Oh Sh*t!
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Now what?
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I installed my Brain Seed and get no lights at all.
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Turn off the modular! The Brain Seed is not getting power for some reason. Unplug the Brain Seed from the busboard, turn on the modular. Make sure that other modules are getting power. Now turn off the module and re-connect the Brain Seed. Check the power cable connection on the Brain Seed, and make sure that you connect it carefully to the busboard. Now power on your modular. If the Brain Seed still does not get power, turn off the modular again. Try connecting your Brain Seed to another power connection on your busboard. There is a chance that your modular power supplies may be over taxed. Try removing several other modules. If this does not help, try the Brain Seed in another case. Try another ribbon cable. If none of this helps, your Brain Seed may in fact be dead :-( Contact Antimatter with details of how you obtained your Brain Seed and what happened.
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How do I use the jumpers?
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There are two jumpers on the Brain Seed's board. Placing a jumper on the pins labeled “Freeze” on the board will change the Freeze jack into a standard Reset input that can be used to sync the Brain Seed using clock dividers, etc...
Placing a jumper on the pins labeled “Cycle” will change the cycle input range for CV mode from -5 to +5 volts to 0 to +5 volts. Many modules only produce positive voltage, and this may help to get the desired result from this mode. |
The sequence is only moving between two steps, even after I select various length modes.
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Chances are that cycle is in CV mode (Red LED), if you are clocking the Brain Seed with a square LFO, this means that there are only two CV values for it to jump between. Try cycling the Brain Seed with a “sloped” waveform (sine/saw/etc...).
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The Brain Seed's output does not exactly match the voltage that was input.
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Do not adjust the trimmer on the back of the unit, it is for factory use only and the Brain Seed will need to be serviced if it is adjusted. The
Brain Seed's quantized output is calibrated to offer reasonably
accurate volt per octave output over 10 octaves/volts (-5 to +5). The
Seed In CV input does not have a calibration pot and may be off slightly
from the output. You may be able to match an input pitch by turning on
the quantizer, which will bump the pitch to the nearest semitone.
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In CV Cycle mode, I am getting “pauses”
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CV cycle mode has a range of -5 to +5 volts (a range of 0-5 can be selected by changing the jumper on the back of the Brain Seed). If the CV input goes out of these ranges, the Cycle input will “clip”, meaning that it will not trigger a change to the step position or generate a trigger output. As long as the CV input is within a safe range (-12v to +12v), the Brain Seed will not be damaged by clipping the Cycle input, and this effect can actually be quite useful in creating different rhythms. Experiment with using attenuation before this input to achieve different results.
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In CV Cycle mode, I am not hearing all of the steps of my sequence.
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In CV cycle mode, the first step is accessed at the lowest possible Cycle voltage (-5volts, or 0 volts according to the jumper selection), and the last step is selected at the highest possible Cycle voltage (5volts). This means that any input must travel through the entire range of the Cycle input to access all of the steps of a sequence.
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Freeze or Reset are not acting as expected.
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Make sure that the jumper on the back of the Brain Seed is in the proper position for the desired function (Freeze or Reset).
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With nothing input, the Brain Seed is generating strange voltages.
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When no jack is in the Seed input and ReSeed is active, the Brain Seed will generate random voltages for each Cycle. If you want to prevent this, plug a jack into the Seed input and/or turn off ReSeed.
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The output is not changing.
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The Seed Out may be out of range (clipping), the Seed out has a range of -5 to +5 volts (including the shift input). Watch for the clip light at the top of the Brain Seed, and read some tips on clipping below.
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The Seed out is clipping too much, especially when using the Shift input.
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The Seed output has a range of -5 to +5 volts. If the highest values of your sequence are around 4 volts, that only leaves 1 volt of Shift before you are out of range. Experiment with attenuation and using negative input values. Also try using a negative shift input, because this gives you a full 5 volts of shift with no clipping if your original signal was in the 0-5 volt range.
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ReSeed is turning off when it gets a gate, and turning on when there is no gate input.
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The Reseed button is a toggle, meaning that when ReSeed is toggled off, a gate will turn Reseed on, and when ReSeed is toggled on, a gate will turn ReSeed off.
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Some Reset or Freeze input patches can cause the Brain Seed to lock up.
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If the Brain Seed’s trigger output is feeding a clock divider, trigger sequencer, or similar device that is then being used to Freeze the Brain Seed, the Brain Seed will be “Frozen” and will not produce another trigger that would be needed to un-Freeze it. A similar situation can occur in Reset mode.
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The Brain Seed is out of tune.
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Use the quantizer, it has been calibrated for tuned operation. Make sure that the quantizer is on (green LED) when volt per octave output is needed. DO NOT adjust the quantizer trim on the back of the unit, it is not user serviceable.
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The Brain Seed is locked up and not responding to any inputs.
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Disconnect everything except for a clock input. Try another clock source. Try changing the length setting. If the Brain Seed is still not responding, unfortunately, the Brain Seed’s firmware may have crashed. Reset your modular’s power. If this happens consistently, contact Antimatter.
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The Brain Seed is locking up some times for a matter of seconds, then goes back to normal.
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Pressing the Length button for a few seconds will engage the Save function of the Brain Seed and will cause it to be non-responsive for a few seconds.
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When I am in CV cycle mode and turn on ReSeed, the Brain Seed changes length modes.
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Variable length mode and CV Cycle mode can not be active at the same time, so the Brain Seed switches to 32- step fixed length mode.
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When I change Length modes, the speed of the Cycle change and trigger outputs change.
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In CV Cycle mode, the Cycle input voltage “scrubs” through the steps in the Brain Seed. If there are only 8 steps to scrub through, the transition between steps is much slower than if there are 32 steps to scrub through.
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When using CV Cycle mode, the Brain Seed seems to “jump” around too much.
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Noise is present in every signal to a certain extent, and because of this the Brain Seed may have trouble determining the threshold to select the next step. This means that it may quickly jump between steps in response to the noise. Even if you don’t hear noise in the signal of the device, it can cause this behavior. Experiment with using attenuation on your CV cycle source, or using another CV source that may produce less noise. Also be aware that the more steps you are accessing (8/16/32/1000), the more sensitive the Brain Seed is to the the CV cycle input voltage.
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The Brain Seed is in Variable Length Mode, Cycle is in CV Mode, and nothing is happening.
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In variable length mode, the Brain Seed has no data and no set length until something is recorded, so it has no steps to cycle through. Record some data and the Brain Seed will react to a CV input in CV cycle mode.
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