From: dacc@cmp-rt.music.uiuc.edu (Andrew C. Crowell) Subject: Re: cv, MIDI, spheres, vector mixing, and the 8031. Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 14:00:56 CDT Previously, Yoshiaki_Ohshima@SPEECH1.CS.CMU.EDU wrote: > > > have you considered PAiA? they sell cv<->midi things both in assembled > and kit forms. they are inexpensive (like ~$110 in kit and expandable). > are they useful or a joke? They're useful, but some PAIA things can be rather unstable. My 4700 series modular is _notoriously_ so, and I've used a PAIA performance synth-type device that had similar dodginess as to stability, plus some _damned_ unpredictable programming characteristics. Some things they have are pretty useful, but others are really flaky. Caveat emptor... D.A.C. Crowell Computer Music Project/School of Music University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign (dacc@cmp-rt.music.uiuc.edu) -- Date: 26 Apr 93 22:27:37 EDT From: dennis barton <70531.2124@CompuServe.COM> Subject: cv, MIDI, spheres.. Wine Country p*sses me off! First they charge WAY too much for the Kenton MIDI>CV. I assume they think none here knows about Kenton. Probably somewhat true, but $499 is ridiculous. Worse though, is that they offer a TB303 CV/Gate input mod kit, but ONLY if you buy their MIDI>CV converter at $499. I already have MIDI>CV and I'm not gonna spend another $499 just to get the privelige of buying that CV in mod from them. I assume that Kenton sells the TB303 mod by itself... Subject: Trackball -> CV Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1993 16:02:09 -0600 From: Forrest Cook Peter A. Barszczewski asks about how I do the trackball interface. Basically, the trackball has its own 68HC705P3 microprocessor in it that converts the trackball quadrature signals and button pushes into an RS-232 signal that I feed into my UMI box. The UMI (Ultimate Musical Interface, formerly Ultimate Midi Interface) is a Motorola 68HC11EVB board with a lot of custom I/O stuff hanging on it. Currently, the stuff that works on the UMI is the 2 16 bit DACs for CV stuff, the trackball, and the MIDI I/O ports. On the list of things to be developed are the Nintendo Power Glove, a CV controlled panner, and possibly a joystick. Basically I want to make something that Laurie Anderson would drool over. I'm currently up to about 20 pages of assembly language and and it's increasing whenever I get a change to work on it. This project is the result of having lots of little musical projects that I always wanted to build and deciding that it would be easier to build the hardware for everything all at once and save having to do the metal work and wire-wrap multiple times. Forrest Cook cook@stout.atd.ucar.edu WB0RIO {husc6|rutgers|ames|gatech}!ncar!stout!cook 26 Apr 93 17:27:46 EDT Cc: analogue@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Subject: Re: cv, MIDI, spheres, vector mixing, and the 8031. <01GXGTTIXC3S93562K@SKYCAT.USask.CA> Date: Mon, 26 Apr 93 17:27:42 -0400 From: Yoshiaki_Ohshima@SPEECH1.CS.CMU.EDU have you considered PAiA? they sell cv<->midi things both in assembled and kit forms. they are inexpensive (like ~$110 in kit and expandable). are they useful or a joke? i bought a kit some years ago and recently assembled it to i/f (please don't laugh!) moog prodigy, but haven't got time to get to calibrate it yet. it was (still is) my project that i would cram a sub-osc, a generic 12ax7 preamp, and the midi i/f into a small box. --aki by mta bcars520 in /PRMD=BNR/ADMD=TELECOM.CANADA/C=CA/; Relayed; Mon, 26 Apr 1993 13:50:02 -0400 by /PRMD=BNR/ADMD=TELECOM.CANADA/C=CA/; Relayed; Mon, 26 Apr 1993 13:49:07 -0400 by /PRMD=BNR/ADMD=TELECOM.CANADA/C=CA/; Relayed; Mon, 26 Apr 1993 09:48:00 -0400 Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1993 13:48:00 +0000 X400-Originator: /DD.ID=1571825/G=Peter/I=P/S=Barszczewski/@bnr.ca X400-Mts-Identifier: [/PRMD=BNR/ADMD=TELECOM.CANADA/C=CA/;bcars520.b.739:26.03.93.17.49.07] Content-Identifier: Joystick or T... From: "Peter (P.) Barszczewski" Subject: Joystick or Trackball to CV ?? Forrest's last post raised a point I've been curious about for a while. How do you drive your CV in's with a Joystick or Trackball. My naive assumptions would be to power the device with a battery of sorts and then use a trim pot to adjust the max level to the max level of your CV in. The device then acts as a voltage divider based on its position. Am I even close? Ideas? Alternate controller's for CV or MIDI can be really cool. Joystick and Trackball are 2, but Nitendo power gloves and that new device from Sega (the big octagon that you stand in which uses infrared to detect when it is crossed) offer new possibilities. Regards, -- Peter A. Barszczewski ( * (barsz@bnr.ca) ) ~|~ spirituality through technology. Bell-Northern Research, Ltd. ( | Montreal, Canada ) <01GXGTTIXC3Q93562K@SKYCAT.USask.CA>; Mon, 26 Apr 1993 12:34:21 CST Date: 26 Apr 1993 12:34:21 -0600 (CST) From: GRAHAME@sask.usask.ca Subject: cv, MIDI, spheres, vector mixing, and the 8031. >From: IN%"cook@stout.atd.ucar.EDU" "Forrest Cook" 26-APR-1993 11:26:00.13 >I've been having lots of fun with an old trackball that I use to modulate >the frequency. There was a previous thread about how well you can do >glissando and how to avoid stair-stepping, well folks IT CAN BE DONE! >The trackball sounds very much like a Theremin with analog smooth glissando. >Anybody remember "Lothar and the HAND PEOPLE"? they were a 60's Theremin >band and Lothar was the theremin. Their big song was "Sex and Violence" Hmm. I assume that you've got the trackball hooked up to a microcontroller- based "trackball to cv converter"? If that's the case, it'd probably be interesting to create a little routine that "quantizes" to notes of specific scales. That way you could use the trackball to "slide" between notes with some degree of musical accuracy (I'd love to do something like this just to say that, in addition to sliders and rotary pots, I've integrated a "spherical controller" into my system). Hmm. Do you think it's too late to get Waldorf to throw a trackball into the Wave? Would be kinda fun to have the beast step through wavetables depending on the speed at which you spin the ball. Anyway... Does anyone else out there spend ridiculous amounts of time playing with microcontrollers? It's a strange way to waste time, I tell you! My latest 8031-based musical add-on is actually a reincarnation of an old joystick controller module that I built several years ago. I'm rigging a pair of analog joysticks into my MIDI system with the intent of having them transmit assorted continuous controller messages. What I'm thinking of is a variation of vector mixing that isn't machine specific. I'm going to try rigging up one of the sticks so that it controls (via MIDI) the relative volume of four different synths. I plan on recording the MIDI output from the joystick controller into my sequencer so that I'm able to replay my vector mixes. Of course, the darn thing will probably chew up major amounts of MIDI bandwidth... Hmm. I should get to the point of this post, huh? I'm looking into purchasing a new cv to MIDI converter to handle a couple of recent acquisitions. Does anyone have any experience with the Kenton cv -> MIDI boxes? The 2-channel one is priced at 176.25 incl. VAT(Pounds, that is).On this side of the Atlantic, Wine Country seems to be selling them for the exhorbitant price of $499US. What gives? Do they not think that we're capable of calculating basic currency conversions? (Guess not... after all, we're only musicians :) James Grahame --