squid new

squid

A generative, clock-locked sampler for Monome Norns

squid is an eight-slot sampler for Monome Norns, built in the spirit of the ALM Squid Salmple. It records from the inputs and replays what it captures on its own terms: each of the eight slots is permanently bound to a random effect, each runs its own clock-synced loop, and each playback is scattered across the stereo field and the spectrum before passing through a fixed lo-fi colour. You never choose which effect lives where. You tune a handful of knobs; squid does the rest.

Plug audio into the inputs. squid samples live in only.

The character is emergent. At launch each slot draws one of eight effects, used once each, and the GUI shows the assignment. Every time a slot plays, that fixed effect is stacked with a fresh random bandpass and stereo position, then run through the crunch that sits on the playback bus. Randomize reshuffles which effect lives on which slot. squid is purely rhythmic — it does nothing without a running clock — and it starts silent: raise record and play probability to bring it to life. Or take the wheel — per-slot faders, mutes, and manual play/record triggers let you play squid as an instrument over its own generative churn.

What it does

Slots. Eight stereo slots, up to 8 seconds each. A slot is empty until a record trigger captures into it; once filled it can be overdubbed, played, or cleared, but its length and content persist until you clear all buffers.

Effects. At launch, and again on every Randomize, the eight effects are dealt one-to-one across the slots: pitch −12 and pitch +12 (an octave down and up, length preserved), half speed and double speed (rate and pitch together), forward and reverse, low cut and high cut (high- and low-pass around 250 Hz). Each is used exactly once. The current assignment is shown in the GUI's effect row (see Screen).

Triggering. Each slot runs its own loop, independent of the others. Divisions are drawn from ten steps spanning a 1/64 note to eight bars (0.0625–32 beats), and the slot waits for one on the Norns clock, so the eight slots drift in and out of phase with each other. Two options shape this: division decision picks whether each slot re-rolls its division on every trigger (the default, fully shifting) or holds one division per slot until you Randomize — in which case the eight slots take eight distinct divisions (more groove-like); division skew weights the draw toward the fast end (short), the slow end (long), or evenly (full range, default). It biases the odds without ever excluding the far end, so a long-skewed slot can still occasionally fire fast.

Probability. At each trigger, play is rolled first and wins over record. If play does not fire, record is rolled: an empty slot records fresh, a filled slot overdubs. The recorded length is the current division, capped at the 8-second buffer. Playing an empty slot returns silence — no fallback, no skip.

Record shield. A latch that freezes buffers against recording and overdub while slots keep playing. There is a global shield (K2) and a per-slot shield; a slot is protected if either is engaged. The per-slot shield shows as a dimmed frame around that slot's status glyph on screen.

Spatial scatter. Inspired by the ALM Jumble Henge. Each slot is assigned one cell of a three-band by five-position matrix: a bandpass (20–499, 500–1999, or 2000–9999 Hz) and a stereo balance (hard left, mid left, centre, mid right, hard right). The assignment is unique per slot — no two slots share a cell — and is fixed until you Randomize, which re-deals it alongside the effects. It stacks on top of the slot's effect, so a band that fights the slot's own filter occasionally lands near-silent — by design. The matrix is drawn top right and each cell lights while its slot plays (see Screen).

Sample shape. Two global controls — sample attack and sample decay — fade each played voice in and out. They are set as a fraction of that voice's play length, so the fade scales with the loop's division: 0 % is the hard, clicky gate (the default), higher values smooth the onset and tail. At the extremes the envelope becomes a triangle peaking mid-loop.

Resample. Output folded back to input. With resample on and resample amount up, the currently-playing loops are mixed into the record source, so new takes capture them — loops recirculate and layer over generations. The feedback is one block delayed so the loop stays stable.

Crunch. A lo-fi colour on the slot-playback bus — sample-rate reduction, bit-quantize, and a little noise. Only the sampled voices wear the grit. It is inspired by 12-bit hardware samplers like the Akai S900 and S950 — where the character comes from the converters, the anti-alias filtering, and rate-based aliasing — but it is a loose evocation, not an exact emulation. Adjust it with the crunch amount parameter: the default is the original baked-in colour, 0 is near-clean, 100 is heavy.

Per-slot mixing. Each slot has its own level fader and a mute. Level sets the slot's playback gain ahead of the global output; mute silences that slot alone while its loop and any recording keep running (mute is not a record shield). Both act immediately and continuously — muting or riding a fader affects even a one-shot already sounding. On screen each slot shows a fader: a bright frame when active, dimmed when muted, the handle at the current level. A global mute and a mute flip act on all eight at once.

Manual control. Alongside the probability loops, every slot can be played or recorded by hand — one trigger per slot for play and one for record, independent of the play/record odds. A manual quantize option fires them immediately (free) or on the slot's next division (quantized). Manual record honours the shields and captures for the slot's current division, exactly like the probabilistic path.

Randomize. Re-rolls the effect-to-slot assignment without touching the buffers. The per-slot divisions are random on every trigger anyway, so a single key reshuffles the whole character while your loops keep playing.

