Believotron Wanderlust Axoloti Controller

#41

Same. I miss those, but the biggest complaint we were getting from people was a lack of velocity on the capacitive touch buttons. We're definitely going to bring them back for a weird, fun synth, but for now we're trying to maximize playability.

#42

I hadn't considered an upgrade kit. That's a really good idea for people that already have an Axoloti (or three :slight_smile: ). I'm going to get that put together and post it here.

#43

I've added a BYOAxoloti Upgrade kit:

This would be everything needed to take an Axoloti Core and convert it to a Believotron Wanderlust. Enclosure, 8 knobs, 4 joystics, and 4 OLEDs, screws, nuts, spacers, etc. I'm going to be working on some assembly instructions. Let me know if you have any questions about it.

#44

This latest design looks really awesome. Is it possible that users could replace the joysticks with a unit that doesn't have springs? That way they'd be more like X/Y pads.

#45

@adnauseam, when you say replace the joysticks with a unit that doesn't have springs, can you say the same thing with different words? I think you're talking about a directional pad (D-pad) on a Nintendo NES controller? Maybe a link or a picture of a product that has what you're talking about would be helpful.

The beta is all about trying out new variations. I'm fine with doing a limited board run to see how it handles. If you have a sketch of something you had in mind, let me know. We won't do any plastic tooling, so we would be using off-the-shelf button covers.

#46

The unit looks cool in general.

To clarify what I meant about springs: the joysticks used now spring back to center. There are four joysticks and yet I only have two hands. Joysticks without springs would be more useful to me. You could adjust one and then adjust another. They would stay put when moved. Sort of like 4 X-Y pads.

I also notice that a lack of buttons limits how the box can be used. Even two buttons could go a long way towards a more multi purpose control box. I know the joysticks have buttons but standalone buttons are more desireable.

I am but one user. Take my suggestions with a grain of salt. Glad to see something go beyond the where the Axocontrol got us started!

#47

Aha, thank you. I know this joystick has a model that doesn't have springs. I'll look into it.

A lot of people are holding the controller like a giant gamepad, having some buttons along the path of the thumb might be a good idea.

#48

@DazzlingDuke

Starting to get more hot for this wanderlust controller :slight_smile: But what @adnauseam says makes sense:

I had one of those axo control boards from music modular thing, with the same joystick and actually never really used it because of the spring behaviour. So yeah, I think like adnauseam, that having maybe 2 joysticks, without springs would be great.

I also got an Organelle, which is really cool with the 4 knobs and 1 button and the keyboard.... But one thing I am missing big time is more buttons than one, to turn things on/off. The buttons could be used for page handling, so you can use the knobs for more than one function. Page one is amp adsr + filter adsr, page 2 is filter + lfo.. etc...... You get the point.

Besides that buttons vould also be used for preset handling. On organelle I have been trying all sorts of gimmicks to get most out of the system and it really really needs some buttons and I think it would be a good idea to add some buttons to future revisions of this controller, they just make the controller a lot more versatile.

Beside that, I am not sure I understand how you program the displays for the controller? Is all programming done with in the axoloti patcher, using string/c to send the parameter names to the displays?

Also in the video below, the displays only show the parameter names. Did you also try setting it up to actually show the values of the parameters?

Sorry for all the question. Merry christmas, Jaffa :deer:

#49

Thank you for the notes on the spring-sticks and buttons. I'd removed the capacitive touch buttons because getting the musical timing down varied dramatically from person to person, as well as how dry your hands were. It would be nice to add a few cap touch buttons for more control if they were used for menuing and not rhythmic timing.

The way the OLED library is currently set-up is you feed character strings and then the library translates the font to a 128x32 pixel array. The current API allows you to target each of the four rows of the OLED. I've started with this, to make it really easy for new users to start using the display.

Here is a screenshot of the current, most basic way of using the controller.

PCB1010.png1996x631 63.5 KB

We've got some great hot spaghetti if you want to see the code as-is. We're expecting a re-write in the first or second week of January. https://github.com/Believotron/Axoloti-Patches/tree/master/Believotron/objects/OLED

Regarding updating the parameter value, we're not sure if the library is going to be able to keep up with updating faster than 10 hz. After our year end code refactoring, we're going to tackle this performance issue. If it's not possible to update fast enough and keep up with the audio processing, we're going to throw in a cheap cortex M0 microcontroller. Well, either that or consider a full color touch display, but probably both :wink:. We have a solution that would be an easy upgrade if needed.

Thanks again for the feedback!

#50

Jaffa, I've been noodling about the controls a little bit.

I've been thinking about a mode where you use the joysticks like a rotary encoder. You could set the delta amount and then rotate around. I'm not sure how it would work in practice, but I'm also not sure how most people want to use controls. Are you tweaking 5% of the parameter, or jumping back and forth between 0 and 100?

What do you think about using the joysticks to nudge the parameter value? We have a boolean out for the cardinal directions. If you push up, you can use it to increment a parameter. Down and decrement, or vice versa. I've done this on a couple of patches. Its definitely slower than a full x-y travel, but it gives you different functionality. I've heard both sides of the absolute vs relative controls and I'm interested in both sides getting their way :wink:.

What if there was a button paired that would act as a sample&hold on the joystick value? When you push the button it passes through the xy value. When you release the button, it would capture the last position of the joystick and it wouldn't matter what position the stick is in after that?

Regardless, I'll try to look for physical x-y controllers without a return spring and try to test them out.

#51

Hey Duke :slight_smile:

Seems like you have a nice idea about where you are going with it.

That sounds fun :slight_smile:

ABout the displays. Yeah I dont expect real time update of the parameters :slight_smile: But just a little feedback fro the display would be nice.

Did you check out tehcnobears object called "tb/disp/print f"? With print you can actually send parameter values along with text. I used that a lot lately. It only updates once a second, though, but maybe this might a worth looking into?