Lmst

@7heo
In any event, my interest is in recording sounds at or above human hearing so I can pitch/slow them down. The “textures” I’m referring to are the high harmonics that we can’t usually perceive, and can’t be picked up at all with a 44.1kHz sample rate.

Doubling it gives another octave, at least.

I’m of course curious about building a sampler that has a super high sample rate, but I’ve got enough trouble as it is, working on the #ObliquePalette .

Good lord, I'm having a bizarre, persistent problem with the #ObliquePalette.
In MacOS, it works fine, but it has a terrible sample rate of ~44Hz.

In Linux (Ubuntu on a Dell 2-in-1), it has a sample rate of ~350Hz! But then, a random number of seconds later (1 to 60 seconds in my experience) it suddenly stops communicating altogether.

The randomness makes me think it's an electronic problem. Capacitance somewhere. Maybe the lower sample rate keeps the capacitance from filtering signal?

I went to take a picture of the back of the #ObliquePalette prototype 0.5.5 and it came out like this. So I gotta share.

The front, in the second image shows the inputs & outputs. Analog knobs, 3.5mm jacks for Eurorack, pin headers for Arduino (or other electronics) & servos.

(It's for turning computers into machines for making art, fucking around, and falling in love. You talk with it using the extremely powerful graphical language, #plugdata.)
#modularsynt #synthdiy #eurorack #computerart #

The back of a white circuitboard, with labels on each section. In channels 1-8. Out channels 1-8. They're divided into sections 12C bus 0 and 12C bus 1.
On the left is a Raspberry Pi Pico2 that communicates between the board and the host computer. On the right are a line of large capacitors to supply servos with power and keep them from corrupting data with their current draw.

Hoolleee shitballs. The #ObliquePalette might be feature complete.

8 analog in.

8 analog out.

A hardware #plugdata object you program graphically.

(thanks to @ArchiteuthisFlux& the Jumperless krewe for finding the hardware bug!)

I can now control #plugdata software patches with #modularsynth CV or by twisting a knob — and the patch can control hardware with control voltages or by twisting a servo!

Computers are for making art, fucking around, and falling in love.

HTTPS://Patreon.com/joshua

Prototype 0.5.5 of the #ObliquePalette is in! I’m 75% sure it’ll work, though I’m hunting a comms bug in the firmware.

The honorary bit portrait on this one is Susan Kare, the original graphic designer of the Macintosh, creator of the I-beam and finger cursors, little house for representing “home” in HyperCard — the direct ancestor of the Web —and so many icons we take for granted now.

It’s just barely possible that I will have voltage control of and by #plugdata this weekend!

A person is holding a white rectangular circuit board with numerous electronic components on it. The board has eight vertical columns of components, each labeled with "in" and a number from 1 to 8 at the bottom, and "out" and the corresponding number at the top. Each column features a series of small, dark-colored electronic parts, possibly resistors or diodes, arranged in a grid pattern. A row of eight cylindrical capacitors is centered on the board between the columns of components. A Raspberry Pi Pico2 microcontroller board is attached to the left side of the white board. The text "Do we need holes?" is written on the white board, with the “o” replaced by a mounting hole.

Phew! #ObliquePalette prototype 0.5.5 (the ninth prototype in two years — one of them wasn’t built because we found a catastrophic error last moment) looks to be ready for manufacturing! Things could actually be correct here!

Really looking forward to teaching #programming and #sounddesign and #computerart with Oblique technologies! I want to see what patches people integrate into their #eurorack rigs! I want to see robots & environmental control!
#synthdiy #modularsynth #synth #electronicart

The back of the board, showing where the Raspberry Pi Pico2 slots in, as well as the electronics for each input and output channel.

Servos are working, but as Septic Snake predicted, they starve the board of power immediately and we have to do something about that. #ObliquePalette

I am always happy to learn that I haven’t broken my project.

This is the third of three #ObliquePalette s that now exist!

There is an electronic problem when driving servos that has to be solved with an external power supply, but other issues seem to be all software and firmware!

Good thing I like soldering. #ObliquePalette

The image shows a close-up view of a white circuit board with various components and labels. The board has sections labeled "in 1," "in 2," "out 1," and "out 2," with corresponding pin numbers such as D2, D3, D6, D9, D8, D12, D15, and D14. A person's hand is seen placing a red LED with a yellow base into the "in 1" section, specifically at pin D6. The LED has two metal leads, one connected to the board and the other held by the person's fingers. The board also features black connectors labeled J1 and J20, and there are additional components like resistors and capacitors. The background includes a green cutting mat with yellow grid lines and a transparent plastic bag, suggesting a workspace environment.

Where the #ObliquePalette
Artcomputer is at today.

It’s pretty exciting. And this is the first time there’s a functional machine I can send to my Patreon xenophiliacs to mess with, janky as it might be!

