https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b Collecting resources, thoughts and discoveries as I explore making control devices for music applications with an arduino. en-us 2017-01-07 16:23:57 UTC 2023-02-11 19:20:09 UTC hello@padlet.com ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/145820315 When using the Sharp IR sensor,
Will likely need this library to improve the readings captured.
(Sensor on it's own gives pretty erratic readings!)]]> 2017-01-07 16:28:57 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/145820315 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/145820690 2017-01-07 16:36:59 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/145820690 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/145820843 [comport] is an external object for Pure Data which allows data to be read from a serial port/device.
Will read values from 'Serial.write()' in arduino sketch.]]> 2017-01-07 16:40:18 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/145820843 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/145821379 This seemed like a promising library for outputting my data as MIDI, however, doesn't seem to be compatible with the arduino uno board I have....

(Would need to look for a board with 'native usb' capabilities - https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/arduino-comparison-guide)]]> 2017-01-07 16:52:11 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/145821379 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/146383533 This site has a useful tool for calculating the value of resistors using the coloured stripes.
(Other websites I found didn't seem to match with the resistors I'd purchased from Maplins.)]]> 2017-01-10 20:29:30 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/146383533 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/147182235 An experiment with a single photo-resistor, as per the bildr tutorial.
It seemed the resistor was only really useful when working with dramatic changes in light level - from very dark, to very bright.
Would be good to find a more sensitive resistor that might allow for greater precision/subtlety in performance.]]> 2017-01-14 10:42:47 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/147182235 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/148839268 This library certainly improves the readings obtained from the Sharp IR sensor.
Not sure on the definition of one of the arguments it expects though - seems like an 'error margin' given as a percentage - 1% seems to give best results, although not a huge difference between 1% and 99% in the tests I conducted. 
The sketch I am using for this is below.
I'm also using an [average] and a [Line] object within Pure Data to further 'smooth' my readings.]]> 2017-01-23 19:13:22 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/148839268 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/150499326 A video demonstration of using the Sharp IR sensor to control the speed of playback of percussion samples in Pure Data.
I'd like to explore building a 'ring' of these sensors to offer control over a variety of parameters in a single instrument.]]> 2017-01-31 12:52:10 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/150499326 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/150936309 Have 2 of these waiting to be hooked up to compare performance with the IR sensor.
I'm expecting these to be more accurate, but possibly less responsive, which might be a problem for a gestural interface.]]> 2017-02-01 18:22:59 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/150936309 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/151604636 Found this library to improve readings from the HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor.

]]> 2017-02-04 13:38:03 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/151604636 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/153400919 Really fun day at a synth building workshop on Saturday where we explored using conductive fabrics and threads to control and manipulate our DIY noise makers.

Lot's of possibilities for designing interfaces that use stretch threads and fabrics in place of traditional mechanical interfaces.

The KOBAKANT DIY site is a useful resource for information and ideas.]]> 2017-02-13 12:57:44 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/153400919 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/153402546 The KOBAKANT site also has some more general resources relating to electronics and Arduino.]]> 2017-02-13 13:05:30 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/153402546 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/154730192 I solved a particular challenge this week regarding how to read from 2 sensors, write out to a single serial data stream, and then separate the 2 streams within Pure Data.

I did this by scaling and constraining the values from my 2 sensors in to 2 discrete ranges - 0-110, & 111-200.*

I can then use a [moses] object in Pure Data to split values below 110 in one direction, and values above 110 in another.

*This range is (roughly) important - the Serial.Write method I'm using in the Arduino Sketch can only handle values between 0-255 - anything over that will be 'wrapped around', totally skewing our readings at the other end.

I also convert the data to a 'byte' variable type, since this is what Serial.Write is expecting to work with (I believe).

]]> 2017-02-18 09:32:54 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/154730192 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/160991398 To try and improve the quality of data collected from my 2 sensors, I have added code to write readings in to an array, and then work out an average of those readings before sending to serial]]> 2017-03-19 13:51:34 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/160991398 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/160991533 I've been experimenting with ways to further improve the stability of readings I'm getting from my 2 ultra-sonic sensors within Pure Data.
I've found pretty good results from quanitizing my readings by re-scaling numbers and then sending to an [int] object.
This removes a lot of low level fluctuation from the readings.
I'm also using a line object to smooth movement.]]> 2017-03-19 13:53:53 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/160991533 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/176849083 This looks interesting...]]> 2017-06-19 11:55:49 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/176849083 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/176995984 Interested to explore using these joystick controllers mapped to carrier/modulator wave amplitudes on an FM synth.]]> 2017-06-20 15:04:58 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/176995984 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/177092038 Lot's of interesting papers on the topic of musical interface design available to download on the NIME 2017 conference website.]]> 2017-06-21 12:01:12 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/177092038 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/179245297 A short demo of the thumb-sticks mapped to 4 oscillators (2 modulated pairs).]]> 2017-07-23 09:47:05 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/179245297 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/179246013 Here is the sketch I am using with the thumb-stick controllers.

