ZoeB's Stepper Acid mini-feature on SonicState

nice one!

Thank you. :)

 

I can't take the credit though, it's really more Nina's. I just wrote most of the code. She designed it, sourced the parts, and built them all, and wrote the trickier parts of the code too! Without me, it'd have taken her longer to make. Without her, it wouldn't exist, at all. She's awesome. :)

  On 6/1/2015 at 1:54 AM, ZoeB said:

Thank you. :)

 

I can't take the credit though, it's really more Nina's. I just wrote most of the code.

 

But without the code it would just be a pretty-looking hunk of metal, no?

i want one!

wow, that giant bit of kit for 295.

 

Also, good on you zoe (and nina).

  On 6/1/2015 at 5:24 AM, delet... said:

wow, that giant bit of kit for 295.

 

Also, good on you zoe (and nina).

definitely a serious competitor for the metropolis considering its almost half the price and just as sweet

Awesome!

Oh wow, cool module :)

I'll have to bookmark this one for when I get my modular!

awesome Zoe

ZoeB is my inspiration to build an analog synth once I get out of poverty.

If I had a modular rig I would own one. Very cool looking

  On 6/1/2015 at 5:24 AM, delet... said:

wow, that giant bit of kit for 295.

 

Also, good on you zoe (and nina).

Unless I'm mistaken that's just the price for the module in the top left (well, there's three in a row on the above video!) rather than the whole wooden-metal beast of a unit

It's still a really good price!

Aye, just wasn't sure if delet er boy thought the whole contraption with all the modules was that price

oh cool! i've never used a physical sequencer like this. seems much more fun and easier than i imagined. i would love to program some jazz drums with one

hahah, that would be quite a challenge

  On 6/5/2015 at 1:26 AM, mcbpete said:

Aye, just wasn't sure if delet er boy thought the whole contraption with all the modules was that price

 

dleet really didn't know what was going on, but suspected it was just the bit they were playing with. Still though i was holding out hope for some command performance from the gods of finance.

  On 6/1/2015 at 1:54 AM, ZoeB said:

Thank you. :)

 

I can't take the credit though, it's really more Nina's. I just wrote most of the code. She designed it, sourced the parts, and built them all, and wrote the trickier parts of the code too! Without me, it'd have taken her longer to make. Without her, it wouldn't exist, at all. She's awesome. :)

 

I'm just here to say that i like that i really like that chiptune nina posted.

Nice work! I really want to start on a modular synth soon.

 

How did you get started on doing firmware?

Nice one Zoe :) Cool to see someone so knowledgable do something positive.

Yay!

  On 6/6/2015 at 10:13 PM, Braintree said:

Nice work! I really want to start on a modular synth soon.

 

How did you get started on doing firmware?

 

Thanks!

 

Well, I was tinkering around with making a simple modular softsynth in Python... and Nina was getting back into electronics... so I asked her how difficult it would be to make a vaguely TB-303 style step sequencer. I forget the details, but browsing the Git repository for Stepper Acid's signal board firmware, I took the tracker style step sequencer I'd made for my softsynth and slowly evolved it into ANSI C code. (Huh, I apparently tried writing it in C++ first, before changing my mind, it seems. I didn't remember that...) I bought a second hand copy of K&R's ANSI C book, and I've got Internet access, so mucking around in C wasn't too tricky. I'd made a few simple command line Linux programs way back in my early 20s ish, I think it was, so there's that. It started off as a sort of Arduino project, this one, hence it uses the same type of microcontroller that Arduinos do, although we've since gone much lower level and overridden almost all of those Arduino niceties.

 

So, this is probably pretty atypical, but the way I got into firmware was to have a specific project I wanted to see come to fruition, get a book on C, and find a partner who's an electronics genius. :)

 

This is pretty much all Nina's design though, and even though I wrote most of the firmware, Nina still suggested the features I implemented, designed the interface, and so on. I'm lazy and she's a perfectionist, so all of the little comforts you can see in the device are pretty much guaranteed to be the result of her pestering me! Lots of little things that add up, like how you can hold down the pattern length button instead of having to tap it a bunch of times, but you have to hold it down for a little while before it starts repeating, so you don't accidentally double-press. Lots of things that are simply good design sense, but take a bit of extra effort to implement well.

 

Really, I think what separates it from most step sequencers is the detach button that detaches the read and write heads from one another, so you can go walkabout meticulously editing the pattern (or another one) while it's still playing. That was Nina's idea, and it's the kind of reason why I love her! <3

Wow, that's really impressive. I'm not a producer but this seems so much more advanced than the standard 303 (clone) I've played around with.

  On 6/12/2015 at 12:32 PM, ZoeB said:

 

  On 6/6/2015 at 10:13 PM, Braintree said:

Nice work! I really want to start on a modular synth soon.

 

How did you get started on doing firmware?

 

Thanks!

 

Well, I was tinkering around with making a simple modular softsynth in Python... and Nina was getting back into electronics... so I asked her how difficult it would be to make a vaguely TB-303 style step sequencer. I forget the details, but browsing the Git repository for Stepper Acid's signal board firmware, I took the tracker style step sequencer I'd made for my softsynth and slowly evolved it into ANSI C code. (Huh, I apparently tried writing it in C++ first, before changing my mind, it seems. I didn't remember that...) I bought a second hand copy of K&R's ANSI C book, and I've got Internet access, so mucking around in C wasn't too tricky. I'd made a few simple command line Linux programs way back in my early 20s ish, I think it was, so there's that. It started off as a sort of Arduino project, this one, hence it uses the same type of microcontroller that Arduinos do, although we've since gone much lower level and overridden almost all of those Arduino niceties.

 

So, this is probably pretty atypical, but the way I got into firmware was to have a specific project I wanted to see come to fruition, get a book on C, and find a partner who's an electronics genius. :)

 

This is pretty much all Nina's design though, and even though I wrote most of the firmware, Nina still suggested the features I implemented, designed the interface, and so on. I'm lazy and she's a perfectionist, so all of the little comforts you can see in the device are pretty much guaranteed to be the result of her pestering me! Lots of little things that add up, like how you can hold down the pattern length button instead of having to tap it a bunch of times, but you have to hold it down for a little while before it starts repeating, so you don't accidentally double-press. Lots of things that are simply good design sense, but take a bit of extra effort to implement well.

 

Really, I think what separates it from most step sequencers is the detach button that detaches the read and write heads from one another, so you can go walkabout meticulously editing the pattern (or another one) while it's still playing. That was Nina's idea, and it's the kind of reason why I love her! <3

 

 

Thanks for the info! What Python module were you using for sound? I know a fair amount of Python and would like to muck about with some audio code.

 

I also bought 'Designing Audio Effect Plug-ins in C++' a few months back and want to jump into that. Have you read it?