This week we looked into making a drum machine, we used the same equipment and added a button for the input for the kick and snare. Its quite simple loop but it was fun to see our work actually coming into fruit to create these drum loops and oscillators. This week I did struggle a little bit with the coding as I got confused on what object needed to be bought into the code, but after Milo shoved me in the right direction I was dandy.
Bastl Instruments
Milo asked us to take a look as some of the modular and bit rate oscillators and synths that are affordable. I had a look on Youtube at some of these synths in action.
The Kastel mini synth
- Super affordable and had the expressive freedom of a high quality synth
- You line in parameters just like you do on a modular synth
- Good start point for someone like me who is new to modular synthesis
Elta Solar 42F Synth
- This synth is great for atmosphere
- It a all round bigger and more complex piece of kid but the sound you are able to shape is extraordinary
- More expensive but great for someone like me who is interested in cinematic and atmospheric music
Practical
The start of the lesson was to look at how we are supposed to line in our bread boards to our Bella. Inside the button we add to our breadboards there is two pieces of metal that are connected to each leg of the button. When the button is not pressed the metal is not touching so the circuit is open. When pressed the two pieces of metal are contact thus giving us two states on the button, Open and Closed or Connected and Open. Knowing this and after we have added a resistor we are able to start to look at the code.
The code we startup by insisting the pins we will be using for our hardware, in this case its pin 17 and 18 for the button to work. We then read the button into the code and work from there. I didn’t actually manage to get it working at uni, it wasn’t until I came home and gave it a proper go thats I was able to figure it out.