CFO workshop at robo days 09

i’ve been invited to do a workshop with the platform at this years robo days in odense. the workshop will be quite open, and will focus on developing the platform further in the direction that the workshop participants might have in relation to electronic music and the platform. there are still a few free spaces for the workshop, so contact me if you are interested.

the workshop will be on in the odense public library this friday the 11th from 10-18 and on saturday the 12th from 10-14. the library of odense, has kindly offered us use of their studio, to record the results of the experiments.

also, throughout thursday the 10th the platform will be on display in the library. come by, and try it out! later thurday evening, at a special robodays dinner event, i will perform with my chip tune band la belle indifference, on the platform and gameboys running LSDJ.

i am really looking forward to seeing what will happen during this workshop!

better name anyone?

i need a better name for the synth…. cheap, fat and open has served me well for the project, as it was a good and catchy way to describe my own design brief… but it’s not so great for an instrument / platform… so, internet, what do you think? any ideas? please comment them here.

here are some candidates:

• little fatty
• the frankensynth
• stylobit
• anything italian related to cheap, fat and open (it is, after all, arduino based)
• please add to the list

pics and video

with the exhibition up and running, the exams over (yay: i passed) and after a lot of sleep, i found some time to upload some videos of the platform in action. thanks a lot to vorg for recording this!

below is a clip from the CIID exam, where i explain the current musical functionalities of the platform.

the next clip is from the exibition. me and ninja are experimenting a bit with the more abstract rhytmic possibilities that the platform offers.

and as always: go to my flickr stream to see more pictures.

come and see it, play it

sorry for posting this a day late, but things have been hectic lately… if you are in copenhagen or the neighbourhood, come by our final exhibition. i have assembled two synths, and you can play them.

below is my official exhibition txt:

CHEAP, FAT and OPEN is an open source platform for musical exploration, composition and performance.

The platform is CHEAP, and OPEN – welcoming you to experiment.

A combination of the old and new: the raw 8bit / chip tune approach combined with wireless connectivity, state of the art open source hardware, and expandability – gives us that FAT sound.

It is portable, allowing you to make music on the go.

The platform is a performance instrument, giving a full 1½ octave keyboard control in compact packaging, through a classic stylophone interface. It is also a sequencer, allowing you to program rhythms and melodies, and play them back in sync with other platforms and instruments.

This is NOT a finished product. It works as is, but inside the platform rests an atmega328 processor, which can be programmed in the Arduino environment. This means that the platform can be modified, expanded, and tweaked to meet your exact needs.

CHEAP, FAT and OPEN is designed for geeky musicians, the chip tune community, the makers, the circuit benders, the interaction designers and the musical programmers, and anyone else who wishes to experiment with sequenced / networked / low-level musical exploration.

This project is based on knowledge and inspiration from many different communities. I hope that by bridging these different creative communities, we can create something beautiful together.

pics and video will be posted soon!

it’s a beaut

yay! the PCBs finally came, and after a day of soldering and debugging, i’ve finally arrived at the assembled prototype.

go to my flickr stream, to see more pictures.

binary beat

while working on my gate sequencer francesco sent me this fantastic video by niklas roy:

“Music is a hidden arithmetic exercise of the soul, which does not know that it is counting.”

- Leibniz

add a light sensor

using mini-jack cables as stylophone sensors turned out to be a clever move: the cables carry 3 signals, allowing me to run 5V and GND through the cable along with the sensor signal. this opens up for modular plug and play with home built sensors, that get powered by the platform.

jamming!

i had my friend and band-comrade thorbjørn over for a look and jam today. thorbjørn is a very skilled piano player, and it was a joy to see him perform on the stylephone.

and in the following video thorbjørn unleashes some of the more noisy frequency modulation tricks the platform performs, before going into a heartbreaking little ditty

in the end i pulled out an electribe drummachine i had lying around, and we put the synth trough the audio gate of the electribe. trigging some more noisy sounds in rhytmical patterns was real fun, and it makes we want to implement a gate sequencer to the platform

the video clip is quite long, and starts really chaotically. so be patient for the goodies. or fast forward

PCBs sent to production

with the PCB finally sent to production, i now have the final specifications and dimesions for the board, and with a quite compact size of 160×137mm it is a real gameboy killer!

the first prototype batch will be produced in only 5 copies, via cogras wonderful 24hr PCB service. so i should be able to assemble one tomorrow already. exiting!

thanks a lot to david cuartielles of 1scale1 for helping me out with the final eagle CAD tweaks.

next up: designing a nice casing, and programmingprogrammingprogramming…

it’s ALIVE!

with a week to go of the project (before examination that is, i am planning to continue developing on this platform) i now have a fully assembled and relatively sturdy prototype up and running:

this will be the design for this iteration of the platform. right now i am designing the PCBs, so hopefully in a couple of days if will have something real and neat to play on. i had to give up on proper internal amplification and speakers, so i will use mobile phone speakers for now.

right now the feature list is as follows:

• atmega328 processor
• 12bit DAC sound
• 16 LEDs run through shift registers for sequencing control
• LCD display
• rotary encoder for multi purpose tweaking
• stylophone keyboard
• expression control through body switches
• wireless receiver and transmitter through infrared light (control your synth with your remote control!)
• passive volume control
• 5 navigational keys and 1 home key (can be expanded with shoulder keys)