Signal flow

                      audio IN
                          │
                  record / overdub
                          │
                    slot buffers
                          │
                        play
                          │
                     slot effect
                          │
                 bandpass + balance
                          │
                   attack / decay
                          │
              per-slot level / mute
                          │
                    8-slot sum
                          │
                       crunch
                          │
                     master gain
                          │
        ┌─────────────────┼─────────────────┐
        │                 │                 │
     OUT L/R           ~sendA            ~sendB

squid outputs only its sampled voices — the live input itself is not monitored through the script. Record and overdub capture from the input (and, with resample up, fold the playing loops back in). Play routes a slot through its fixed effect, then its scatter cell, then its attack/decay envelope, then the per-slot level and mute. The eight slots sum, pass through the shared crunch, and output volume scales the whole mix. If you want to hear the live signal alongside the loops, enable Norns' system input monitor.

squid also works with the fx mod: its output is mirrored to the fx-mod send buses, so it can act as a stereo source for them. Enable the mod (mods load before scripts, so it must be active when squid loads) and squid feeds its sends automatically; it works with any version of the fx mod, no patch needed. If the mod's send bus overlaps the norns input or output, squid gives the mod its own free bus while it runs and hands the original back on exit. The log shows one line per send ("squid: fx send A -> bus ..."). With no mod active the sends go nowhere.

Controls

Control	Function
E1	Output volume
E2	Record probability
E3	Play probability
K1 hold 2s	Clear all slot buffers
K2	Record shield — toggle; slots keep playing but are never recorded over
K3	Randomize — re-roll the effect-to-slot assignment

A short tap of K1 is reserved by Norns for its menu, so clearing the buffers requires a hold. Everything per-slot — level, mute, manual play/record and the per-slot shield — lives in PARAMS and maps to MIDI (see Parameters); the front panel stays a three-knob, three-key overview.

Screen

The screen is a single panel, centred. Everything sits at low brightness until a state lifts it to full.

Header.

• Record shield, top left. Full brightness while the global shield is engaged.
• Input meter, the two columns below the shield — the live left and right input levels, body dim with a bright peak cap, ballistics tuned to the tempo.
• Output / record / play bars, top centre. Each fills pixel by pixel with its value.
• Mixer matrix, top right — the three-band by five-position scatter grid, drawn dim. A cell lights to full while the slot routed there is playing, so you can see where the output is landing across the spectrum and stereo field.

Slot columns. The eight slots, left to right, each a stack of four cells:

• Status — P playing, R recording, an angle for a filled idle slot, X empty (P and R at full brightness). The frame around this cell is bright when the slot can record, dimmed when its record shield is on.
• Effect — the effect currently assigned to the slot; reshuffles on Randomize.
• Fader — the per-slot level (handle height) and mute (bright frame active, dim frame muted).
• Number — the slot's number, 1–8.

Parameters

The PARAMS menu is split into a global group and eight slot groups. All parameters are MIDI-mappable.

global

Parameter	Default	Range
output volume	50 %	0–100 %
record probability	0 %	0–100 %
play probability	0 %	0–100 %
division decision	on play	on play / on randomize
division skew	full range	short / long / full range
sample attack	0 %	0–100 %
sample decay	0 %	0–100 %
resample	no	no / yes
resample amount	0 %	0–100 %
crunch amount	25 %	0–100 %
manual quantize	free	free / quantized
t: clear	—	trigger
t: shield	—	trigger
t: randomize	—	trigger
t: global mute	—	trigger
t: global mute flip	—	trigger

slot 1 … slot 8 (each)

Parameter	Default	Range
level s#	100 %	0–100 %
t: mute s#	—	trigger
t: play s#	—	trigger
t: rec s#	—	trigger
t: record shield s#	—	trigger

Output volume, record probability and play probability mirror the three encoders (E1/E2/E3). Record and play default to 0 % so squid starts silent and waits for you. Sample attack/decay are a fraction of each voice's play length. Crunch defaults to the original baked-in colour (0 % near-clean, 100 % heavy). Every trigger fires on a CC ≥ 64 — the global three mirror K1/K2/K3, and the per-slot play, record, mute and shield map cleanly to pads for hands-on control.

Synchronization

squid is locked to the Norns clock (internal or MIDI) and does nothing without one. Each slot's per-trigger division is converted to beats:

Division	beats
8/1	32
4/1	16
2/1	8
1/1	4
1/2	2
1/4	1
1/8	0.5
1/16	0.25
1/32	0.125
1/64	0.0625

1/1 is one bar (4 beats). The slot waits that many beats on the clock before firing, and a record captures for the same length — beats × 60 / BPM seconds, capped at the 8-second buffer. Stop the clock and squid stops.

MIDI

All parameters are available in the PARAMS menu and can be mapped to any MIDI CC using Norns' built-in MIDI learn.

1. Open the PARAMS menu and scroll to the parameter.
2. Press K3 to enter MIDI learn mode (the entry flashes).
3. Send a CC from your controller.

The mapping is saved with your PSET. All MIDI input is on channel 1 by default; change the channel in PARAMS > MIDI. The Norns clock can also be driven from MIDI via PARAMS > CLOCK > SOURCE.

Install

Via Maiden: open http://norns.local/maiden and run:

;install https://github.com/notrobintaylor/squid

Or via SSH:

ssh we@norns.local
cd ~/dust/code
git clone https://github.com/notrobintaylor/squid