breedx's blog

Ghetto Drum demonstration

breedx — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 23:44:57 -0500

As promised, here's a video demonstration of the Ghetto Drum retrofit with USB MIDI:

Ghetto Drum USB MIDI retrofit

breedx — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 02:01:01 -0500

So Paul hooked me up with a Teensy++ with a couple bad pins a few months ago and I ended up putting it to good use by retrofitting my Ghetto Drum system in order to support MIDI over USB. The project page has been updated and provides a few more details about the Frankenstein job.

I pulled open the old SyQuest case and unmounted the existing circuit board. After hacking at it with the Dremel for some time, I was able to turn the board sideways to make room for the new Teensy board. I mounted this new Teensy in the upper back and made a ghetto faceplate that allows the mini USB connector to poke through.

I mounted the Teensy on a small piece of perfboard and made some super ghetto wooden standoffs. I wired 10 pins from the Teensy over to the existing PIC board with wire-wrap wire:
2 power lines and the 8 trigger points. On the legacy side, I decided to solder the
connections right to the pins on the PIC chip itself. Whatever works!

This change allows the whole mess to be powered by USB when pluged in. The legacy PIC board maintains its old function of reading the triggers and converting the data to RS232, but more importantly, the PIC toggles the trigger LED whenever a pad is hit. :)

On the software side of things, I leveraged Dean Camera's LUFA to build some firmware that allows the Ghetto Drum to show up as a USB MIDI device. When plugged in, the device will show up with a clever name and show itself to the host computer as a USB audio/MIDI interface device. When the triggers are hit, the Teensy sends note on/off MIDI events on channel 1 (zero based).

In order to make some sounds, I built a fairly involved Pd patch that receives the MIDI events and can trigger drum samples from a gigantic library of synthesizers. I used the Dickhole Keypiss with Pd to program different patches and assign samples to trigger channels. After the integration was complete, I ended up demonstrating the whole shebang one Monday night at Dorkbot in Portland.

I hope to have a demonstration video up within a few days.

Pd patches from the workshop.

breedx — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:57:19 -0600

Yesterday was the Pd interfacing with the worldworkshop and we had a blast! Thanks to everybody who came, and even bigger thanks to Alex, Jesse, and Don for pulling it together!

For posterity, I am attaching two of the Pd patches here that I was temporarily hosting elsewhere. If you didn't have a chance to attend, please feel free to check them out and play with them.

fm_synth_patch.pd - The HID/joystick controlled FM synthesizer patch.
netsend_recv.pd - The netsend/netreceive demo patch.

Hopefully soon we'll see some more technical info/specs on the midi monster, and then people can begin sharing info, ideas, and patches that they have created!

Heard at PCB fabrication / Eagle workshop:

breedx — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:39:21 -0600

Feurig taught a great Eagle PCB workshop this weekend and had a solid turnout with a bunch of fast-learning board hackers! Kudos!

As Feurig was about to place a pizza order, an utterly surreal and beautifully sarcastic moment happened. This is the exchange...

feurig: Is anyone here a vegetarian or vegan?
<crickets chirping in silence>
me: wow, that's gotta be a first in Portland workshop history!
mykle: well, I'm allergic to starches!
heckler#2: I'm allergic to carbon!
<laugh riot>

And really, the cadence was just perfect. I just absolutely had to share the LOL for those who weren't there. ;)

DorkbotPDX @ ON Gallery

breedx — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 01:23:56 -0500

The DorkbotPDX gallery opening at ON Gallery last Thursday (First Thursday) was a smash hit.

I've posted some photos from the event (or click the above), but of course they don't do it justice. Live beats Memorex! Hooray!

Open Pd workshop

breedx — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:38:16 -0500

         ___                            ____       _
        / _ \   _ __    ___   _ __     |  _ \   __| |
       | | | | | '_ \  / _ \ | '_ \    | |_) | / _` |
       | |_| | | |_) ||  __/ | | | |   |  __/ | (_| |
        \___/  | .__/  \___| |_| |_|   |_|     \__,_|
               |_|
 __        __      [/~]      _            _         [bang(
 \ \      / /  ___    _ __ | | __  ___  | |__     ___    _ __
  \ \ /\ / /  / _ \  | '__|| |/ / / __| | '_ \   / _ \  | '_ \
   \ V  V /  | (_) | | |   |   <  \__ \ | | | | | (_) | | |_) |
    \_/\_/    \___/  |_|   |_|\_\ |___/ |_| |_|  \___/  | .__/
                                                        |_|

                 THIS SUNDAY - Aug 16th - 1-5pm @ PNCA rm 205
 [pd(          //~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\\
  |   [you(   ///                                           \\\
  |  /        ///  Hi.  DorkbotPDX would like to welcome    \\\
 [+ ]         ///  you to an OPEN Pd workshop.  This is a   \\\
  |           ///  4-hour open workshop in which you can    \\\
 [creative]   ///  bring any project you like to hack on    \\\
  |           ///  and share ideas and get help.  All       \\\
 [outlet]     ///  projects are welcome, but we will be     \\\
              ///  focusing on Pure Data (Pd).              \\\
              ///                                           \\\
              ///  The workshop is intended to be a         \\\
              ///  collaborative effort -- there is no      \\\
              ///  curriculum, the cost is FREE, and you    \\\
   [+]        ///  may come and go as you like.             \\\
              ///                                           \\\
              ///  For the best workshop experience, bring  \\\
              ///  a laptop with Pd preinstalled and as     \\\
              ///  much or as little gear as you can carry! \\\
              ///                                           \\\
        [*~]  ///  http://dorkbotpdx.org/20090816_openpd    \\\
              ///  http://tinyurl.com/pnca-pdx <- map       \\\
              ///                                           \\\
               \\-------------------------------------------//

             people doing strange things with pd and electricity
   [dac~]

The Dickhole Keypiss MIDI controller

breedx — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:33:57 -0500

I built this little midi controller to trigger samples and control a few Pd parameters:

I posted a video of this in late May, but now that I've had a chance to document a few things, there is more information online.

It's based on an old touchtone telephone keypad, a rotary encoder, a two digit LED display, and a USB-based AVR breakout board (the Teensy++). The PC board was hand-etched at home, and it's mounted in a solid white, repurposed jewelry or makeup box, purchased at the Goodwill.

We used this both at toorcamp and at the Someday Lounge performance thing on July 17th.

Click the above to view more images, read the brief technical spec, and to download the code and circuit/pcb design artifacts.

Convoluted DTMF dialer!

breedx — Sun, 31 May 2009 01:33:57 -0500

I made this overkill DTMF dialer:

Worlds most convoluted DTMF dialer. from breedx on Vimeo.

It uses Don's Benito to scan a 4x3 button matrix ripped from an old phone. The Benito then translates the button keypresses into MIDI and sends those over USB to a Linux PC running Pd. Pd then decodes the midi and decides what DTMF tone to dial with some telephony abstractions I wrote a few weeks ago.

Totally overkill, but a fun and simple project. After I build a box for it, this is likely to be used as a generic widget/trigger in our upcoming toorcamp performance.

Pure Data Workshop - (1 of 3) - Introduction to Pd

breedx — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:17:35 -0500

DorkbotPDX introduces free Pure Data workshop series

We are excited to announce a new workshop series devoted to Pure Data (Pd). http://puredata.info.

"Pd (aka Pure Data) is a real-time graphical programming environment
for audio, video, and graphical processing. It is the third major
branch of the family of patcher programming languages known as Max
(Max/FTS, ISPW Max, Max/MSP, jMax, etc.) originally developed by
Miller Puckette and company at IRCAM."

Pure Data is free [FLOSS] software - meaning there is no charge for
the download and it is open source, (free/libre). It runs wonderfully
on Mac, Linux, Windows - so bring any laptop. Come with Pd-extended
installed if possible - otherwise come a little early for installation
assistance. The workshop is free as well!

We will will be doing several workshops starting from the ground up -
and ranging topics as advanced as there is interest for.

Workshop One will be held May 17th. No prior Pd or programming
knowledge is required, but expect to leave with functional knowledge
of how to use Pd. The outline in progress can be found here:
http://dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/pd_workshop_2009_outline.

But we want to hear from you! We'd love to get a rough idea of how
many people are interested in attending.

Do you use Pd? Do you use similar commercial software like Max/MSP? Are you interested in learning Pd? Why? What are some of your ideas?

Pd is an incredibly open-ended platform so we're trying to get an idea
of where the majority's (if there is a majority) interests lie....
Physical Interfaces for music? Live DSP? Generative composition?
Video? Dance? Robotic cat toys? Feedforward most welcome!

Bring a laptop with Pd-extended installed, if possible. Otherwise come
a little early for installation help! http://puredata.info.

Seating is limited to about 35, so please rsvp at http://dorkbotpdx.org/pd_rsvp or email jason@noisybox_net or coldham@mac_com.

When: May 17th, 2009
Where: PNCA room 205 (Portland, OR)
Time: 1-5pm

ECONOMY: BAD. FREE WORKSHOP: GOOD!

breedx — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 01:28:42 -0500

Save the date: Sunday afternoon, 3/29/2009
Where: PNCA, room 205, 1-5pm

Come join Dorkbot Portland for a four-hour geek-a-thon in the heart of the Perl (yes, I went there) District. Isotopes not required.

What's all this then? A bunch of us will gather in the drawing studio in room 205 on 3/29 at 1pm to partake in a free-form workshop. Bring a pet project, tools, or simply your curiosity and desire to force technological constructs to meet your expressive inner nature. We're nice, open-minded, artistic people with a bubbling technolust, a hot soldering iron, and stinky armpits.

This is a place to brainstorm, but really to handstorm. Bring your ideas, let's share and explore together. Feel free to gloat, show-off, scorn, mimic, embrace, or destroy. Hi.

Kolpxnty fab prototypes gang chained

breedx — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 03:50:39 -0500

These will make things bark.

They are not without problems and have not yet been instructed to bend the circuit things, but they will soon. The above is being driven from Pd via MIDI by way of Benito.

More to come...

benito + kolpxnty + barbie == <3

breedx — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:28:55 -0600

kolpxnty camera phone teaser! from breedx on Vimeo.

I've mostly finished the next phase of the kolpxnty board -- driving the thing from midi over usb from apps like pd (pure-data). In the above clip, a braindead pd patch is sequencing the bowels of a Barbie telephone children's toy without any additional circuit bending bonus points. My video recorder died, so the video was recorded in near darkness on my phone ("Sorry folks!").

The next phase is to see how it can switch in circuit bent components (pitch down resistors/caps, for example) and to shrink the board size before having it fabbed.

Overheard at dorkbot last night...

breedx — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 23:13:06 -0500

The following was heard over a soldering iron at our casual Dorkbot gathering last night:

"Christ, that night in the hospital...my underwear was covered in ferric chloride stains."

Heh. :) I couldn't stop laughing....only at Dorkbot!

Some of the tiniest soldering I've ever done

breedx — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:46:25 -0500

In the last week or two I've been doing some of the smallest soldering I've ever attempted.

It all started with the KOLPXNTY board I've been designing and prototyping. I won't dive into detail here (maybe later!?), but the basic goal is to trigger a fairly large number of circuit bent devices from a networked computer.

I'll put up a documentation page if/when it's more relevant.

Although this certainly not rocket science, it's certainly the most complex 2-sided surface mount board I've attempted to design. Briefly, there are a few buses, a lot of traces, and a shitton of vias (for my amateur hand anyway). I soldered down the teeny LEDs and 6 small SMT chips and the bypass caps and resistors and rested confident in knowing that even though the board was hand-ironed and soldered haphazardly, that it was good and efficient and tight.

Then I decided to finally build out the benito kits that I scored from Dorkbot Don a month or longer ago.

Let's be clear -- this shit is pretty damn small. It's not exactly microscopic. It's still hand soldered, but wow, it's really tight. The TQFP part is really hard not to bridge, but the braid will save you. The LEDs are really light and challenging, but totally doable if careful. The remainder of the SMT parts (caps and resistors mostly) are surprisingly fun to mount and actually save you the trouble of cutting those long leads (like on thru-hole parts).

I built two of them and although I managed to ruin one of the LEDs on one of the boards, I have been able to confirm that they're both functional.

Don has really done some great and amazing work here!

