Bliptronic 5000 (1 Viewer)

[Beanstalk]

HERE

 

[theoootini]

yeah looks fun. i bet you could rip out the insides and plop an arduino inside or a monome logic board...

 

[Serpico]

Got one. Fuckin deadly. UPS are cunts tho. On top of the usual duty charges they've popped a spurious "brokerage" fee on top. I rang them up about it and they basically used the Chewbacca defense. Talked a load of shite at me for a few minutes until finally admitting that yes, it's just a handling fee they pulled out of their ass and if I had it sent by An Post courier service I wouldn't have to pay it. If you're considering ordering from www.thinkgeek.com it might be in your interest to email them before hand to ask if they would send it with someone who doesn't add their own makey-upey charges on top of the duty you'll be paying anyway.

 

[theoootini]

how much was the "brokerage" fee?

 

[Serpico]

More than the fucking duty!!!!
11euro something for duty and 13 fucking euro "wankerage".

 

[Serpico]

It is a lovely meditative device with some lovely grungey 8-bit sounds. Very impressive for the price. Euro to dollar exange meant before duty and UPS Wankers fee it was under 60yoyos.

 

[theoootini]

that's steep!

interesting article from the creator on possible mods...

the button-and-LED matrix can be easily repurposed.

get at the tempo adjustment and sync controls, if you’re looking to hack in your own external MIDI clocking-

synth chip is external to the logic controller, so I assume that one could circuit-bend that chip independently of the logic controls. There may also be some unimplemented sounds waiting on the chip, and it may be possible to modify the scales played. I’m fairly familiar with some of these chips used in the casio-clone keyboards found at thrift stores- makes me wonder if there are some drum sounds hiding in there as well.

 

[Serpico]

Deadly. Bookmarked.

 

[Serpico]

I now wish mine had switches instead of buttons. pff.

 

[RFeng]

I got two of these delivered yesterday - my wife and I spent an hour or so playing with them. Fun toys. Two of them linked together provided for some fun as each of us tweaked the patterns we had going. She was much better than I at getting interesting melodies and patterns - she played it like an instrument, while I just played.

I don't see _one_ of these keeping me entertained too long, as is.
That said, I think they would be great for a couple kids to get them interested in music. It's something they can play right away and get interesting and unusual patterns and chord/note progressions.

Over the last few weeks I've been looking for info from people who have actually hacked these to anything usefull - and have not found anything besides vague ideas, or using it as a keypad for some other platform.

So, FWIW - Here's what I've done, and got planned so far - I'll let you know how it goes as I dig into it - if anyone is interested.

My main interest for this device is for using it with my modular, as a sequencer. A guy can never have too many sequencers.

Last night I spirited one of them away to the modular synth, and proceeded to run it through some filters, VCA's and some wavefolders and got a few interesting sounds - but again - it's going to take some changes if it's going to stay with the modular.

The first order of business will be to pull a 'trigger' signal out of it for each step, and also find a clock signal I can pick off and condition to my modulars voltage requirements. I'll probably create a longer "Gate" out as well.
I've GOT to be able to synch it to other clocks.

The Trigger/Gate will allow me to trigger ADSR's to filter and shape the stock sounds from each step. I could also use it as a quickly programmed gate sequencer - for my drum modules at the very least, or for clocking other modules in an irregular way.
I'm quite sure that'll be fairly easy - it only relates to the 8 sequenced steps.

I have a Frequency to Voltage converter in my modular - but I don't think the sounds that come out of the bliptronic will allow it to track those stock sounds very well...If it can, then it would have the potential to be a fairly nice step sequencer, albeit one note per step. Chords would completely mess it up.

If that's all I get out of the Bliptronics - it's a financial bust for my purposes. I just built a basic 8 step sequencer - and I'm sure the total cost was under $30.

From the quick glance at the guts, I'm not holding out much hope for 'glitched sounds' or typical bending fodder - but I was intrigued by a statement in that article
[Quote}
There may also be some unimplemented sounds waiting on the chip, and it may be possible to modify the scales played. I’m fairly familiar with some of these chips used in the casio-clone keyboards found at thrift stores- makes me wonder if there are some drum sounds hiding in there as well. [/Quote]

So I guess searching out those sounds would be something to look at...

Those are my thoughts so far.
I'd be very interested in any ideas you might have on what I've written, or what you plan to do with yours.
Sorry for the long note.

bruce

 

[Serpico]

Hooking it up as a sequencer would be deadly. I have also put it through the filters on my Moog and it sounds great, but so does everything through the moog. If you could post any step by step methods (if you're successful in making it sequence your modular) it would be appreciated.

 

[theoootini]

http://www.straytechnologies.com/bliptronic-5000-hacking-full-pin-out-to-the-64-button-pcb/

 

[theoootini]

now working as a fully functional arduinome monome clone.

put some pots on it for a few midi controllers and you've got a pretty bad ass device...