SuperDirt Voltage

A small set of SuperDirt synths and Tidal helpers to control modular synths. No MIDI required!

2023 updates:

• Added saw, lfo triggered LFOs
• amp now controls the scale of gate, voltage, saw, ar, and lfo

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Pitch, with octave quantisation

-- change notes per octave on each cycle
d1 $ pitch "0 10 8 1" # octave "<12 31 8>" # x 1

pitch allows a pattern of note values. octave sets the amount of notes per octave. The pitch and scale values will be converted to 1v/octave. Both pitch and octave can be sequenced for some microtonal madness...

glide accepts a strengh (in semitones, relative to scale), a rate (in step length).

-- glide to pitch
d1 $ pitch "0 10 8 1" # scale "<12 31 8>" # x 1 # glide 12 0.5

Gate

-- sequence gate inputs
d2 $ gate "0 1 0 0 1 1 1" # x 2

gate will take a 0/1 pattern and return +5v signals for the 1 values. Use -1 if you need a -5v.

Voltage automation

-- create stepped automation
d3 $ volt "1 0.2 0.5 -0.2" # x 3

volt will allow you to sequence voltages however you like.

ADSR/AR

--- adsr
d4 $ adsr 0 0.2 1 0.2 # x 4

There is also just an ar helper too, which has a default D and S value.

-- create ar
d5 $ struct "t f t t" # ar 0 0.5 # x 5

-- patternise ar
d5 $ struct "t f t t" # ar (range 0.1 1 sine) "<0 0.4>" # x 5

In the above example, the attack time would grow for each triggered envelope over course of the cycle.

Sine LFO

This will create an sine waveform, the sine will restart with each cycle, which gives a neat synced/trigger effect for modulations.

d6 $ lfo 0.5 # x 6

Saw LFO

This will create a sawtooth waveform, the sawtooth will restart with each cycle, which gives a neat synced/trigger effect for modulations.

d6 $ saw 0.5 # x 6

Clock

-- clock cv output
d6 $ clock # x 6

clock will output a clock cv, which matches the bpm of your tidal project. You can slow / fast this as well.

Amp

Using the amp modifier in Tidal Cycles will scale the output of gate, voltage, saw, ar, and lfo. Awesome for creating more suble modulations.

d6 $ saw 0.5 # x 6 # amp 0.3

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How to use

These require a DC-coupled sound card.

Add the voltage.scd synths to your active SuperDirt synth definitions.

Evaluate the voltage.tidal definitions after starting Tidal. These can also be added to your Tidal startup file.

In the above examples, x maps to a channel on your audio card. If you have an 8 output audio card, the x will likely be 0-7. If you are using an aggregate device, please refer to your Audio settings.

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Feedback and/or additions?

If you are actually using this, please join the community here and let me know: https://club.tidalcycles.org/t/using-tidal-to-control-modular-synths-with-cv/863