Glacial Communications

Some news of a “we are sort of a record label, aren’t we?” type:

1. I’m selling a number of copies of GLAC-18 via the ‘Shop‘ link. A mere $5 plus shipping, and I’ll try to throw in a special ‘extra’ or two.

2. In 2010, I’m going to make a concerted effort to put out at least one release per month. Now, ‘release’ may be as small as a  two track ’single’, or an entire album. It may also consist of new things, or old stuff dug out from the vault, or something in-between. There’s even some chance I’ll release some stuff by other folks or collaborations, provided that such things happen (Interested? Get in touch…). Most of these will probably be free downloads, but there may be some further experimentation with that Shop page,  and perhaps physical releases as well. But yeah, one release a month. Probably towards the end of the month. But if you’re in need of sounds RIGHT THIS SECOND, you might find some fun stuff on my SoundCloud page. I’ve been putting up a few experiments with the modular and some other gear.

3. My vague plans at the moment also include taking a ’sabbatical’ from building gear in February in order to have time to record for the RPM Challenge, so obviously I’ll be soldering and building like a maniac through January 31st, so that I’ll have the gear I’d like to use for it. My plan for the RPM Challenge album will be “DIY Volume II”, with an as-yet unknown subtitle.

That’s it for now!

Finished the XR2206 VCOs that I got the PCBs for earlier this week, so the rack is now full:

(click on it for details if you’re into that sort of thing)

It’s been a crazy four months or so since I started seriously working on this – the first module kits that went in were ordered August 24th. A few PCBs were ordered before then, as well as the rack. And now, four months and one-ish day later, it’s filled. All DIY. Crazy.

It’s hard to call it ‘done’ since there a few things left to do (knobs for the VCOs are enroute, half the bottom row needs labels, and I think a passive mixer’s going to go in the bottom half of the RRM panel…), and really, when is a modular ever really done? I’m already planning a bigger cabinet (the ’studio’ cabinet, to compliment this, the ‘live’ cabinet), and have several modules on the bench or in the works coming soon.

Next, I’d like to thank everyone who has offered support, whether of a technical(providing modules/kits/PCBs/parts), logistical, or moral(encouragement, nudging) nature. You know who you are and what you’ve done. Thank You!

Lastly, there should be a brief announcement of some label-y things soon (plans for 2010) – certainly before the end of this year.

OK, the trigger-to-MIDI clock converter seems relatively happy (though I think the MIDI in on my AN200 isn’t? That’s going to require some more tests…).

I hacked on it a bit tonight trying to determine how drifty the generated MIDI clock was relative to the incoming trigger pulses from the DR-110.  At first it was pretty ugly. I then added some compensation to the clocking to account for all of the work the Arduino is doing. After some trial-and-error, it’s relatively tight – total drift by my rough calculations was something like 10 milliseconds over a five minute period. Compare that to an earlier drift of 120 ms in a minute…

Here’s the code: trigger2midisync.pde

Hardware-wise, there’s a trigger input on pin 2 (use a zener if you’re worried about blowing stuff up…), and the MIDI out is the standard (TX, GND, and 5V through a 220 ohm resistor going to the pins of the MIDI port).

You may want to configure some of the #define statements in the code. STOP_TIMEOUT is the amount of time that needed without triggers needed for the converter to decide to stop. I’m using 2 seconds.  Changing DIVIDE_SLICE would be important if your trigger source is something other than 4ppqn, and CODE_OVERHEAD_TIME is used to adjust drift in your deployment – 10 worked really well for me in my tests tonight, but it could be anything for others.

Once it’s hooked up and connected to your MIDI source and your trigger source, start sending a series of pulses to pin 2. On the first pulse, MIDI Clock start should get sent, and by the third pulse or so the sync will be “synced” – there will be an offset, but it should remain fairly constant. Now, once the pulses stop, clock will continue to be sent until STOP_TIMEOUT milliseconds have passed.

Next test will be syncing the DR-110 to the very-nearly-finished x0xb0x to see how well that keeps up – I did all my tests tonight with a Yamaha RY10, with both it and the DR110 just playing a “four on the floor” kick pattern.

Questions? Comments? Improvements?

Been a while since there was an update, so let’s see what’s on the bench of late:

• x0xb0x – Yeah, I took the plunge and self-sourced a kit (not that hard since there’s a guy on the forums selling the rare parts kit for a reasonably fair price). It’s soldered up and mostly working, except for an extremely weird intermittent problem I haven’t completely solved yet. It’s unclear what the actual problem is, but I think I have a pretty good workaround ready to go.  I also had issues with the USB chip early on, and then pulled since it was highly suspect when I first started having trouble. Now I’ll have to try to re-solder it again…
• Haible varislope filter/phaser – Pretty much done! I think I need to reverse some of the pots and adjust some things, but it’s working reasonably well.
• A trigger-to-MIDI Sync converter – Decided to do this with an Arduino so that I could at least clumsily sync my DR-110 to other stuff (x0xb0x, AN200, etc.). Code will be posted soon, once I add in start/stop functionality and test it a bit more thoroughly.
• MIDIBox SID – I’ve got the CORE, SID, LCD, and a pair of Banksticks up and running.  Worked great under computer/MIDI control, though I think a noise gate will be necessary for the bad 6581 VCA. Waiting for DINx4 and DOUTx4 boards, and then I’ll have to figure out the control surface – it will be more complicated than the basic one, but less complicated than the “full control surface”.

Whenever the PCBs  show up, I also plan on building a pair of XR2206 VCO modules, as well as a few other modules on the horizon. Gotta start thinking about a new rack as well. I’ve got the first pair of Vector rails, but lining it all up is going to be careful work.

Also coming soon: A pair of PAiA Tube Mic preamps- the phantom on my mixer died (just as I got some condenser mics! curses!), so these are going to replace that functionality. I’m going to hotrod them a bit with better parts and some ECC83 tubes to replace the 12AX7s it ships with. Ordered some pedal PCBs as well – a Big Muff Pi clone, and a Rebote 2.5 delay.

I think I’m also going to have to move the electronics area to a bigger room with bigger tables, but that’s probably at least a  month or two out.