new sequencer

Ha!

Do you remember? Last time I thought my webcams ability to listen had died? apparently it didn't! Apparently I hadn't installed VLC yet (on my new desktop) and so Windows Media Player was at a loss when playing the movie and I thought the speaker had past away. But today I tried it with my laptop, which has a build in microphone. I thought that I could still make a video with sound using that microphone, but it wasn't needed, the webcam made an awesome attempt at recording the delicious sounds created by my Arduino!, so all is well :)

So first my original video that I made last week but didn't upload, because I thought it didn't have any juicy tribulations on it. (Thanks LCD Soundsystem for putting tribulations in my head...):

Sequencer working better from FrankBorsboom on Vimeo.

You can hear that it reacts kind of good (although the buttons don't always work so well). And it is nice to play with different tones which make the sequences instantly ten times cooler.

The second video has an addition! the Pot meter is connected and now makes the sounds even more fruity as all the tones can be made higher. And it registers it per program run so you'll hear a (somewhat) smooth increase in tone :). Lets hear:

Sequencer with tone difference from FrankBorsboom on Vimeo.

So this is all nice an stuff, I now wanted to see if i can make something like a cool sequencer like the tone matrix by Andre Michelle or some sort of drum computer. Of course I can´t operate something like 16 LEDS and also register 16 buttons, yet. So now I used 2 LED and 3 buttons:

The red LED lights up at the beginning and half of the runtime (being the time that is sequenced) and the green LED lights up every second 16th of that runtime. So this is to show when a sound is made and when some button press is registered.

This also means that per sequence only 16 tones can be generated and registered. Which is something i'm not really content with, I think.

anyway, without further ado (is this a word?) I present you the new sequencer:

New kind of Sequences from FrankBorsboom on Vimeo.

One good thing about this is that de broken buttons don't stutter anymore... but it also sound a bit more ... 'sluggish' i think. I probably need to work on it a bit. And maybe add a PotMeter? :)

I'm kind of seeing how fun it is to make some kind of musical instrument :). Although the sounds aren't great yet, it is fun to learn to program this way.

I came across this thing call a "Kraakdoos" I think it is cracklebox in English. Which sounds really weird, but I think I will try to make one... someday. Because it seems fun to me to build an instrument that doesn't need an Arduino to build its sounds, but does so by electronic processes. Maybe later I can use Arduino to process those sounds and make even cooler things with this :)

Also I'm still planning to do something cool with the toys/monsters :).

see you around!

frank

sequence further?

so....

Last week I cleaned my room.... it took me the whole weekend! Damnit! phew... i really cleaned a lot, but it was necessary. Some time ago I showed a picture of my desk and surroundings, and it was obviously needed, so now everything is nice and tidy again,.,, sort of... it was... I already made it a dump.... anyway...

Last time I made a sequencer which was kind of glitchy, it would suddenly get an input when I didn't press anything resulting in some weird things. So actually the day after I made a new program that works better and (!!!!!) it makes it possible to use different notes! not that I used that at that moment...

anyway, one week and a half went by and ideas sprung up. first of all: to make more notes, which means more buttons... So I wrecked the circuit board that I got from my old, but honorable, mouse (which I have never even used...), and got me some nice and shiny buttons. :)

And now it worked with three buttons, which is definitely better than just one, seriously! I could actually now make some sort of tune, so this is going into the right direction! :)

But I can't show, it, or at least let you hear it because my webcam lost its power to listen... Don't you hate it when something like that happens? I do... but I made a picture... of it... it shows my finger pressing a button. Neath aye?

Anyway, that's kind of how far I got this hour, this week. It has been a real busy week with lots of stuff from my internship and making something really cool for mothers-day (a week late but hey) which i will show next week, I'm sure!

Somewhere up I probably said I have lots of ideas, first of all for the sequencer but that will come along nicely i think. But also other projects are coming to mind.

first of all to make some sort of toy:

I got this from computerarts.co.uk: Cast a designer toy. This is really nice in it self to do on my own. But what would be really nice to also add some LED's or sensors and connecting this to the arduino. So it can react to the environment and be playful. On the picture I made something that will be able to light it's eyes, or maybe even growl or scream :). I know this isn't awesome or anything but I like the idea of adding these things and see where it will go.

another thing is this:

This idea came when I wanted to make something that makes something else, or at least adds value to it. So this thing will look out the window and see how much light is coming in. Also it will slowly feed some kind of textile and put marks on it according to the light that comes from the window. got the idea?

What i want this to become is some way of showing how the week has been. So imagine this thing working for a week. You'll end up with a piece of cloth with dark and light markings on it. Which shows the day time, night time and somehow what kind of weather it has been. I donnu, to me it sounds interesting...

This was it already!

hopefully till next week! :)

Sequencer

Good evening!

This week I came across this video (from CreativeApplications.net) and it made me soooooo exited:

illucia: a modular codebending instrument from paper kettle on Vimeo.

I haven't checked the website out But I like the idea of using a physical machine/interface to change code on the go. i'm not sure what to do with it yet but it looked cool.

This kind of gave me the push to go and make some sort of Sequencer! I wanted to do this from scratch so I didn't check if other people made sequencers using an Arduino.

I didn't make pictures of the process so I'll talk you through it real quick.

first I wanted to see if I could make a timeline. So to press a button, Arduino records how long it is pressed, and then let a LED blink at the end of the time, and then repeat the time. (English is sooooo difficult right now!)

Then I checked if I could make the LED blink at certain points on that timeline, according to the moment I pressed that button.

After that I made the time I pressed the button come back in the timeline, so if i pressed it very shortly the sound would be short, and if I hold the button it would sound for a very long time.

Finally I added a PotMeter to change the pitch of the sound.

So here it is:

Arduino Sequencer very crude from FrankBorsboom on Vimeo.

First you need to press the button for as long as you want the timeline, and then you can press the button for the sound and use the pot meter for the pitch.

Next i want to use the potmeter to change the time of the timeline, so you can make it longer and slower or shorter and faster. And i'll use more buttons for more pitches.

So, that's it for now!

have fun!

frank