question/inquiry about progress and documentation

[sc3sc3]

Hi,

I have been "watching" this project.
What's the current state of the project ?
Is there some documentation what exactly Hachikit does ?

Thanks and regards.

[perkowitz]

Hello! Thanks for your interest.

The current state is I have both HachiKit and Avatar mainly working with some things still to figure out. I'll update the READMEs with more info and work on some more complete documentation.

But briefly: HachiKit is an 8-voice drum synth, triggered via MIDI. Instruments are virtual versions of analog circuits like those in the 808 or others. Avatar is a collection of mono or poly synths, also triggered via MIDI.

[sc3sc3]

Thank you for your answer and your work.
I look forward to trying it out in the future.

[perkowitz]

Hello! I've updated the main repo README and READMEs for each of the projects I'm working on. They're not super in-depth but should give an idea of what I'm working on and how to build/use them. Please ping me with questions, and definitely let me know if you try them out.

[sc3sc3]

Thank you.
I'll certainly try it out in the coming month.

[sc3sc3]

I'm on linux.

when I run
~/git/daisy-patch-projects/HachiKit$ make clean; make KIT_NAME=Kit-AB kit

I get

audio/Processing.h:6:10: fatal error: ../utility.h: No such file or directory
    6 | #include "../utility.h"

I can proceed when I change that line to "../Utility.h"

Then I encounter

..
arm-none-eabi-objcopy -O ihex build/HachiKit.elf build/HachiKit.hex
arm-none-eabi-objcopy -O binary -S build/HachiKit.elf build/HachiKit.bin
cp build/HachiKit.bin bin/Kit-AB.bin
cp: cannot create regular file 'bin/Kit-AB.bin': No such file or directory
make: *** [Makefile:62: kitafter] Error 1

when I manually create 'bin' folder, the build succeeds

Avatar built without issues
~/git/daisy-patch-projects/Avatar$ make clean; make

..
arm-none-eabi-objcopy -O ihex build/Avatar.elf build/Avatar.hex
arm-none-eabi-objcopy -O binary -S build/Avatar.elf build/Avatar.bin

( so far my playtime for the day, I'll report later when I actually use it on the Daisy Patch )

Thanks

[perkowitz]

Thank you for the bug reports! I've fixed those two issues, finally. Let me know how it goes!

[sc3sc3]

Hi, I tried to use Avatar yesterday, but didn't get any sound out of it.
Didn't realize previously that it is midi-only and not cv driven.
Haven't used midi in eurorack before, so have to read up on a couple of things
on how to deal with that in my setup.

[sc3sc3]

I've got sound, got it working with an SQ-1 :-)

[sc3sc3]

I got some nice sounds out of Avatar,
not fully knowing what i'm doing and being amazed of the amount of parameters that can be set.
I haven't tried Hachikit yet.
I just installed your issho-launchpad-firmware on an old and compatible launchpad pro to use as midi source,
so i'm trying to get the hang of that as well.

• Can Toph and Korra run at the same time ? There are multiple voices.
• In your description you mention midi cc messages to update the parameters, for now I have used the cv inputs to update parameters

So thanks again for all your work 👍

[perkowitz]

Glad to hear you've got it working!

There's some basic info on Avatar in the README, but it's set up so Avatar can run two synths at a time. Each has its own midi channel and multiple pages of parameters. Click the encoder to switch between synths.

The only limitation is processing power. Toph is monophonic and doesn't use much CPU. Korra is paraphonic -- there's an oscillator for each voice and a shared filter, so it doesn't use that much CPU either, even running with 8 voices (currently set to 8 in Korra.h). But if you try Katara, which is fully polyphonic, I think it starts having problems beyond 5 voices.

You can edit Avatar.cpp to set which synths you want to run, though Toph and Korra are the most up to date. Asami doesn't really work, since I haven't figured out my wavetable oscillator yet, and I haven't been updating Katara since I prefer Korra with a higher voice count. I have a new one in progress, Momo, which is lofi and doesn't need much CPU.

For midi CCs, both Toph and Korra are currently hardcoded to accept 8 CCs starting at #16. The CCs are hardcoded to specific parameters via the ctrlParams line at the top of the .cpp files. I plan to include all params but haven't yet. You can at least change what the 8 are assigned to by editing the ctrlParams lines.

[perkowitz]

Let me know how you like the launchpad firmware! You'd probably want to run Flow with one of the Avatar synths. I haven't worked on those in a while, since I've been focused on my Yaeltex version, but let me know if you have questions. It isn't checked into Main, but there's a drum sequencer for the Launchpad as well; I'll have to go back and figure out if it's in a working state.

[sc3sc3]

tonight i just played a bit with the launchpad by itself
i think it's wonderful, really like the concept of notes augmented with markers
( thank you for putting the time and effort into the fantastic documentation, that really helps )

one thing at times i wished for was a way to set the tempo
apparently it's a hardcoded 120 bpm ( which can can be overriden by an external clock )

what is the drum sequencer you are talking about ? is it a branch ?

[perkowitz]

Yes, I wasn't able to find a satisfying way to compute reliable tempos internally, so it's clock only, aside from the built-in 120. The same is true of my current version (using a custom Yaeltex controller); I think I could do better there, but I just clock it from an sbx-1.

Glad you enjoy the sequencer! I've been very happy with how easy it is to improvise with. I have more markers I'd like to add but I ran out of colors :)

There is a version of the drum sequencer I've written several times now for the Launchpad firmware, but it's still on the quake-init branch. I'll take a look and see if it's usable. I think I got it pretty far along.

[sc3sc3]

tonight i configured the midi cc's on the beatstep pro and played with Toph and Korra
also played with their presets

next challenge is getting Flow from launchpad pro and midi cc's from beatstep pro into that 1 midi input of Patch :-)