We’ve been working on the internals quite a bit. This revision deals with some of the newb-ily named OSC messages. This doesn’t handle all of the problems, but it does take care of the significant issues with the step matrix.

Steppa v0.39

• changed the OSC namespace to be prefixed with /beatseqr … look in stepcomm if you need to change that
• overhauled the (8 individually configured files) rosco-row system to the (1 file) roxor_row system
• moved all velocity and midi note num processing to stepcomm

Roxor 2.5 is available, look for the link inline with this post. changes:

• revamped the OSC namespace overall to include the "/beatseqr" prefix
• also significantly revamped the /matrix OSC namespace. I was originally looking at mirroring the way the Max5 matrixctrl object takes in data, but decided against it in favor of a significantly easier /matrix/[row]/[column]/[step] value method. This made is a lot easier to revamp the way roxor handles the step data. But that’s another update for another post.

roxor2_5.app.zip

Statistics: Posted by stevecooley – Mon Feb 22, 2010 1:49 am – Replies 0 – Views 32

Derek and I have been hard at work making some really great improvements to the beatseqr firmware and steppa sequencer. Here are a few of the things we’ve been doing lately:

• I added a really nice feature that we’re calling “voice trigger indicator” … essentially what it does is flash the voice select LEDs as your sequence is running to indicate to you when each of the 8 channels is triggering. It’s easier to show than to tell, so I’ll get to work on a video for that asap.
• Steppa now has a “current beat” set of indicator LEDs on the front interface. This was added so you can get an idea of where you are timing-wise if you’re doing stuff on your computer (instead of looking at the hardware, which will give you a *really* good idea of that all the time )
• There’s been a bunch of minor features added to Steppa that mostly facilitate being able to pick up sequence data from within Max5. If you’re a max user, you can do all kinds of crazy stuff with the sequence as it’s running.

More good news while we’re talking about good news:

• I have applied to exhibit at the Bay Area Maker Faire. We’re considering applying for Detroit and New York too, so if you want us to apply for those, leave a comment!
• The arduino mega firmware is now open source. There are a bunch of things you would need to do in order to get started and I’ll highlight those in another post soon. I’ll update the license to indicate my intentions, but in a nutshell you’re free to download, analyze, improve, or modify the source, as long as you don’t resell it and you keep the original attribution intact with the code. Please do improve the software. I’m a school-trained artist first and a self-taught engineer second. http://github.com/stevecooley/beatseqr-software
• Derek is going to our local ninja academy! Very exciting.

Hey there, I’m pleased and scared to announce that the firmware for the beatseqr hardware is now available for your improvement at the following URL:

http://github.com/stevecooley/beatseqr-software

Statistics: Posted by stevecooley – Thu Feb 18, 2010 3:51 pm – Replies 0 – Views 13

Steppa v0.36 is now available. New in this release:

• tiny bug fix with the current step indicator leds.

steppa036.zip

Statistics: Posted by stevecooley – Mon Feb 08, 2010 10:19 pm – Replies 0 – Views 9

This version of Roxor will let you change the output port to an arbitrary number. The input port looks similarly functional, but it turns out to be kind of hard to change that on the fly. I’ll get something sorted out sooner or later. In the meantime, you can at least change what port you are sending OSC data out on.

roxor2_3.app.zip

Statistics: Posted by stevecooley – Mon Feb 08, 2010 5:31 pm – Replies 0 – Views 6

Hey there. A new version of steppa has been released. Here’s what’s new in v0.35:

• added the "from steppa" midi output port
• added the "current beat" indicators under the play button
• added the "pitchout" senders so you can pick up the sequenced data from elsewhere in a max patch
• added senders for the three midi CC banks
• added a label for the "midi port" drop down selector

steppa035.zip

Statistics: Posted by stevecooley – Mon Feb 08, 2010 5:22 pm – Replies 0 – Views 49

This version of Roxor is largely cosmetic in that it’s visually smaller on screen. This became an obvious improvement when we started using the previous version in performance situations. We found it helpful to verify what roxor and steppa were doing, but not at the expense of too much screen real estate. So they’ve been made smaller to do their job and be useful without being a live performance workflow problem.

The other recent updates are that the radio buttons in the serial device list are now functional if you need to disconnect from your beatseqr hardware for any reason. Also, the random circle drawing effect has been replaced with a more functional tempo and swing value readout from the hardware. When you are connected to the hardware, turn a knob to verify that Roxor is reading values. The tempo and/or swing values will mirror what the hardware says on the LCD panel.

roxor2_1.app.zip

Statistics: Posted by stevecooley — Fri Jan 08, 2010 1:59 pm

Derek has released steppa 032. This feature enables on-board handling of the Midi CC modes for sliders and voice select buttons. This was previously possible by using the awesome and extremely useful Osculator. However, we’d always planned on bringing the functionality into our own toolchain, and now we have.

steppa032.zip

Statistics: Posted by stevecooley — Fri Jan 08, 2010 1:50 pm