Live Coding CV & Gate Generator and Processor

Manufacturer: Emute Lab Instruments

uSEQ is a Live Coding CV & Gate Generator and Processor.

It's the result of cutting-edge research on the design and implementation of Live Coding instruments coming out of the Experimental Music Technologies (EMUTE) Lab, at the University of Sussex, UK.

It is fully open source and DIY-friendly, both in hardware & software, with the code and hardware files freely available and extensible here:
https://github.com/Emute-Lab-Instruments/uSEQ

IO:
- 2x CV Ins
- 2x Gate Ins
- 3x CV Outs
- 3x Gate Outs

Hardware controls:
- 2x general-purpose rotary encoders (acting as attenuverters for the CV ins, if plugged in)
- 1x momentary push-button
- 1x 3-way toggle switch

Live Coding is a creative practice that has been around since at least the mid 1980s, whereby music and/or visuals are improvised by writing and interactively modifying computer code in real time, often on a stage in front of a live audience, all the while the very program being modified is constantly running and generating signals. Modular synthesis is itself, in many ways, a form of hybrid live coding: both analog and digital modules, acting much like functions in programming languages (with inputs, outputs, and parameters), having their parameters changed and modulated in different ways over time, and even rearranged in the signal chain to form new computations all the while the music keeps playing.

uSEQ brings live coding inside Eurorack, enabling the use of real-time generative coding to control any other modules without the need for expensive DC-coupled audio interfaces, or any other gear besides the module itself and something to write the code on. There is currently an open-source, browser-based code editor available, created specifically for uSEQ and under active development, and other editors (e.g. for touch screen devices) are following.

uSEQ can receive its code using a regular USB C cable. All code runs on the on-board microcontroller chip, meaning that it can keep running even after the USB cable has been unplugged, or even resume running straight after a full power cycle. The code tells the module what signals and patterns to generate from each of the outputs. The signals can be of arbitrary complexity, can be anywhere on the spectrum of repetitive vs. random, and can be related to the input signals in arbitrary ways, hence it can also be used as a CV processor.

The programming language used to interact with uSEQ is a called ModuLisp—a contraction of 'Modular'/'Modulation' and 'Lisp', the iconic and hugely-influential family of programming languages dating all the way back to the early 1960s. While ModuLisp borrows a lot of inspiration from the Lisp languages of yesteryear, it has been designed and streamlined specifically for the performing musician, providing various music-specific conveniences and many different ways of organizing time and time-varying signals for rhythmic or free-form sequencing and modulation.

Both the available IO and hardware controls can be extended by chaining multiple modules or the upcoming dedicated expansion boards.

https://www.emutelabinstruments.co.uk/useq/

• 75 mA +12V
• ? mA -12V
• ? mA 5V
• 23 mm Depth

Available as an assembled Module and as a DIY project.

This Module is currently available.