That is good news indeed…can’t wait :hourglass_flowing_sand:

wooow this looks amazing! every time i think all the possibilities of the grid are already explored there comes someone to disprove this :slight_smile:

1 Like

any news on your patch? :stuck_out_tongue: I’m sure every monomer would be more than happy to fund this to complete,

5 Likes

Hey @ithkaa! This is so wonderful! Any news on releasing it? Much respect for your amazing work!

1 Like

@ithkaa wow!! how did i miss this? excellent execution and introduction video-- with matching good music.

perhaps you might be interested in crowd-sourcing some help here to finish up any of the technical/doc work?

2 Likes

Tx guys! Been working on some other projects the past few months so didn’t develop this any further. I’ll wrap up whatever I have, document it and put it up on Github somewhere next week.

4 Likes

Ohhhh that would be super nice!!! Meanwhile I#ll be checking out ‘Elements’. Thank you so much!

For the very curious ones. @ithkaa pointed me to his very interesting thesis, where you can find an early version of MGCVM: http://www.benjaminvanesser.be/invisible/communication.html#

1 Like

MGVCM is now up on github! Installation instructions etc are in the README file. I only described macOS installation as I don’t have a Windows machine. Perhaps somebody can point Windows users in the right direction …

Some notes:

  • MGCVM is optimized for 256 variable brightness grids. Some modules will work fine on smaller variable brightness grids, some won’t work at all. Non-variable brightness grids are out of the picture. As tehn already mentioned, perhaps there are some avid monome/max users among you that would like to help develop this toolbox further (f.i. adding nonvaribright support). Let me know if you do.

  • MGCVM is still in an early stage of development so there will be bugs. I am also well aware that many things can be patched more adequately so if you spot something out of the ordinary, let me know. Please keep in mind that I won’t be able to grant every request or fix every bug right away.

Best,
ithkaa

8 Likes

Thank you so much @ithkaa! Great work!

Thank you!! This is amazing!

Were there additional runs of the 2012 256 beyond the initial 50? How many varibright 256 grids are out there? Sorry for the tangent, but I’m eager to try this. I guess I’ll find out which parts work with a 128. Thanks for sharing!

1 Like

@kza & @kali_yuga tx guys!

@jasonw22 I know there aren’t that many 256 varibrights out there. I initially created this for my own instrument and performance practice but thought it could be interesting to other monomers, so I’m sharing it. Making it available for nonvaribrights is on my list, then smaller grids. For now, most ‘control’ modules will work on smaller grids (the dynamic faders won’t). Some visualisation modules will work too: glitch, hfreeze, vfreeze, loop, pulsegrid, snake, stutter and VU meter … perhaps not optimal but they’ll work.

Best,

ithkaa

2 Likes

Thanks! It’s helpful to know where to start.

1 Like

I found this thread and it’s a very compelling reason to get a 256 grid. I’ve been trying to make sense of the kits docs since there’s so much stuff there. I feel confident enough to at the least get an acrylic prototype of a 256 enclosure built with some time and a laser cutter. There is a plate drawing of it in the mk github repo.

But…the repo has eagle files for PCBs but I don’t know enough about Eagle (and it’s not installed on my computer right now) to determine if there’s a bill of materials. Microcontroller tech has changed a lot in the last 8 years since these documents were published.

@tehn would you think given the contents of the mk repo and a bill of materials it would be possible to make a DIY varibright 256 in 2019?

1 Like

@jedgar and @okyeron may have some Trellis-inspired ideas here…

1 Like

i would generally not recommend it as the driver circuitry is not great compared to the newest editions. (the VB is flickery on these old kits).

more importantly: i don’t have keypads for that old kit-size.


it may be time to think about a kit/DIY grid again… though there is simply so much going on at once.

I’ve been trying to get a panel made for my DIY varibright grid before doing a post about it, but maybe i should get on that. (my setup is a 128)

Unfortunately my current design can’t do a varibright 256 (not enough led driver chip addresses). (Edit - holy crap I just found an led driver chip that supports up to 215 addresses! How about a 1024 grid! LOL)

In theory the new adafruit neo-trellis boards could do a 256 grid (and I could adapt my teensy-monome code back to the trellis hardware). If anyone wants to send me some neo-trellis boards I would be happy to prototype and test that out. :slight_smile:

3 Likes

these?

1 Like

That and also this controller board (which integrates a microcontroller and other stuff):

What I’m curious about and maybe @jedgar has some insight from working with this - Can you expand the M4 board with multiple extra neotrellis boards? It looks like you can.

So an M4 + 6 more neotrellis boards = a 128 grid.

1 Like