It’s a strange process indeed, so we’ve posted a new guide to Curtis Heavy that hopefully clears things up.
Meanwhile, the ability to save your recordings is on the way. They will be accessible through the same browser interface, so you can move them to your computer as well.
Foremost, a most hearfelt thanks to Parvin Panahi for turning lead into gold. Platitudes and platforms aside, design gives shape to notion.
Prison was hard, but we’ve moved on and dragged along with us just the darnedest little beat sketchpad we could have ever imagined. No grids, no top, bottomless, faithful: Spoke groove machine delivers.
Our thesis:
The drum machine began with analog sounds, but its brain was always digital; the step-sequencer places voltage potentials on a grid.
Analog synthesis was, in truth, merely a convenience; it did the job adequately. Analog is great for warmth and richness, but analog is shit for timing. So-called analog sequencers are, at their best, digital with regard to the time axis. True analog was never feasible for timing.
Contemporary sequencers have extremely high resolution; Logic has a resolution of 960 ppqn. Theoretically, Spoke places beats at sampling resolution. At 120 bpm that is 22050 ppqn. A frequency of 22050 Hz is sufficient to reproduce audio at the threshold of our hearing range. What is the threshold of our timing range?
At 22050 ppqn we are surely beyond the limit of human timing sensitivity. At 22050 ppqn position becomes effectively analog.
This is what Spoke seeks: analog positioning on a digital platform.
Of course we are limited by resolution. Of course this limit is arbitrary. Of course this limit is transitory. Of course this limit need not go very high before we supercede human timing accuracy.
Nonetheless this is the spirit: do away with the position grid, do away with the quantize. Place the beats where they need to be. Place the beats where they sound most true.
Per your request, default waves are coming soon to Sound Scope Space. The holy trinity of Sine, Square, and Saw are included, along with a memory bank to allow you to toggle between a default wave and one you’ve made. For added thrills, the wave morphs into shape, with morph speed being determined by the master (ie arpeggiator) tempo.
Sixteen bits still sound too smooth? Missing your SID chip? Two LO-FI bit reduction modes are coming as well!
Sure, the videos help a lot, and there is a detailed manual, but who has time for all that? For the Eager Among Thee, we’ve added a quick guide to Space you can digest within seconds!
We tweaked the Curtis audio routings to pump sound out of the main speaker rather than the earpiece. So.. happy.. now..
Pending potential bug fixes (never say never), that wraps up Curtis Lite. Rather than spring a whole new beast on our users, we’d like to roll out the Heavy features as we build them. At the same time, we would like to keep a Lite (or even Free) version around. So, in order to reward our early adopters, Curtis Lite will morph into Curtis Heavy at the next update. At this point, the Heavy price will go up and a Lite or Free version may come out.
Mouthful? The short version: if you own Curtis Lite, you get Heavy for free. The sooner you buy in, the cheaper the price.