Midi Arpeggiator

After showing my midi scanner at synth-diy UK 2002 and the arpeggiator getting more attention than the keyboard scanner. I decided that I should perhaps have a go at making an inline midi arpeggio.

Well I finally got around to it and had the first prototype running at sdiy UK 2003, although it was completely overshadowed by far more interesting things. Hopefully next year will be different...

Arpeggi8 is a hardware based MIDI arpeggiator with real knobs and buttons. There are no menus, pages, etc. All functions are available real time from the front panel controls.

Click here for more information on arpeggiators.

 

News

Arpeggi8 has now been redesigned in order to accommodate desktop, rack and modular formats.

All 3 pcb's are now designed and waiting for build and test

 

New Layout

There are now 3 pcb's:

Below shows new main pcb

 

New Left and Right panels

Main PCB and left/right panels dry run.

 

 

The new layout is all leaded components in order to make it diy friendly and has sufficient flexibility to allow a standard config rack or desktop unit.

In modular format the pcbs can be stacked side by side in 2U or 3U config and there are headers to connect external CV's to control gate and speed as well as gate outs for triggering external modules.

 

Picture of rack mount

 

 

Samples

arp_oct.mp3              small loop increasing the octave range from 1 to 3

arp_mod.mp3            small loop modulating the gate length

arp_gate.mp3            adjusting gate length manually

arp_drop.mp3            Arp till you drop...increasing the arp speed until the midi bus is packed out and the synth boms out, well I hope thats whats happening

drum1.mp3                Small loop using drums.

 

demo.mp3                 Short demo, using hold and octave switching and up/down.

demo1.mp3               Similar to the first demo, but with drums and An1x playing strings - drums by QY20

demo2.mp3               Cheesy riff from Chameleon with An1x chord sequence borrowed from Howard Jones - drums by QY20

demo3.mp3                AN1x and Chameleon playing strings and harp with simple TB-303 bassline.

demo4.mp3                Same setup as above minus the TB-303.

 

Firmware

Processor is an 8K device running at 20MHz with a bootloader - which means the code can be transferred via RS-232. The plan is to have it sysexable to make it even easier.

This is a joint effort between myself and a great software engineer - James who does all my software.

User Manual

Early manual, done purely so that I could start to define the feature set.

User Manual

 

Ordering

I am thinking of getting some boards made up once the final feature set is defined. it's almost there, but each s/w bug ends up becoming a new feature.

It is likely that I would sell part populated and tested boards with no other hardware. That way the panel can be customised to suit any preferences in knobs/switches. It also means I can be sure that the processor is running and downloadable, before shipping.

 

There is a yahoo group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Arpeggi8/. Hopefully I can use this as a forum for discussing any potential features I have omitted.

 

Comments/suggestions               e-mail

 

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Last updated June 2nd 2005