Sonic Crayon Moth + Hollow Earth plans

hookay....

Things have been lagging due mostly to demotivation re: the hollow earth. That sucker is tough to build, I mean really tough. it's definatelly not dead, though, and as a way to help kick-start things back up again, I'm selling off a batch of bitcrushers/samplerate reducers with wet/dry blend control. it's an easy build I'll have no trouble building a dozen of, and at the same time it'll help refinance the whole hollow earth gig.

So here's the bitcrusher, called the Moth and does 1-8 bit crushing and samplerate reduction. there's wet/dry blending and volume as well. the graphic will change a little. here's a bad clip. I'll do a youtube once things are orginized.

there will be no reservation list for this one. in a bunch of weeks I'll just announce a day they go on sale and that'll be that. $150 a pop.



in semi related news, the kind folk at Audio Effekte have written a kind word on this project of mine, as well as about montreal assembly!

read it here

You should check out Scott's stuff (at mtl assembly). he makes rad effects too and his bitcrushers are way more versatile than mine! face-melting boxes galore!

Meanwhile..

..I'm thinking of doing a small run (10) of simple samplerate reduction pedals to try and kick things back up again. Two knobs (blend and samplerate), simple circuit, etc. 10x easier than the hollow earth and would help fund/re-enthusiate an eventual hollow earth reincarnation.

Maybe.

Hollow Earth non-update

I'm super late with Hollow Earth orders, in case you were wondering.
big surprise

of floopers and bitcrushers

A quick flooper (feedback looper) I built for the Pines. Saw it in action at a show last night, awesome!



Also, an old video of that bitcrusher I forgot ever existed:

DIY Synth log #2

Little board I made to help me in developping the programmable synth. Seeing how so many things need to be controlled by DACs (for preset recall and automation), made a little 16-channel multiplexer with sample-and-hold.

Still shopping around for a simple 16-bit DAC. most are either SMD, or are I2S (too slow) instead of SPI. And I can't spare the pins for parallel. Eugh...

DIY Synth log #1

Some sounds I had lying around:

http://nearworlds.org/stuff/diy/diy_synth_01.mp3
http://nearworlds.org/stuff/diy/diy_synth_02.mp3

Part of a long-term project of building a synth. The rough outline is:

-3 or 4 oscillators. sine, square, triangle, ramp
-2 or 3 LFOs for FM, AM and VCF
-1 noise generator
-lots of LFO shapes, including "manual" waveshaping
-resonant VCF (using SSM2044)
-2 ADSRs for amplitude and VCF
-programmable delay (based on 2399)
-savable patches
-real wood enclosure and 2-octave keybed!
-some kind of basic arpeggio/sequencer
-MIDI-in a big maybe. I haven't looked at MIDI yet

I'm using DSI-type synths (evolver, prophet) as inflluence for the design. Digital control of analog stuff! In the sounds above, I'm using a atmega88 microcontroller to drive an MCP4921 DAC which in turn drives an analog XR2206 function generator. The 12-bit resolution of the DAC gives me a range between 30hz to around 8khz with tolerable drift. The micro has a table of all DAC values for 92 notes. The samples are straight from the oscillator. There's no envelope, filter, LFO or anything. The delay in the first one was added in soundforge for kicks. The "sequencing" is hard-coded in the micro.

The XR2206 is basically a voltage-controlled oscillator with sine/triangle/square outputs, and ramp with a bit of tweaking. It's really simple to use and requires almost no external components!

I'm gonna need a lot of DACs. One for each oscillator, for each LFO/ADSR combo. I intend to do the LFOs and ADSRs in code to make them flexible and as low-part-count as possible! I think I can mix both LFO and ADSR in code and have it use just one DAC.

I'm hoping to make the delay as dynamic as possible! Time and decay modulated by keys and LFOs and whatnot! If I can fit all components for a single "voice" (a dozen chips, I'm guessing) i nsmall-enough space, then I might consider making this a 4-voice synth. The main micro would just have to keep track of which voices are available, and if none are, use the one that was pressed the longest time ago.

