I made a space ship.
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Spaceships!!
As you were.
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Iāve just had an electrolytic capacitor turn itself into a rocket motor.
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I flew a few real rockets yesterday. Iāll take that over exploding capacitors any time.
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Thar she blows!
Getting some seriously funky waveforms out of this thing. No huge issues found, some mirrored footprints etc. The only thing I couldnāt klutz is the suboscillator being inverted in the mix output, giving unwanted cancellation when the saw and subsaw are mixed. Relatively quick fixes for v2.
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This is the awful insanity thatās been living rent-free in my brain lately. Itās the layout for an IO/control board I can use with the stackable protoboard design Iām also working on, but thatās a whole other story. Theyāll stack and connect via two columns of pin headers. I know itās a polarizing subject, but this board mounts to the front panel using the componentās mounting hardware. The idea is to make the layout as flexible as possible while still being roughly symmetrical. It has footprints in different positions for pots and jacks (and probably eventually buttons and breakout pinsāthanks to @AriaSalvatrice for that idea).
When itās done itāll have space for 12 pots and 8 jacks in one configuration, or 6 pots and 12 jacks at the other extreme, in a 12 HP panel for Eurorack. Itāll ALSO be able to be split into two halves, either down the middle with one column of pots by up to 5 rows, and one or two columns of jacks by up to 5 rows, or asymmetrically with up to two columns by up to five rows of pots and three columns by up to five rows of jacks. Those split boards will each only have one column of headers, but in that narrower HP width the mainboard would/could be mounted perpendicularly with right angle headers.
Right now I have no idea how Iām going to route it, beyond favoring one side to enable the asymmetrical split. Eventually theyāll enable me to quickly prototype pretty much anything that doesnāt need a ridiculous amount of pots and/or jacks. Iām here for any thoughts or (gentle) criticism.
Is it a jam? Is it a track? I donāt really know because the thing plays itself, more or less:
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Hey everyone! Today I finished building my second DIY module and I think thereās no coming back for me 
Both are based on Moritz Kleins designs: The left one is a dual drone oscillator with a mix knob which blends the two oscillators (my plan with this is to build a functional equivalent to the Grendel Drone Commander). The other one is the 3-channel grit mixer with a dry/wet control for the distortion and a white noise source normaled to the third input, so I can dial it in as long as nothing is connected to it.
These are the only modules I currently own. Had a small doepfer system a few years back, which I had to sell. This summer I learned about Moritzās tutorials and was dragged into DIY 
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Thatās really a beautiful piece of work/synth. 
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looks like a great start .
" and I think thereās no coming back for me "
yeah I am a few years and over hundred modules in and still building , it is fun and a nice I built this feeling . well good luck and looking forward to seeing your future builds .
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Yāall ever start a super original project, only to realise halfway it already exisits? I really thought a matrix sequencer was gonna be a new thingā¦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03VGRxSZFL0
Oh well, at least Iām doing it slightly differently.
Bonus:
look at that sexy routing of the mixing busses tho.
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Also yours isnāt as crowded!
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Thatās the beauty of Kosmo, isnāt it?
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I also began such a project once: Matrix Sequencer ideas , but the huge number of jack sockets and the required thinking about placement was too much for me, so I gave up on it 
In other words: I am VERY INTERESTED in your project!!
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Ohh now I remember your post indeed!!
Iām simplifying a lot, but than also adding other functions. Iām doing away with the separate clocks for each sequencer, Iām only having a horizontal and a vertical clock. Also, Iām doing away with resets and directions all together, but Iām adding some stochastic, random step jumping. Basically a pinch of Turing machine.
The big difference is that Iām not outputting each sequencer independently. Instead, Iām taking the sum of each row and column. Soā¦ Letās say the top row is at step 1, but the right column is also at step 1, there now will be two steps active along the first row, and both voltages would be added up. That way, Iām sort-of already incorporating the adder. But also, all sequences become inter-dependent, and shifting a step in one off them affects all the perpendicular sequencers.
Reading this back it doesnāt make much sense now. Hopefully it will when itās readyā¦
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Sounds like a different approach: in the Z8000 the different sequencers (outputs) are always connected to a single pot, but which one it is, changes with step. Pots are always voltage dividers between 0 and V_max. In your case the outputs are always connected to a whole row or column (summed) of pots, but the voltage that goes into the upper side of the pots is decided by the step sequencers? Or maybe no, hard to explain what I mean xD
In any case: sound like a really cool project!
Yes youāre right! How I image the Z8000 is built: each pot is between +v, and -v, and is connected to 4 analog switches or multiplexers. One for the row itās in, one for the column itās in, and two for the two 16-step sequences. That means that the horizontal and vertical sequences share values with each other, but thatās how far the interaction goes.
In my case, Iām using shift registers to turn the top of the pot on and off. All pots then get summed along the rows and columns. That means that the output of each row also depends on the position of the sequences in the crossing rows. Image clocking the columns 4x slower than the rows. They now become 16-step sequences, where a 4-step pattern repeats on the row, and a different offset is applied every 4 steps by the columns. Kinda like what mylarmelodies does in the video, with the adder.
My idea behind this, is that I often find myself in want of some movement in a patch. I want some modulation sources, I donāt care too much what they do, but I want a lot of them. And ideally I want them to shift over time. Thatās what this will provide. 8 sequences, not fully individually defined, and constantly shifting around.
In the end itās not so much like the Z8000, other than the shape. Itās much less deterministic, more suitable for generative, evolving patches
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Following up from my earlier post, Iāve been chipping away at this slowly. Another bad video first!
Most of the work Iāve done is on the software. Iāve rewritten most of it in a much more maintainable, logical manner as Iāve been learning CircuitPython (and Python generally). Whereas before I threw everything together in one file and hoped for the best (like most Arduino projects) Iāve made distinct modules for the display, switches, jacks and audio engine. The samples can be changed on the fly (although Iāve not written a way to do that directly on the module yet - at the moment it requires using the serial terminal) and Iāve put in support for one-shot samples and loops, either triggered or gated in both cases. The status of the sort of sample is reflected on the LED display, one character for each voice.
Oh, and Iāve added SD card support 
just in case 16MB of Flash isnāt enough (or more likely I use it as the basis for a different project down the line).
Iāve started working out a menu for loading samples, loading/saving sample sets, adjusting volumes etc. Thatās my next push.
CircuitPythonās sample handling isnāt perfect - thereās no changing playback speed or seeking a position in a sample, for example - but for my needs thatās fine!
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Really nice!! RP4020 means that the board is similar to a pi pico?
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Yep! This particular board is laid out identically (but has double the ram and way more flash), but I started it off on a regular Pico. Iāve had the code running on an esp32 board as well, another really cheap and readily available device.
Itāll all end up on GitHub in the end!
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