Bela can output 0 to 5v, and 0 to 5v in

salt amplifies cv and audio to modular levels

Pepper is passive and can ‘tolerate’ modular levels but does not amplify to modular levels , so is 0…5v

It’s actually very simple to make things tolerate modular levels and is worth doing!

Note: it’s not uncommon in eurorack for digital modules to use 0…5v as its simple , and for a sequencer 5 octaves maybe enough.
( if not use a rail to rail opamp to amplify )

1 Like

My vote is for Norns/crow and grid…
…because I’d really really like to play with that.

1 Like

@spacelordmother, it is interesting you mention this, since I have been going back and forth about Teletype + grid vs Norns + crow + grid :slight_smile:. Since I am new to the monome ecosystem, it is all a learning curve for me. So, either of these should ideally work alright. Glad to see that I am not thinking about something totally alien and pointless :smiley:.

1 Like

Thanks! 5v will be plenty for my purposes as there is not a lot of riding on multiple octaves going on. Surprisingly many options compared to where I started!

yeah, lots of choices these days :slight_smile:

really it comes down to
how much processing power you need
how much you want to spend
diy or ‘out of the box’

probably the cheapest solution, if you don’t need lots of processing power is something like a teensy. there are 5v version, with a DAC (I used a couple of MCP4922 for a project I did on the AE modular)
they are quite a fun diy projects as pretty simple to do, and the code is straightforward enough.

(oh, to add one more into the pot - axoloti :slight_smile: )

1 Like

@TheTechnobear, that makes sense, and yeah, axoloti and even organelle show up as options, I guess :slight_smile:.

Since my day job leaves me with precious little time to spend on this, I tend to gravitate to out of the box solutions which will land me right in the middle of what I want to achieve. I can do basic through hole soldering but nothing fancier. So, that limits my diy abilities as well.

With respect to code, I seem to be a bit chicken to deal with complex c even though I have done tons of c over linux in my previous life. If I reflect on this honestly, I think that is my primary reluctance to jump on teensy/arduino. The scripting in stuff like teletype and lua of norns look far more approachable (not to mention fun to do as a hobby).

I built teletype firmware yesterday night so that I can try out the simulator in it. Maybe that will give me a better idea about the possibilities :slight_smile:.

Bela is not limited to C++ - you could also do this in CSound, PureData or Supercollider.
if you’re just doing a bit of midi->cv manipulation, this would be pretty trivial in Pure Data.

if you’ve done C before, this is also trivial to do in Bela… there are examples for midi and analog io, so its just a matter of hacking it together… you’d probably have the basics done in a 30 mins :slight_smile:

But it does raise a good point…
one of the reason I like Bela is their support is excellent, Guilo who monitors the forum, responds ridiculously quick, and can field not only simple beginner questions but also highly technical stuff… he really knows his stuff.

with something like arduino/teensy its not music focused, so I find you have to do a lot more of the legwork yourself.

so support is an important factor - imho

anyway… im sure any of the solutions you are looking at can be made to work,
Id just pick one - and go for it :slight_smile:

have fun
Mark


one last thing to mention…
if you are outputting pitch (v/oct), calibration becomes very important… because tolerances in components of the hardware , mean it is never quite ‘exact’.

for the work Ive done with Bela Salt and the Soundplane, I manually calibrated my setup,
but Im in the process of looking to create a utility for Bela to calibrate both the input and outputs.

I guess this is only a concern for DIY type solutions.
Id assume ‘out of the box’ solutions, like Norns + Crow (?) , or Teletype already have their outputs calibrated for accurate pitch use. (though I would double check).

(though you can do this ‘calibration’ in your own software, i would not recommend it, its a bit of a pain in the neck, since every output needs to be calibrated individually - and may need a ‘complex’ calibration profile (curve) to work accurately)

1 Like

@TheTechnobear, that is super duper helpful! I wouldn’t have thought about the calibration aspect until I ran into it, but yes I am surely looking to generate v/oct. For some reason, I was keeping away from Pure Data and looking at traditional programming alone. But, as you mention, that or cpp in Bela could be a pretty quick way of achieving this.

I think I certainly have reached a point where any more deliberation might just be holding me up :slight_smile:. I am gonna do a quick POC in pure data and go from there, while I wait for a decent deal on a used Teletype :slight_smile:.

1 Like

re: teletype - just remember it only supports monome grid, you won’t be able to use it with other grid controllers. but the benefit of going the teletype route is it’s much easier to modify things on the fly without having to flash a new firmware version.

if you want to be able to support both grid and MIDI controllers, another fairly cheap option is to get a used white whale or earthsea or ansible modules and use multipass - it already knows how to talk MIDI and CV, and the additional benefit is being able to also integrated with i2c devices. if you decide to go this route let me know and i can throw a quick app together to get you started.

1 Like

@scanner_darkly, very interesting! I am not sure I understand fully though. Does multipass help write alternative firmware for monome devices (say ansible) or does it help Teletype talk midi/cv? Pardon my ignorance :slight_smile:.

If it is the former, then that’s pretty kickass since I wasn’t sure how easy it was to build alt firmware for ansible and make it connect to any grid/midi controller and execute “cool-stuff-pending-dev”.

yep, exactly, it’s a framework that makes creating alternative firmwares for monome eurorack modules easier. it abstracts hardware stuff and allows you to re-use the same code on any of the monome eurorack modules. i really need to document it, but it should be easy enough to get started with a simple app i can create for you.

Also, thanks so much for offering to help! Would love to take it forward once I understand multipass a bit more. The ultimate will be to write alt firmware for TT since it has a screen! :slight_smile:

This is super cool. Homework for me tonight is to go through the multipass repo :slight_smile:.

And of course, scanning the facebook groups for used teletype/ansible etc.

In your experience, modding teletype to work with the screen - does it take it to the next level of complexity or is it similar in complexity to modding monome firmware?

most of the work would be to strip out the bits you don’t need. i actually started adding screen functions to multipass as well but had to switch to something else, need to find the time to finish that.

1 Like

Thanks, that helps. Then probably I could start with a cheaper WW or MP and work on the firmware part first. Once I get comfortable, I can up it to try TT.

if you’re planning to try multipass make sure to select a module that has the outputs you need. MP doesn’t have CV outputs, only gates.

1 Like

Thanks for the heads up. Will check out all 4 of them and see which one fits my needs best.

@scanner_darkly, alright, I have made my choice. I would like to use Ansible for this. As you already know from our other conversation in the toolchain thread, I am all set with the firmware builds (I am able to build both ansible and teletype). So, I think I am good to begin :slight_smile:.

Will message you about the scaffolding? That would be of great help!

2 Likes

Exciting collaboration!

:popcorn:

2 Likes

There are so many embedded processors that can handle MIDI with just a simple interface circuit. You could choose just about anything.

Since the title of this thread mentions USB-MIDI, though, you should limit your choices to those processors that have hardware peripheral support for Full Speed USB. There aren’t any examples (that I know of - well, not more than one bad one) for USB-MIDI, but the specification is easy enough to implement. This assumes that you might change your mind along the way and want to support USB-MIDI in addition to classic MIDI.

The Microchip PIC18 Family can handle USB-MIDI. So can the Texas Instruments TM4C ARM Cortex-M4F. There are surely a lot more options that those, but I wanted to list the ones I’ve had success with.

Brian

1 Like