I don't know yet if I want to salvage a wooden enclosure from something or just make my own. I haven't done any sort of woodworking since when I was a kid. It's not hard, but I am sort of ill-equipped! I'm not worried for the keybed. Doepfer has some nice OEM ones.

Next batch..

Having major issues with the new batch of PCBs. Can't figure out what it is. If I ever do find out what it is, and if it's serious, then the next batch will be delayed another two months, and a lot of wasted money.

I wish I could drop everything.

Hollow Earth orders

Hi,
I am no longer taking orders for the Hollow Earth. I need to get through the current list. This thing has been too much of a time eater, cost and source of stress, and I need to figure out what to do.

new HE PCBs are in

4'th revision Hollow Earth PCBs are finally in (7 week wait, ughhh), so I'll get started on builds #12-18 shortly.

fixes include using surface-mount switches instead, some additional noise filtering (not that it was much of a problem before), volume adjustments, and stuff that'll make building them easier for me.

vibrato

vibrato I built for someone. design similar to the one I made months ago (down the blog) with some improvments/bugfixes.

and yes, still making Hollow Earths. it's just taking time to get through thel ist is all. and yes as of 2010 they will be $275 instead of $200. I underestimated the cost in time and materials when I initially started making them. sorry about that. people on the list have already been informed.

scope!

Eight Bit Organism

here's a lame-ass demo. I'm playing a discarded umbrella into a TV that's on fire.



It's a bunch of stuff. A bitcrusher, samplerate reducer, a granular sampler/repeater/glitcher, a harsh digital fuzz and noise source. Controls are as follows (left to right):

top:
[B]bitdepth[/B]: bitcrush from 8 to 1 bit. things get noisy and ugly and awesome!
[B]samplerate[/B]: rate reduction, atari/nintendo-ish sounds, etc
[B]tone[/B]: just a big muff tonestack. middle is neutral. right is high boost, left is low boost.
[B]blend[/B]: wet-dry blend
[B]volume[/B]: makes the pedal vomit kittens

bottom:
[B]grain size[/B]: sample size of the granular sampling buffer.
[B]grain mod[/B]: modulates the grain sample up or down in pitch
[B]glitch 1 and glitch 2[/B]: makes it stutter in different ways. the toggle switch at the top makes the soft-stomp on the right active one or the other of the buttons.

Digital garbage

Today I worked on cheap granular synthesis, bitcrushing and samplerate reduction, all at once. It sounds like the world caving in!

Custom-painted Hollow Earth up on eBay

Custom-painted Sonic Crayon FX Hollow Earth. s/n #011



Starting bid $150. Ends in one week.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200397194730

Custom painted Hollow Earth

I'm still selling a small handful of these a month, and hopefully I can optimzie production a little to be able to squeeze a few more in that timeframe. Getting through the waitlist, slowly but surely...

I'm building a custom-painted Hollow Earth that I'll be putting on ebay soonish. Hopefully before the end of the week. It's functionally no different from the vanilla ones, but it'll be pretty with swirlies and specks on it. See it as an experiment, testing the auction waters on a custom item.

fun with graphic LCDs!

Got this graphic LCD from MC Shop, the DX-160. Wedged it inside a bare-bones Hollow Earth with a basic UI to see the potential!

Maybe I'll build a simple synth/drone box with manually drawable waveforms too.



I'm also clocking the AVR chip a lot fastern ow, 20MHz. I could get it to update the screen a lot faster, but I don't want it to drain juice needed for other stuff.

domain

www.soniccrayonfx.com

potentially new Hollow Earth features..

I'm trying to squeeze the most out of this design. I've had a few feature requests and a lot of them were tap-tempo. Harmony-Central user crxsh had a good idea about making the soft-stomp, the one used for recording of shapes, multi-function. Specifically, being able to toggle it between record, tap-tempo and bank select.

I'm gonna see how feasable this is. It won't be ready for the next few batches as I still have PCBs to use up. Testing and optimizations also take time. But hopefully I'll get those to work. A three-way toggle switch could be placed on the side of the box next to the soft-stomp with a label describing the three states.

