What's the point of Orac?

Patchbox OS ORAC
1

Hello,

I have been watching a couple of videos about orac 2.0

yet I really dont understand what it does

I mean, as is, patchbox can already allow to play with puredata and sent midi commands to it
puredata itself could be programmed to save presets too

so what is the point of orac 2.0 ?

thanks

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It’s one way of working with the system. It’s more suited for use in a studio where you want to focus on the sound and hardware devices (of course you have to be able to interact with it via some screen and controls, like on an Organelle, or using some OSC client or Midiboy) rather than sit at a desk with a monitor, keyboard and mouse.

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It’s a good question. I’ve been experimenting for a couple of days with it. For me, it’s a way to have something like a ‘synth in a small box’ that I can set up with some presets and use without too much fuss with the computer.

In one preset I can set up 3 voices, complete midi modulations. Then just power on the box and select the voice by selecting the midi channel on the keyboard.

I like the idea of the Organelle for the same reason, but it’s soooooo expensive. This is that, but on the cheap :smile:

In terms of sounds, I can get everything I want out of other software synths. This is just a bit nicer and doesn’t need a hi-power PC.

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Interesting.

I have found Orac too hard to get over the learning curve. The documentation is very very bad. Sorry to be so negative, but it makes no consessions, at all, to the person who starts with zero knowledge of Orac.

I start with extensive computer knowledge and a reasonable knowledge of Pd, but it is of no help to me.

5

@worik I agree the documentation isn’t the best. But like a lot of these incredibly useful things, it’s a one-person project (or so it seems) and producing good documentation involves a lot of effort on top of the technical work. I persevered with it this far, as I get the point of the ‘standalone box’ idea, which I like.

One of the immediate problems is that there doesn’t seem to be a proper home on this forum for posts which would help people get started. There seems to be one thread, with everything loaded into it.

Moderators - how about a new category on here for ORAC?

EDIT the remote Pd client seems to have some bugs, but what I particularly like is that you can easily edit the .json files to fix it when something goes wrong.

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And they owe me nothing. It is what it is.

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I do think it’s reasonable to point out that the documetation isn’t as good as it might be, while at the same time recognising it’s a great project. If it were my project, I’d appreciate that feedback because presumably the aim is to get lots of people using it.

I see these topics are now in a “Patchbox OS/ORAC” category. Thank you @Pranciskus - maybe this sub-topic existed already and you just moved them or maybe it’s new. Actually I didn’t know there were sub-topics available, so could be I missed it.

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The subtopics are old, but moving them to ORAC category bumped them to the front. :slight_smile: