Axoloti: a digital audio platform for makers

  On 8/23/2015 at 3:39 AM, children r r future said:

preferably one with a lot more RAM for delays

It has 8 Mb of SDRAM.

"This may seem very small these days, but keep in mind that this corresponds to 85 seconds of single-channel 48kHz audio at 16bit. This will enable possibilities like (live-)sampling, long delays, and long granular stuff."

Yeah, a lot of the current specs weren't updated on the web site last time I checked. It supports USB host mode for MIDI devices now, too, so you can connect a USB midi controller directly.

  On 8/23/2015 at 12:21 PM, telefunken said:

It has 8 Mb of SDRAM.

"This may seem very small these days, but keep in mind that this corresponds to 85 seconds of single-channel 48kHz audio at 16bit. This will enable possibilities like (live-)sampling, long delays, and long granular stuff."

Oh, snap. I didn't read the updates. Nice, 8 MB is pretty generous. Very nice. I can't wait until they get production started. I'll be all over this.

Has any of you who have an Axoloti used it with a Mac? I read some comments that say it uses a giant amount of CPU for Mac. I ordered one but it has not arrived yet.

I'm mainly PC but I do have a really old mac mini I use as a mobile recording rig. My shipping email just showed up today, so it should be here before too long and I'd be glad to install the software on there and see how it performs. If I remember right, the people who were having trouble with CPU load were running older versions of MacOS, so maybe it's not an issue on newish systems.

  On 9/1/2015 at 3:09 AM, RSP said:

I'm mainly PC but I do have a really old mac mini I use as a mobile recording rig. My shipping email just showed up today, so it should be here before too long and I'd be glad to install the software on there and see how it performs. If I remember right, the people who were having trouble with CPU load were running older versions of MacOS, so maybe it's not an issue on newish systems.

The people were using Yosemite, which is the newest one, I think. I use a 2010 Macbook. I was figuring it wouldn't use almost any CPU just like my Nord Modular back in the day. The Axoloti looks so great, I'm just nervous that it's too good to be true. We'll see...

O yeah, it is Yosemite. Hopefully it'll get fixed. I can't really imagine why there would be much CPU load at all. Maybe running the Windows version with something like Wineskin would work until it's sorted.

  On 8/31/2015 at 8:55 PM, Hanratty said:

Has any of you who have an Axoloti used it with a Mac? I read some comments that say it uses a giant amount of CPU for Mac. I ordered one but it has not arrived yet.

mine arrived a couple days ago and i can confirm that it uses a giant amount of CPU on my mid 2011 mac mini. It's unusable when I use the the axoloti core to trigger a patch. I'll press a key and it'll crash my sound interface...It's a bit more usable when I use midi to trigger a patch, but eventually will crash when too many keys are pressed. pretty disappointed so far.

Mine showed up Monday but I had it sent to a relative since I wouldn't be home to sign for it, and they popped it in the mail to me yesterday. When I get it I'll report back on how it performs with Windows.

  On 9/10/2015 at 2:02 AM, mrx said:

 

  On 8/31/2015 at 8:55 PM, Hanratty said:

Has any of you who have an Axoloti used it with a Mac? I read some comments that say it uses a giant amount of CPU for Mac. I ordered one but it has not arrived yet.

mine arrived a couple days ago and i can confirm that it uses a giant amount of CPU on my mid 2011 mac mini. It's unusable when I use the the axoloti core to trigger a patch. I'll press a key and it'll crash my sound interface...It's a bit more usable when I use midi to trigger a patch, but eventually will crash when too many keys are pressed. pretty disappointed so far.

 

Why the F is this? It's basically just a patching GUI that converts the patch to C code, compiles it, and then uploads it to the Axoloti's processor, right?

On Windows it performs OK

Regarding MacOS it is going to be fixed in next release i guess:

http://community.axoloti.com/t/huge-cpu-usage-on-yosemite/339/5

By the way. Mine has an audio driver chip gone bad already (because of ESD, most likely) so be careful with your audio connections and routings. I guess it happened because i mixed up IN and OUT at first, then fixed this and then reconnected miniUSB cable et voila - IC4 aka TPA6132A2 doesn't work anymore. I had to cut a track to make Axoloti to fully work again cause it couldn't properly initialize because of short circuit in audio section.

So now i have headphones out, audio in, midi and gpios. I also wait for di-box to arrive to use headphones out as proper line out.

Though i still find Axoloti to be pretty awesome lol. Will post audios here later.

That's good to know about. Maybe moving the connectors off the board and putting 1:1 transformers at the input and output to isolate it would be a good safety precaution if you plan to play out with it a lot. At least I've heard that recommended as a safety measure to protect SID chips from getting burned up when plugging in to unfamiliar mixers. No clue if it works since I burned mine by accidentally swapping the audio and video leads and was kind of off the SID thing by the time I got around to replacing it.

This page mentions sourcing decent isolating transformers from "high speed modems" which I assume means an old 56k since it's an old page. Which is a good thing to know, since a proper audio transformer is pricey and the cheap ones from amazon sound terrible. Not sure how much ESD protection (if any) this would actually give you, electronics aren't really my thing, but I've seen it suggested for that, even though the main use is ground isolation to get rid of loops.

https://clyp.it/pwn0dkfc

Recorded this through headphones output -> Radial SB-5 -> Mixer -> sound card

Did you sequence on something else, or is everything done with the Axoloti?

Mine should be waiting for me after work today.

Yeah, everything was made in Axoloti.

Awesome. I'm just about to hook mine up for the first time.

Further experimentations with the same patch + modifications (granular delay, delay etc)

https://clyp.it/mj3b4wgt

Gonna get one when they go into production I think. 90% sold on a Microgranny as well, should make for some fun additions

Microgranny looks fantastic, I wish there was a kit version but I have a feeling I'll end up getting one before the year is out.

The Axoloti is great so far. Definitely has some quirks on the software side but the hardware seems solid, and I went in to it considering the software an early public beta anyhow. I'm sure it will get a lot more polished over the next few months. If you have the chance to get one I don't think you'll regret it.

I really hope Johannes does a run of the Axoloti Control!

Tried to make an audio input granulator.

https://clyp.it/5kbq3h5x

Btw you can buy axoloti core now:

http://www.axoloti.com/product/axoloti-core/

It is 1.1 revision which fixes audio driver permanent failure

oh, thought about bumping the thread before I forgot! wanted to ask for user feedback after those couple of months? is it stable, nice to use, does it work well?

always in this perspective of slowly improving my live-hardware setup, I thought I could replace my Yamaha CS1X which I use for pads (and which I hate programming, really bad when you like to do stuff from scratch) by an Axoloti. I would simply pre-program several pad sound patches and switch between them across the set using program changes. I though it could be great for the job because it's full programmable and also really easy to transport.

whatcha think, is that realistic ? is it any good for pads ? thanks :)

  On 12/9/2015 at 10:18 AM, Antape said:

 

 

whatcha think, is that realistic ? is it any good for pads ?

Didn't tried to make pads yet lol. But it is totally doable i guess.

  On 12/9/2015 at 10:18 AM, Antape said:

is it stable, nice to use, does it work well?

Can't really say so, yet. Regarding stability there are some flaws still. But Johannes is working on them.

Don't expect it to be Nord Modular G2/G1 with it's readymade high level modules or PD Extended with it's huge user object library. But it is a matter of time i think.

Also you have to program something then push 'Live' checkbox to build patch and get into live mode and hear or see results.

There are also things you have to get used to: you can't divide by arbitary number or classic s&h is named 'latch' for example and object named 'sample and hold' does something different.