Another issue the Hollow Earth seems to have is that expression-out doesn't work with every pedal with expression-in, only some of them! I never intended it to be a main feature, just as a fun extra, but it seems more people want to use it than I had previously thought. I'll try and put some effort into increasing the compatibility of exp-out.

For the geeks, an expression pedal is basically a potentiometer. Potentiometers have three lugs, one for the minimum range, the max range, and the wiper. The way the Hollow Earth outputs expression control is by controlling an LED-LDR combo (an electrically-controlled pot), which due to its nature is the equivalent of an only 2-lug pot. While this works with many pedals with an expression-in jack, it doesn't work with those expecting 3-full lugs. So far, this includes the Eventide Timefactor and EHX HOG. I'll do my best to fix this in a later revision.

Vibrato build, more Hollow Earth stuff..

Here's a vibrato I built semi-recently. It's based on a PT2399 delay chip and I use an AVR micro with a few wavetables to generate LFO shapes.





An update on the Hollow Earth. As explained in a mass email, I'm moving to a waitlist scheme. So I've asked everyone on the notification list to email me again, and I will use that order. I've already been in contact with the four for the next batch (very soon). In the meantime, here's a video demo by user crxshdxmmy showing some examples of traditional trem and some pattern variations:

First batch sold out!

Thanks to everyone for the support!

Stay tuned for more information on the next batches and stuff.

Hollow Earth "product" page

http://nearworlds.org/soniccrayon/hollow_earth.html

Hopefully this will answer some questions.

Hollow Earth batch next Saturday

Just a heads up! I'll be selling four of these next saturday
(25th of july) starting noon eastern-time. As of that time,
I'll pick the first four emails who tell me they are able
to pay right away. Please don't send me money untill I've
confirmed you're one of the four. Payment will be paypal
and is the sum of $200 US, not including shipping. I'll ship
via regular mail (like USPS) from Canada. No Fedex or UPS, they're
problematic for me.

If there are any questions before then I'll do my best to
answer them! I'll also try and put up a page sometime this week
with more details. If you miss out on this batch, don't worry!
I'll definatelly be making more every month, and hopefully more
than just four at a time as well.

12:00 PM on saturday the 25th, send me an email stating you'll buy
one right away!

I think for the next batch, I'll get the boxes predrilled and powdercoated.

Hollow Earth PCBs..

..are in

Hollow Earth (final) v3

It's coming and non-blems will be $200 US. I've set up an email list to inform people a week or two in advance when the first (small) batch goes up, so if you'd like to be informed, shoot me an email at

eblythe
aaaaat
mochamail.com

I'm just waiting for the PCBs. Probably a week or a little over from now. Once I recieve them, I'll send an email to everyone with more info.

DIY Jawari build

My fourth, exactly...



Schematic found near the bottom of this fine page

Samplerate reducer + resonant LPF

Just a rehouse of the blue samplerate reducer/LPF I build several months ago. Was never a huge fan of the original paintjob.

Hollow Earth (v2)

First prototype of v2 is done. Things to do include minor software tweaks, getting expression-out working, cosmetic changes. I figure I'll have a small batch of these available for around $200-225 US in july/august.

Hollow Earth v2 - populated PCB

Hollow Earth v2?

Alright.....

I posted the video sample and details of that Hollow Earth pedal I built a couple weeks ago on about 5 forums. It went slightly viral on a few others thanks to a few users. Anyways, interest in it has been a little overwhelming! So much so that I've convinced myself that I should build a batch of revisions of this to spread around.

Things I'd like to add/change:
-Eight to ten presets, all overwritable with your own shapes
(with LED digit display)
-Expression-in for the shaping
-Expression-out to "shape" other effects
-Rugged footswitch for record instead of the flimsy button
-Random mode
-Triggered envelope mode
-Sample input as waveshape
(the last one is a biiiig maybe)

After a 10-day break from this stuff to play jams/gigs, I started tinkering again. I got random mode mostly working, and I've started the preset saving bit. 8 pin DIP 24LC eeproms are a wonder!

Hollow Earth video demo