Believotron Wanderlust Axoloti Controller

#21

We launched our beta at knobcon, which by the way, was super awesome. Someone brought in a crate of EDM chickens. I saw so many amazing synths. It was neat seeing who had and hadn't heard about the Axoloti. Just about all of the designers there were impressed by the Axoloti!

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Here is our KB unit. The USB host works flawlessly. The section with forty 3.5mm knobs is just for show. It's a placeholder until the Euxoloti is ready.

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I really like how simple this eurorack chassis is. They still need more engineering and reinforcement, but the look, feel, and heft is amazing. Not heavy, but not feathery either.

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We're considering a variation on the case with the flat part on top replaced with more knobs. Because knobs.

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#22

Update: The store is back up!

Hi everyone! I hope your audio projects are coming along and that you're making amazing sounds.

I'm happy to announce that our beta-0 pre-order is live. If you'd like to get your hands on a beta synthesizer, go check it out.

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I wanted to makes sure there were enough options for people who were good at soldering, and also already had an axoloti, or who wanted to make their own case.

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If you have any questions, ask away!

#23

This project sounds great. Keen to hear / buy when they are available.

Adrian

#24

We're going to open up another beta batch around May 15th. We'll post here with any more updates! Thank you for your interest, we can't wait for you to play with one.

#25

Awesome, I'm looking forward to it. Any rough idea on pricing for a diy kit minus the axoloti board?

#26

Rough pricing for the DIY-Lite kit is going to be ~$125 US. This is for people who have oodles of headers and cables, and can make their own enclosure or can use Eurorack, but don't want to solder the surface mount parts.

We're still putting together the other kits and pricing. We'll be selling everything from the just bare PCBs to a fully assembled synthesizer with enclosure.

Thanks again for the interest!

#27

Where are you at with this project? Your website hasn't been updated since at least June.

#28

Hi, we're starting pre-orders for the next beta design on Oct 1st.

We've been spending the summer taking the equipment to various festivals and synth communities to get feedback and understand positives and limitations of our design. This all culminated with Knobcon earlier this month. We're doing a final refactoring and boring stuff like sourcing screws and packing material.

Thank you for being interested. I'll definitely respond here when it goes live!

#29

this project doesn't have some fair info, to get in

#30

The new hardware is available at the store.

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We have a brand new controller that has 4 joysticks, 8 knobs, and 4 128x32 OLEDs.

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The OLEDs in action.

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Here is a laser cut enclosure for the Axoloti core.

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The deluxe enclosure for the Axoloti core is made from machined plastic and has a great outer texture.

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The keytar has been unbelievably fun to play.

If you find any mistakes or have any questions, please feel free to ask them here. We're working on some videos to show off the sound.

#31

Here is a quick video demo. More to come as we build up our patch base!

#32

looks cool!
Is that knobs or rotary encoders? and would it be possible to show the values on the oleds?

#33

Those are knobs. I love rotary encoders, but we're trying to keep the cost down.

Here's a photo of the OLEDs until I can take a better one:

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The screens are 128x32 and can be completely reprogrammed. The current software includes a basic font and the ability to print text to specific positions. I wouldn't expect to update these more often than 10 Hz.

#34

I just realized that you meant "can you show the numerical value of the parameter", not, "can you show a better picture of the OLEDs". Yes, we're working on various software demos, and those are all prioritized by the community. I'll bump that one up.

Since I took the pic, I may as well as post the closeup:

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#35

I assume you have some other microcontroller in there driving displays and possibly the controls as well. Can you elaborate on the design?

#36

There isn't a microcontroller. Everything is handled by the Cortex M4 on the Axoloti core. The core is good for processing the ADCs in realtime. The OLEDs, though have to be limited. 128x32x4 is a lot of data to be updating at 20Hz, so it's not intended to be a fast display. It is, however pretty good at updating a few times a second without crunching the audio.

I would love to hear what sort of things you would want to display. If we can pull it off, we'll post pics.

If you're interested in hardware with a faster GUI update, we're working on a raspberry pi + axoloti core version early next year.

Here is a system diagram of the Wanderlust. Let me know if you have any questions.

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You can find the open source schematic, PCB, and gerber files here: https://github.com/Believotron/BelievotronWanderlustHardware/tree/master/Beta1

The code is available on our development repo, but I swear you should wait until we set up a release repo, because that is a pile of sedimentary code and designs :wink:.

#37

In other news, we had such a great response for our drum kit that we brought to the Chicago Full Moon Jam that we're going to be spending some time developing the kit further.

We're eagerly awaiting these two drum pad midi controllers, so we can get a good feel for how the software works with so many buttons.

We're trying this low-cost non-pressure sensitive drum pad because it has so many pads:

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I've had issues with Novation knobs before, but this is all buttons, so it should integrate well.

The plan is to assign each row / column to be a set of 8 different variations on a drum sound. For example the first pad might be a kick drum with low resonance and each other button in the row increases the resonance.

This might also make a good step-sequencer, but it depends on how hard it is to implement the protocol to change the LEDs.

There are a lot of different ways to program this, so I'd be interested in hearing any suggestions for design metaphors.

The other controller we're working with is the Akai MPD218. It has a lot fewer pads, but they are pressure sensitive.

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#38

We got the code working on the Novation Launchpad Mini

#39

Honestly I have to say I liked the look of the capacitive keys with all the quirky icons better.

#40

@DazzlingDuke

I would definitely be interested in one with out an Axo inside, just a simple midi controller with display for each knob. There are not uch of those around, the Behringer one comes closest, but only shows the dial value not the actual name of thew parameter you are dialing. I got a couple of axos al ready, but I think I would like something I could use all around, for my Organelle, and other devices too.

Is that something you have thought about making or the future a dedicated midi controller?