to have some similarities. Off the top, Norns has a better screen but Zoia seems to have a mini monome-like control surface? Am I not understanding this correctly in terms of functionality? They both are open source (?) and have solid communities. Wondering if Norns is easy to use? I can’t say for sure but Zoia looks fairly complicated because of possibilities. Thanks!

[@seanmattheisen7817]

Really is going to depend on your preferred programming interface. Zoia basically emulates a modular system, and so you program it by connecting CVs with different parameters like patching together different modules. Norns is based on Lua and Supercollider. You technically don't need to know about code to use other people's scripts, but if you want to create your own stuff, you'll need to be comfortable coding or at least tweaking code. Zoia is probably more intuitive to learn if you don't have experience with either modular systems or code.

[@K_man217]

Woahh this things really cool

[@senacht]

Prices on the Mononome Norms link are pretty expensive for what it is considering the number of fully open hardware/software options available to the RPi community. And when you further consider you can buy a full scale small commercial synthesizer for the same - or less - money, this particular projects doesn’t seem , to me at least, to be very compelling either as a music tool or an educational resource. Just my 2¢. Others may see it differently.

[@brmbkl]

this isnt norns but norns shield, got one secondhand for 90, so well worth it.

[@NicolasMelis]

Awesome

[@pmbear]

Great video, thanks for the info!!

[@dropshadow1932]

Have any insight on the difference between Norns / Norns Shield? Thanks.

[@RaymondtheHon]

same question here

[@brianobush]

$$$$

[@jossedobben]

I also wondered about this. Here are my findings so far. On the website ( monome.org/docs/norns/shield/ ) it says: [quote] COMPARISON There are some differences between the norns and norns shield: * norns has a battery, 1/4” mono jacks, a separate headphone jack and driver, very high quality audio, serial connection over power port; * norns shield has 3.5mm stereo jacks (headphones work on the output jack) and an ethernet port. Software is fully compatible between the two. [/quote] Apart from that, norns looks more professional, with its aluminium enclosure and bright white pixels (vs yellow pixels on the shield). Note that the norns is not simply a norns shield in a different enclosure: the button layout is different (same number of buttons but distributed differently), the screen is different (at least different colour), and it has different audio connectors (and supposedly high-quality ADC/DAC). Other companies usually remove all kinds of features from their entry-level products, so as to prevent them from competing with their premium products. My guess is that monome decided that maintaining two substantially different products was not worth the trouble. But who knows. If you want to know more, maybe you can ask in the forum ( llllllll.co ).

[@CarlColglazier]

Software is pretty close to identical. Norns gets you headphone outs + 1/4" instead of 3.5mm jacks. There are probably some differences in power and gain levels as well, but I haven't had a chance to play around with a Norns to compare. As others have said, Norns has battery power as well, but you can theoretically power the Norns Shield with any kind of battery power supply that gives you the right kind of juice.

[@modgrip805]

Hi there. Could you talk about the connections on the Shield? Thanks in advance 🙏

[@CarlColglazier]

What do you mean by connections?

[@modgrip805]

Just what type of physical jacks it accepts? 1/4 or 1/8. Midi/USB midi. In/out. Thanks 🙏

[@CarlColglazier]

@@modgrip805 1/8" audio and MIDI is through USB. Both audio in/out are TRS.

[@modgrip805]

@@CarlColglazier thanks sir 🤘🤘

[@patansy3455]

I am just learning my Norns Shield. I have 2 scripts already on it. I am struggling on finding out how to add more scripts to it. The shield has ability to use hot spot. Anyone able to give me direction or advise or KZbin link to an easy way to add scripts to the Norns Shield ?

[@elyssapalmer2298]

So would you say it’s a decent virtual analog synth? I have a blofeld that I’ve been considering selling because I don’t use anything but it’s most basic VA patches, and I’m wondering if Norns would be a good replacement for that aspect, poly stuff specifically

[@CarlColglazier]

I don't think it currently has anything approaching some of the better virtual analog VSTs like u-he Diva. You can make some great sounds, but the ecosystem seems to be a bit more focused on experimental interfaces and design than on VA. Of course, there is plenty of stuff out there you can adapt from SC world. All depends what kind of time and resources you want to put into it.

[@dumafuji]

Wtf. This is the coolest shit ever

[@paultyrrell8060]

Noob question - I just built my Norns Shield but having difficulty connecting my midi controller (which is a SL-88 Keyboard) to the Norns - is there a list of recognised midi controllers somewhere?

[@CarlColglazier]

Are you still having issues with this? It should work with any USB class compliant MIDI controller.

[@Vanni_Dyna_Bro_FXIHD]

Dumb question Is this compatible with the djs-1000 got told there’s something in it that wouldn’t work however I couldn’t find anything supporting that claim

[@aki_gong6271]

Are those sounds coming by default or do you need to load them afterwards or even program them? Thanks :)

[@joepaige7553]

Great overview of the Norns, been thinking of building one myself. I'm a little concerned over your soldering practice, I hope you have a good fan there sucking those nasty fumes from your face? Otherwise that's a pretty sweet recipe for cancer ;)

[@99letters99]

so cool.

[@TecladistadoYoutubeRivaLima]

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[@CarlColglazier]

Thanks, it looks like they've made some changes on the market website. market.monome.org/

[@geluix69]

The rotary pots look pretty janky , worst than than a Volka ?

[@Sk8erMorris]

does the Norns Shield PCB not require soldering?

[@CarlColglazier]

I think they have a new version out that's easier to assemble.

[@bangersareforever480]

so if we buy from monome we’ll have to solder?

[@CarlColglazier]

Not with the newest model, I believe!

[@reginaldbraithewaite5833]

Which keyboard are you using?

[@CarlColglazier]

Old Akai MPK49.

[@reginaldbraithewaite5833]

@@CarlColglazier Thanks!

[@mitchellgraham7060]

can you tell me why something like this has no MIDI lag but my i5 8gb computer does?

[@kps2420]

probably because you are using WASAPI instead of ASIO driver

[@mitchellgraham7060]

@@kps2420 oh, I'll have to remember this. I never realised this was the issue, it's why I never used MIDI. Thanks

[@etyrnal]

osskillatorz

[@offthewallsk818]

“Oskilllators”

[@tmt284]

You are cool

[@videolabcreators]

[@curryjerk7-116]

stalasagnaccio ywelltak soill