Norns Shield - the little music computer

A DIY audio swiss army knife that can be used for so many scenarios

NOTE: I recently had a little look through my drafts folder and there are loads of posts in there I could easily polish off and get out to you lovely people. Maybe I can schedule a few of these to go out on auto-pilot for a n=bit?

I am going to be a little lazy here and share by starting with some copy and paste! Shock horror!

The following was lifted from Monome's website:

Norns is many sound instruments. it is a small, portable, open-source sound computer that dynamically runs scripts and DSP, such as:

• sample-cutter

• polysynth

• algorithmic drum machine

• drone box

• granulator

• asynchronous looper

• polyphasic sequencer

through scripts written in Lua, you can define the behavior of its on-board encoders, keys, and screen, as well as any connected devices. through a large number of pre-written libraries, norns offers a platform for charting new possibilities in music-making. it connects easily to grids, MIDI devices, USB-CV interfaces, networked OSC, and other objects.

using engines written with SuperCollider, you can customize and create your own methods of DSP for single performances or longterm exploration. scripts choose which sound engine to use and then control its parameters using simple programming.

edit scripts through the maiden web interface over WiFi, or load norns as a network drive and use your preferred development environment. everything is stored internally on the device. once editing is done, instruments can be immediately run from the onboard selector.

norns is designed to be changed, encouraging customization and invention. we’ve created studies with lots of code examples to help get started, or you can browse the library of prebuilt instruments made possible with the support of a vibrant international community.

norns is open source and continues to grow with the generous efforts of many contributors.

I’ve written before about Supercollider, Tidal Cycles etc, so it’s exciting to discover something that revolves around programming and sound design in a way that is just so very versatile.

I’m going to explore the many permutations and ideas that they can inspire and lead to. I’ve conjured up some interesting ideas with it already. Yep I bought one and it arrived this week.

DIY hardware and open-source software

At the heart of the “Norns Shield” is the operating system also called Norns which was developed by Monome,a New York based company who initially built the devices and sold them in the way you’d buy other semi-modular/modular synth gear but you can also build them yourself. The hardware schema is available online and you can source the parts yourself, including a Raspberry Pi 3b, which may be hard to obtain now. The extension board features a screen and a series of buttons and knobs, plus some extra connectors. You connect it to the Pi and then pack it up in a case.

Apparently simple but I have a fear of doing this! So I bought one off of Ebay, brand new and custom built.

Mine is very well built included the Raspberry Pi 3b, cables, 32Gb microsd card, with software pre-installed that can be updated with firmware updates. It also came with a nicely formatted instruction street courtesy of it’s creator Claire Fox in Scotland who builds her synth gear and sells some of it online. Very cool.

It was easy to get up and running, plug in the power, connect some headphones and it boots straight into a script called “Awake”, a polyphasic sequencer, I guess you can call it that uses one of the supercollider synths. I did record this into Logic Pro for iPad the other day, which led me onto some other ideas to use this short generative loop and further morph it with a wrangler delay, such as Replicant 3 from Audiodamage.

I’ve done a quick export of the work in progress, here you go. Created with just the Norns and the iPad running Logic (photo above), recorded to an audio track. Drums added in Logic using the pattern sequencer and I will spice those up and add some randomisation etc.

There is a lot to try out with this and with various hardware/software combinations. I will do some more videos, as sometimes it’s easier to show an overhead camera view, quite popular on Youtube these days to walk through how stuff works and listen to the sounds together.

The ecosystem

So what else exists in the Monome ecosystem? Quite a lot but there doesn’t appear to be a dependence on needing all of the other products, since Norns can be used with various hardware products that you already have or are planning on getting.

You could buy one of the Grids that come in different sizes and you could buy more than one as the Norns has 4 USB connectors, no 5-PIN MIDI but you could hook up a converter of some sort. The Grid is very much like a Launchpad with rows and columns of buttons that glow when active and can be used for quick changes to sequences and great for performances.