More Nautilus Suggestions

Our Modules Nautilus
1

Hi again.

I’ve spent a lot more time with my Nautilus now, and have a list of features I’d love to see in a firmware update:

1. Summed mono feeding only one side of the FX engine

See my previous post for details, but I think we got this one worked out :slight_smile:

2. Non-quantised option for the delay time

We have the resolution knob and input, which is great. I’d love to see an extra target for the assignable inputs/attenuators that would allow me to do un-clocked changes to the delay time. Preferably with a range field in Narwhal, so that we can pick between large-scale changes and the very small changes needed to get chorusing, flanging or tape warble types of effects.

Bonus points if you can have a V/oct setting for it too!

3. More chroma effects

In particular, I’d like some form of diffusion as a chroma effect.

A micro pitch-shift would be nice too - the existing (non-chroma) shimmer is good, but a bit extreme for just a bit of fattening up, and it runs off to infinity pretty quickly with a lot of feedback. So ideally a chroma shift where the depth knob takes it from, say, -10 cents through to +10 cents.

In general, it’d be nice to have a whole bunch more effects to chose from, especially given that there is no send/return to allow external processing of the feedback loop (and I completely get why that wasn’t feasible).

I only like about half the ones it comes with, and II suspect that’s true for a lot of people - though naturally we will all like different subsets! How about a few more effects choices, and then use Narwhal to let us pick the set we want available? (I’m assuming here that the number of easily distinguishable colours is the limiting factor on the number of chroma algorithms since most MCUs have effectively infinite ROM space when it comes to DSP algorithms).

4. Change the Feeback Mode button to switch between configs

This is probably the controversial one.

How about changing the behavious of the feedback mode button so that it selects between different Narwhal configs? (Well, more likely choses between four sections in one config, so it’s still just one JSON file, but same effect).

You’d need to have an an extra Narwhal option that sets the feeback mode in each config, By default that could be set to match the existing behaviour, so nothing is changed from existing behaviour unless you choose to tweak it).

2 Likes
2

Thanks for sharing these suggestions! I placed them on a pending list of potential updates for the team to look over, should any be considered for a future firmware update. Some of these items are already on there too :slight_smile:

3

Michael, I work with a lot of stereo field recordings and I’d really like to be able to preserve the L/R relationship of these recordings when using Nautilus as a delay or looper. However, I find that even with only a single active delay line per channel and Dispersal all the way CCW, there is an offset between the left and right delay frequencies. Could the base firmware of Nautilus be adjusted so that the left and right channels are in synch with Dispersal fully CCW? This seems like the most logical response when “zeroing out” the Dispersal parameter. If it was a specific design decision not to do this, could this be made possible through Narwhal?

4

Hey @xxeyes, thank you for sharing this! There shouldn’t be any offset between the L and R channels’ clocks when Dispersal is fully CCW. There are couple things that we can look at here to troubleshoot:

  1. Nautilus has a parameter calibration procedure. Hold the Freeze button at boot up, with no patch cables inserted in Nautilus. There is a chance that the Dispersal knob on your Nautilus is not fully closing, and this would resolve that issue.

  2. The clock LEDs are not in sync, but the clocks are. At certain Dispersal/Resolution settings, turning Dispersal fully CCW will update the blue clock LEDs at the Kelp base, but they will be out of sync from one another (albeit showing the correct BPM). The clocks themselves are not out of sync, only the LEDs. We have this fix slated for a future Nautilus update to keep everything nice and tight.

5

I know the Nautilus Yellow and Purple feedback modes are based on transposing by one interval set by Narwhal. It would be really great to choose a harmonic series delay mode. In yellow, the delays could ascend through the harmonic series. On purple they could descend from the 15th harmonic. It feels like a harmonic relationship between the delay-lines wouldn’t change the perception of pitch as much as other non-octave transpositions do.

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6

How about a Narwhal setting to make ‘freeze’ behavior a gate rather than a toggle?

2 Likes
7

@samburt @kongbalong These are both great ideas! We’ll definitely consider them.

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8

Thanks Michael; I missed your response until now. I’ll try the parameter calibration procedure. Is there anything more to it than holding the freeze button at boot up with no patch cables inserted in Nautilus, or will that alone recalibrate all the knobs? I don’t have any precision measurement tools, so I want to make sure I’m not going to mess anything else up before I try it.

I didn’t notice the LED synchronization or lack there of; the offset between the L and R channels I’m referring to was audible.

9

Nope, that’s all you need to do! Let me know how it goes, and if it doesn’t seem to resolve the issue we can investigate further with our support team.

10

@michael, I tried to respond via a private message, but I’m not sure it worked, so I’m writing again here. Holding the freeze button at boot up didn’t solve the L/R offset issue. What should I try next?

11

Responded to your DM. Sorry to hear this did not work, but we will get to the bottom of it with our support team!

12

Is it possible to have the shimmer echos with fade mode as an option to choose (in narwhal) in future updates?

13

An optional v/oct mode would be also awesome for more controllable karplus strong stuff

14

Hey @_kmod, welcome to the forum! These are some great suggestions, and we will keep them in mind for any future updates for Narwhal. I think alongside the v/oct addition, a dedicated Karlpus-Strong synthesis alt firmware would be awesome for Nautilus :slight_smile:

1 Like
15

Thatd be great! I managed to „tune“ it by syncing to an Osc‘s sub output, but isnt responding fast enough to play „melodies“.
But having fade mode in shimmer mode as an option would be also great to have. Changing delay times while in shimmer mode now isnt really working well for me, especially with higher feedback values.
Is there a limiter involved in the feedback path?
Something like a clipper/~tanh?

Best

16

I use the purge function rarely and consider it a bit secondary during performance (Ideally purge could be activated by long pressing the tap button). I would like to have it repurposed for other things in Narwhal like a send for the incoming audio in the buffer (eg. like the delay feed on the 4ms Dual looping delay).
+1 for the other suggestions above, expecially more configurable chroma effects (particularly freq shifter, chorus, flanger, diffuser, why so much distortion?).
Hoping the next update is coming soon :crossed_fingers:

17

Any chance we will be seeing a non quantized resolution on Nautilus any time soon??

It’s such an important feature on a delay, it almost seems strange that it doesn’t have it.

I really miss it for comb style fx, tuning a fast delay to a key etc.

Cheers!

1 Like
18

We can definitely look into adding an unquantized resolution mode on Nautilus in a future update!

19

That would be so incredibly useful and would add so many sonic options with (I think) a simple update.
I was surprised it didn’t have it. Still love it, but this would make it twice as cool :slight_smile:

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20

+1 for the unquantized delay time change, I would love to use it also for time based effects like flanger! Is there any ETA for something like this??

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