#eurorack
#cyberdeck
#modularsynth

https://www.patreon.com/posts/oblique-palette-131922073?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

First tests of #ObliquePalette 0.5.4 are promising! There was a weirdly missing Vcc and GND line which were easily jumped.

Soldered up input and output channels 1 to test, and got some weird results!
1/

Figured out this multiplexer, which connects the input channels to the analog/digital converter on the microcontroller, somehow lost its power and ground traces during a final cleanup run before going to the manufacturer. So far, the only electronic error I’ve found!

Haven’t yet tested those giant caps that are supposed to keep the servos fed. You’ll see why in the next posts…

Jumpers for power and ground. This is also the ground to the first four output channels. I really like the way it outlines the memorial.

Fixin some whoopsies. Soldered jumpers to USB power and ground.

I already had to solder in two jumpers to power the multiplexer. It looks like an automatic cleanup took out those traces and I didn’t notice.

Maybe the multiplexer address traces got lost at the same time?
#ObliquePalette #modularsynth #plugdata #synthdiy #eurorack #experimentalart #robotics

The jumped traces in red, powering the multiplexer that allocates analog input values so they cone through the microcontroller as separate channels, rather than channel 1’s value 8 times, which is happening now.

It’s pretty, and it’s progress, but it ain’t right!

The channels of the #ObliquePalette are allocated wrong. Some of this could be a firmware issue, which is easy enough to address. But it also looks like there might be missing traces on the PCB, which I can test with more jumpers.
#modularsynth #plugdata #synthdiy #eurorack #experimentalart #robotics

The #ObliquePalette 0.5.4 is on my workbench!

Fingers crossed that errors are small and easy to track down!

There looked to be errors in KiCAD that…don’t actually seem to be on the board? I hope that’s true!

Fingers crossed for #modularsynth control of a #plugdata patch and the patch being able to turn that back around to control servos, #synthdiy , #eurorack , or other #experimentalart & #robotics things by the weekend!

“Computers are for fucking around, making art, and falling in love.”

The back of the circuit board, showing its array of digital/analog converters, op amps, multiplexers, resistors, and some big honkin capacitors to keep the servos fed.

A Raspberry Pi Pico2 will go in the bottom left there, communicating signals between the Palette and the plugdata patch running on a computer.

The front of the board, featuring a bitmap portrait of Bill Atkinson, who died last week. He was a huge inspiration to me as a computer artist.

I have to solder in potentiometers for manual control, headers for…whatever, 3.5mm jacks for synth communication, and level LEDs so you know what the channels are doing in the IRL, analog realm.

Squeezing a memorial to Bill Atkinson in on the current prototype of the #ObliquePalette . That guy inspired me to make art that you share with other people for them to make art.

The full quote is ”You could summarize everything I did at Apple was making tools to empower creative people. 'QuickDraw' empowered all these other programmers to now be able to sling stuff on the screen. The 'Window Manager,' 'Event Manager,' and 'Menu Manager.' Those are things that I worked on that were empowering other people.”

No professional would mistake this for a professionally-designed PCB. But I'm surprisingly confident in this version of the #ObliquePalette .

Holy crap, @ArchiteuthisFlux you're right. This is like building LEGO sets.

…now that I don't have to manually connect 237 wires with 100.0% accuracy.

Assembling a single channel of the #ObliquePalette, then replicating the layout across the sheets allows me to play with the fun parts. As a result, I'm so much more confident in the circuit. Found some resistors in the wrong context that was both confusing me about where the crap they were, and also making a scribbly mess out of the traces.

Several analog input channels of the Oblique Palette are being laid out in KiCAD. There are already probably a hundred traces, and I just learned how to replicate my repeating work rather than having to make every edit 8x.

The #ObliquePalette analog outputs are working, voltage and servo alike!

Inputs seem to have an electronic error. Trying to figure it out.

Servo current draw might be too high through basic USB even with power capacitors. There’s a connector to add a separate power plug, too, but I’m pretty sure the answer is USB-C PD that will additionally give the voltage range to be fully #Eurorack compatible.

It’s really exciting to see #plugdata outputting position and voltage to the real world!

Let’s get this solder party started!

#ObliquePalette prototype 0.5.3 is now in hand! Gonna solder up one input & output first to see if things are working. My record so far is that each time more things work, so it’s feeling pretty good here.

I already think I have obsolete resistors on here but they shouldn’t affect testing.

There’s also a single missing user-facing legend, easy to fix in the next version.

But now. Time to stop procrastinating and get some parts soldered in beyond the μC.

The back of the same PCB with op amps, DACs, and multiplexer ICs in place as well as a ton of tiny resistors.

A Raspberry pi Pico board in place on white headers. I am currently posting this to procrastinate soldering in more.

Also, I realize now looking at this that this microcontroller is the wrong one.

#ObliquePalette #Eurorack #modularsynth #synthdiy #plugdata
Ask me about it at #Superbooth! Maybe I'll even have one that works!

#ObliquePalette

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