Let's be absolutely clear: He's designed and built us a cheap and readily available platform that can act as a usb<->serial bridge, an Atmel programmer, or even more generally, a really great cheap and open platform for USB+AVR hacking. Wanna control a servo? Sure, this can do it! Wanna read from an SPI sensor? Sure, this can do it too!

It's still probably in need of some general purpose cross-platform code and reusable modules, but what a great small, cheap, and efficient platform on which to build computer-enabled projects! It think it was nearly ten years ago that I read about the death of the serial port and the future of this newfangled USB thing.

It was a hobbyist nightmare. How were (are?) we going to deal with the insanity? Other than the overpriced FTDI chip (not to fully knock it -- that chip is great), the benito is the first real usb platform that does what we hobbyists kinda want. Granted the software has to be there to support it -- and it will follow soon. Pay attention. :)

Dorkboard assembly tutorial is online

breedx — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 01:18:04 -0500

I've placed a brief Dorkboard assembly tutorial online. It's my first attempt at a photo documented circuit tutorial, so feedback is always welcome.

I'm sure there are nuances/subtleties that I've missed...please report them and make the page better!

Meeting :: Tomorrow 5/26 7pm at NW Lucky Lab

breedx — Sun, 25 May 2008 13:11:04 -0500

  _|   _   ._  |   |_    _   _|_     
 (_|  (_)  |   |<  |_)  (_)   |_                                
_|_   _   ._ _    _   ._  ._   _          | 
 |_  (_)  | | |  (_)  |   |   (_)   \/\/  o

7:00pm at the Lucky Lab NW

Come get your dork on! There will be a group of us meeting at the Lucky Lab NW tomorrow, May 26th at around 7pm to talk and show off our tech/art/mad endeavors. Bring a project and a question and a concept and an inquisitive mind. We're a very approachable and friendly group that readily welcomes newbies, seasoned hacks, and everyone in between...just look for an excess of laptops and electronic components and say "Hi.".

Sadly, it seems that Ethan, the spark shooting shockatronic dinotron won't be present. He really made an impression last time (I think most victims have made it out of surgery).

Many toys have been purchased for the workshop

breedx — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 01:17:34 -0600

A couple of weeks ago, we hit the bins and obtained more than 50lbs (a pretty full shopping cart) of toys. The workshop should have plenty of fun and noisy things to hack apart. I'm continuously amazed at just how many toys have sound making devices embedded in them now...

Announcing: Haywire :: The circuit bending workshop

breedx — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 18:05:34 -0600

I will be hosting a 5+ hour circuit bending workshop on Jan 27th, 2008 at PNCA. There is a flyer being printed:

And there is a general information page available at
http://dorkbodpdx.org/haywire . Please start to spread the word...

MEETING: THURSDAY 12/20 @ Backspace 7:00pm

breedx — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:13:42 -0600

Hello DORKS.

Why wait for 2008? We're ushering in the new year early with a trifecta of change: Change of day, change of time, and change of venue! Note: We're moving the casual meeting day to THURSDAY and moving the location to BACKSPACE in downtown Portland, and starting 30 minutes earlier at 7:00pm.

While we certainly acknowledge that we cannot please everybody all the time, we generally feel that this will be a positive move for the group! The new location is more centrally located (instead of way up NoPo), well lit, all ages, and way more conducive to talking and even tinkering.

This will be a casual meeting (not a formal/presentation style) where we can talk about projects and brainstorm the onslaught which will be 2008. Come on down, bring a friend, and bring your spark-shooting electronic iguana that you hacked with 12 microcontrollers and GPS.

ZAP! POW! Come on down on Wednesday!

breedx — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 01:11:12 -0600

Portland Dorkbot will be having an informal gathering on Wednesday, December 5th at 7:30pm at Vendetta on N Williams. Come on down and bring your mom.

We're generally pretty easy to spot. Be on the lookout for out-of-place uncomfortable dorks with glowing laptop screens and piles of gadgetry on the tables. Amen.

Although this is an informal gathering, we always encourage people to bring their latest hacks to show off, work on, or just basically share with the group. There have been some very thought provoking and creative discussions lately, and things are heating up for the beginning of 2008...so come on!