I think I want to explore scaling the values in to wider ranges which I think will allow for greater precision in the end result.]]> 2017-07-23 10:24:44 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/179246013 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/179973069 I've slightly amended the scaling used in the sketch for the thumb controls - I now scale the readings by 0.060546875, which gives me a 62 number range (rather than a 10 number range), which gives me smoother / more precise control in pure data. 
After I thought about it, it seemed silly to be throwing away a load of precision.]]> 2017-08-02 19:00:56 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/179973069 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/189097013 The weekend provided an opportunity to put the thumb-stick controller to use in a few live shows.

The controller worked really well for me, providing a simple, gestural way to manipulate parameters of my instruments.

It worked particularly well mapped to a sequencer/percussion instrument, where one axis of the stick was mapped to the rate of the sequencer, and the other axis mapped to tonal quality (where one direction gave a grittier, noisier sound, and the other a purer, more tonal sound).

Being able to use the thumb-stick select buttons to assign the controller to different 'channels' was really useful, although not having any indication on the device as to what 'channel' I had selected was a slight issue.

I think the next steps for me are to purchase a board with native USB capabilities, allowing me to make use of the MIDI over USB library - I think the Pro Micro will be the particular model I'll go for.

I'm also planning on adding a further 2 thumb-sticks to the controller (so 4 in total), and also adding some form of visual feedback to show what 'channel' the controller is set to - either in the form of some simple LED's, or possibly a small LCD screen.]]> 2017-09-19 20:37:34 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/189097013 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/195697169 Going to be adding one of these to the controller to give channel/program selection feedback.
(Some simple LED's would have also worked, but I thought this would be more fun)

]]> 2017-10-10 16:29:47 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/195697169 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/201327514 First opportunity this evening to have a quick play with this new board.
(I had to wait to borrow a soldering iron and solder some headers to the board - pretty pleased with my soldering efforts too.)
A few additional steps to get going with this board when compared to the Uno board, which I will explain in a separate post.]]> 2017-10-27 18:39:51 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/201327514 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/201328409 I had an incline that I would encounter some issues getting started with the new board, which I did, but thankfully they were fairly painless to resolve.

The first step I had to do was install the board to the Arduino IDE - The board installation guide on the Sparkfun website was easy to follow and this didn't take long.

One thing to note is that when selecting the board in the Arduino IDE, you will first select the board type - Sparkfun Pro Micro - and then have to go back to the Tools menu and select the exact type of Pro Micro you have, e.g., 5V/16MHz - it won't automatically select the right board, and uploading a sketch to the wrong board can apparently cause problems.

One issue I did experience occurred when uploading a sketch, where I would get a 'Device or resource busy' error.

After some googling I found that a process called 'modemmanager' was likely the cause - running the command " sudo stop modemmanager " resolved the issue, allowing me to successfully upload the sketch to the board (until next reboot - apparently removing modemmanager would be fine to stop the issue once and for all.)]]> 2017-10-27 18:42:19 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/201328409 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/203522382 First bit of code tested on the Pro Micro to take an analogue reading in and output it as MIDI data.
So far I've only tested this in Pure Data, but fingers crossed I'll be able to get a solution that works universally across any software.
The test simply reads a value from a 10k linear potentiometer and outputs a MIDI control value.]]> 2017-11-04 11:24:26 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/203522382 ollieowen707 https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/206375032 I've now combined all of my previous work to build a controller that has 2 thumb-stick controls, sends values from them as MIDI data over USB, uses the 'select' buttons on the controls to increment through MIDI channels, and also has an LCD display that shows the current MIDI channel selected, and the values coming from each controller.

So far I've only tested this with Pure Data, so I need to test with some other software applications to see how the device is recognised and functions as a MIDI controller.

One problem I did solve today was an issue with obsolete values remaining on the LCD display, most noticeable when changing from a higher value to a lower value, for example;
changing from '10' to '8', would display '80' , and from '100' to '76' would display '760'.

I've worked around this issue by checking the 'size' of the value, i.e., how many digits it will be represented by, and writing additional zeros before the value where required, for example;
'8' will display as '008', and '34' will display as '034'.

While I'm pretty happy with how the code is performing on my controller, the problem I now need to solve is the packaging and containment of the wiring before the project becomes usable.]]> 2017-11-13 17:36:30 UTC https://padlet.com/ollieowen707/tmz4v41uic2b/wish/206375032