Hyve an interesting surface

#1

This might be an interesting Kickstarter Hyve to combine with Axoloti.

its actually a synth, but you can also back it as a DIY kit (Hacker) for $79 to just get the board, which Im wondering if I can use as a control surface for axoloti (additional circuitry necessary)

Ive asked the creator (Skot) for more details of connections on the board to see if is a possibility, and what the complication may be - he has said, he will publish more details in due course.

one small 'issue' when I backed it, I noticed the shipping of the bare board is $34 !! same as the full board, so Ive asked if he can 'review' this... otherwise its going to be $113 + taxes.

#2

a small challenge for the hardware guys out there...

how does it work?

here is a good video of the back side of the board.

from what I can see, its using CD40106 (schmitt triggers) for the oscillators, with 74HC393 (counters)
Im familiar with the CD40106 as Ive been playing with the OMSynth from Bastl ( you can see how CD40106 are used here if your unfamiliar and interested , its cool stuff :slight_smile: ).

there appears to be a set of resistor/capacitors and a pot, for each note of the scale... (R/C/P) the resistor/capacitors Id assume are for the basic tuning, then the pot will be for fine tuning, as expected for the CD40106s.

Im intrigued to know what the counters do, I'm assuming something to do with the poly count.. 8 'oscillators' in the 40106, but they are claiming 60 note polyphony - counters - there appears to be 1 counter for each 'note' (2 on each 393)

(presumably the surface changes resistance, as you move in the note, by a known amount?!)

thoughts?

the followup question is... so you think its possible to interface this with axoloti?
... im a bit concerned the trace lines are pretty specific to counters/schmitt triggers... so there may not be a place where its obvious to pick up an analog input to send back to axoloti via GPIO pins.

#3

It would be an awesome control surface for Axoloti for sure! I have no idea about the technical challenges involved, but would definitely get a board if it could be connected to an Axoloti with reasonable effort.

#4

Ok, I think ive determined.. the 'osc' are fed into the counters, and then sub divided, thus giving you 60 discrete notes/pitches. Id assume these are then fed to the pads which are resistive, so are attenuators. (2 sets to give you L/R spread)

the remaining question is how accessible the pads are, as this is where you'd need to solder to, to get the full functionality. Ive posed this to Skot, and suggested, perhaps a 'stretch goal' to ensure they are easier to hack.

if we can get to them, seems an easy enough project.
you get 60 x 2 (120) pads to connect to, giving you 120 analog inputs , 60 notes with L&R, so connect these via multiplexors to get down to a reasonable gpio count.
probably for me, the difficulty will be soldering 120 wires without shorting them!