#37

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
#38

@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
#39

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
#40

@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”.

#41

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.

#42

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:

#43

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?

#44

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
#45

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.

#46

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
#47

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

#48

@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
#49

Exciting collaboration!

:popcorn:

2 Likes
#50

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
#51

I just recently put together something similar to what you are describing.
I used a Teensy 2.0 and a DAC (MCP4922) and built a Lego “case” around it. It receives Midi over Usb that I generate with Pure Data, and converts it to 2 CV and 2 gate outputs.

It’s quite simple and straight forward to build on a breadboard, and doesn’t require many components. I can share the Teensy/Arduino Code if you are interested.

image
D5B4D1F7-D59B-4606-B8B1-0EA146646880.jpeg2437×3147 1.74 MB

Also, a good resource is little scale’s work. I learned a lot from studying his projects.

2 Likes
#52

That looks super cool! For now I am going in the direction of writing an alt firmware for Teletype using @scanner_darkly’s excellent framework described here. If you have the code/specification available in a repo, it would be awesome if you could share. I also a got a Teensy on the side that I intend to code on. Little scale’s blog looks very interesting. Need to dive in more.

1 Like
#53

Just saw the announcement of a new USB Midi -> CV/Gate module that…wait for it…is programmable using CircuitPython.

This is basically the module I’ve been waiting for. I was going to try to design this this year if it didn’t come out so very happy to have someone who knows what they’re doing make it instead. I’ve never banged the preorder button this fast.

4 Likes
#54

Hi! Thank you for the kind words (& for pre-ordering). I created Sol to fill exactly the void described in this thread. I’d love to hear ideas for how y’all would use it (so I can write more & better examples).

4 Likes
#55

welcome to lines @winterbloom! I’ve really enjoyed seeing your modules come to life on your twitter feed over the past few months. I really love the design direction you’ve went with the panels (where it has a lot of character, but the legend is still put cleanly), and it’s cool you’re offering both the light and dark versions.

So far as examples go, I checked out your examples dir in the repo, and there’s lots of cool stuff in there right now. crow (similarly programmable interface module, but uses lua) has a library repo here if you wanna check that out for some inspiration for additional ones https://github.com/monome/bowery

I’ve ended up using crow for building out generative multi-voice sequencers, and I think that’s something that sol would be good at based on it’s I/O too. For example, setting a clock that triggers some euclidean rhythms, which, upon trigger, step through some sequences stored in the script that go out of the output pairs.

Something I did recently to keep the sequence of notes moving, was triggering a series of coin flips every 8 repeats which compares to similar but slightly different sequence and outputs a mash up of the two, gist here: https://gist.github.com/jlmitch5/9b2d1ae4925e924323e968b8507f4ac0#file-midcenturymodular_livestream1-lua-L19

Excited to see what people make with Sol! Good luck on getting the modules finished and out there.

2 Likes
#56

came to this thread because i think i fried the DAC on my euroshield and what a lovely coincidence to see @winterbloom as i just ordered the goose button this week!

1 Like