Kilpatrick Audio new CARBON sequencer!

I am just going to email Andrew Kilpatrick in a few and see if he can pop in here and answer a few questions - wish me luck.

Hi folks,

Itā€™s Andrew here from Kilpatrick Audio! Thanks for all the nice discussion surrounding CARBON. I try my best to keep up with the various user communities and VennDiagram was nice enough to tell me about this place.

Regarding the micro-timings, quantizing and humanize functions that were being discussed, they sort of all fit together from a design standpoint.

At this time weā€™re fixed to a grid especially for the purpose of recording, because the time-steps are really grid based on not just a sequence of arbitrarily-timed events. So as it stands weā€™re not planning on implementing micro-timed recording.

But making little timing adjustments during playback, either manually while editing, or with a ā€œhumanizeā€ function are things that fit better with the existing design and we plan on implementing these.

Someone somewhere asked about a metronome. Indeed CARBON has a built-in speaker that can beep while recording. This doesnā€™t require any kind of MIDI or audio routing, so is designed to be super convenient when doing real-time recording of tracks from scratch.

Any other questions? Please let me know!

Weā€™ve got about a week left on our crowdfunding campaign and hoping to reach our goal, so your support would be amazing!

http://store.kilpatrickaudio.com/carbon

Andrew

LHi Andrew,
Thanks for the details. It really does look like a super little sequencer. Personally, I could probably live without the unquantised recording, as long as there was some way to nudge note start/end points to an off grid position during playback or editing.

Will the carbon work as a midi to cv interface too?
Eg. If I send midi data from a computer to either din or usb, could I then route note/gate to cv outs on carbon, or does it just send cv from the internal seq?

Edit: ignore me. Question answered on your crowdfunding page.

The only thing that has stopped me from going for this is the number of tracks, is there any chance that the number of discrete midi tracks can be increasesd?

In every other way this thing looks the mutts nuts but 6 tracks is not enough for me.

Buy 2? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

8 tracks would be sweet, and Iā€™d also like if it could be increasedā€¦ but I presume that there is a good reason why only six, as you have ot have some limit somewhere, no?

^ 12 tracks (shift or function to switch between banks?) would be nice, 2 midi outs and the host out should have no problem sharing the bandwidth, but I guess you are alluding to micro processor overhead?

Between the Carbon and the Squarp is very difficult to choose, the Carbon wins out on connectivity, the Squarp on track count, both have great features but both donā€™t seem to want to take the role of being the total sequencing overlord of ALLTHESYNTHS :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I like your suggestion for 12 tracks man, but weā€™d probably have to sacrifice the number of steps per track to 32 if he hits a resource limit. Still, itā€™s a cool idea :+1:

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If you have keyboards that can use Midi Splits / Zone (even over USB) for example - seeing as Carbon can use two Ports per track then you could get a fair amount of mileage out of what is on offer (tracks can be deployed polyphonically as well).
For example even though each track uses 64 steps - you could for example have 4 x 16 step note sequences on a single track and use the start parameter + scene functions to have one track play 4 separate bass lines if the sequence was set to a length of 16 and moved forward 16 steps for every scene.
Each one of those events could also have no pattern or different pattern generator overlays on them for further variation and start and length points can be easily tweaked in realtime as well.
It is quite a different approach to other sequencers I have used and you get a huge amount of diversity out of the six tracks available (way more than seem apparently obvious at first glance).
So whilst 6 tracks may seem like a trade off you get a lot back in return via the realtime performance and creative randomization options on hand.
The step grid is great for doing subtle things like note offset, rotate style sequencer tricks and it will cycle back on itself too so if a 64 step sequencer starts at 1 and ends at step 64 you could start it in a following scene at say Step 50 and it will cycle up to step 64 then back to step 1 and through the remainder sequential steps.
Scenes can also start anywhere within the sequence and you can also set different lengths per scene and / or tweak that in realtime as the sequence plays and that is before we get into how pattern overlays effect the note trigger events within that sequence timeline.
With independent step resolution per track and direction play head offsets for forward/backward and probability triggering and you get a lot of mileage for your 6 tracks IMHO.
I wouldnā€™t discount it just because of the track count as I found it great for generating all sorts of ideas that could spur on other creative vistas and compositions that you may not have come up with so organically and/or accidentally with other sequencing systems.
It is fun and inspirational in equal measure, a combination that is hard to find IMHO.

Talk about down to the wire 94% funded with 4 days to go ā€¦nail biter.

I know. Andrew said on the Kilpatrick FB page that they wouldnā€™t extend the deadline again. I really hope this happens!

If youā€™re on the fence, now is the time to join in!

http://store.kilpatrickaudio.com/carbon

96%. 3 days left.

So closeā€¦

97%. 2 days left.

Latest video: https://youtu.be/zbUKjSiulEE

I know the track count is less on the Carbon compared with the Octatrack but it can do way more right ?
I used to use the Octatrack to sequence my Virus TI, and wondered how the Carbon would go at that task.

Pulled the trigger in the end, so very glad to see this fully funded.
Would be very keen to see micro-timing/humanize implemented.
Roll on April/May!

QUOTE FROM LAST MAILOUTā€¦

ā€œAnd a very special announcement for code hackers: CARBON firmware will be open source software! As a hardware company weā€™ve never been sure how to deal with open source. But as a dedicated Linux user and open source advocate, Andrew finally decided it was time to give back. The entire CARBON codebase will be released under the GPL to keep it free. Details on the repository location, etc. will be announced once the first batch of CARBON units is releasedā€

Thought this was really interesting.

Very pleased that Andrew has seemed to confirm micro-timing is implemented on the comments section of the product page.

Waiting for a coding genius to step up and say they have big plans for the firmware, now it is open source (@Rusty looking at youā€¦ :wink: )

Youā€™ve already got a coding genius working on the firmwareā€¦ are ye not satisfied?

I nabbed one of the earlybird spots, have total faith in Andrew. The K4815 Pattern Generator is my all time favourite EuroCrack module; so this was a no brainer for me.

But for sure Iā€™ll be having a serious dig around with this when it arrivesā€¦ might make an editor / manager for itā€¦ and/or look at a custom firmwareā€¦ but Iā€™ll be having a chat with Andrew once the dust settles a bit for him, and see what future plans are first.

Youā€™ve already got a coding genius working on the firmwareā€¦ are ye not satisfied?[/quote]
Satisfied? Never!
:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
Very much looking forward to getting my hands on it though.

Manual is up:

http://www.kilpatrickaudio.com/?p=carbon-manual

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When Is thing thing coming out?