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Post by carlborg on Sept 4, 2015 7:24:38 GMT -5
Hi and thanks for awesome software!
I think push is a great hardware, however many people in the electronic music scene are not very stoked on laptops.
Sometimes less is more when it comes to creativity. Companies such as Social Entropy and Squarp recognize this, and are currently developing stand alone hardware midi sequencers.
I wanted to brainstorm the possibilities for creating a hardware box, that on one hand connects to the push via usb and on the other has midi out connections. With todays microprocessors there are quite some possibilities for heavy computing. This microprocessor would have to be able to run the communication with the push and at the same time have an internal model that stores and recalls sequence data.
It wouldn't have to run an entire live emulation, only be able to store a fixed set of say 32 scenes per track for lets say 8 tracks. These tracks would need the option to either be drum or melodic, and have the option for what midi channel they should output on. The upcoming Engine has some nice organization and workflow that could be used as inspiration:
If it could handle, scales, swing, note repeat, duplicate, and maybe even send program change messages and midi cc. This would be a hardware many people would want to buy and have as the sequencing heart of their setup.
What do you think, what would be the biggest challenges in a project like this?
/Niklas
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Post by Stray on Sept 4, 2015 9:45:05 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum. Having never done work like this before, I couldn't say what the biggest obstacles with be. However, projects along these sorts of lines are on the horizon I think. We'll probably start out with a more basic platform (such as BomeBox) to get out feet wet and then go from there. |
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Post by carlborg on Mar 5, 2016 9:39:56 GMT -5
Thanks Stray! And massive respect to you for the work you do! After a few months of radio silence I'm back on this topic. Seeing that you've been able to create PXT General as a software, I was wondering if it wouldn't be possible to implement something similar into a hardware micro controller. I just went off and bought a teensy, a usb host and some midi din ports to try this out. That should be able to do the trick, just as a BomeBox, but at a fraction of the price. My goal is to be able to select scales and use it as a din midi note output device. But for starters I will try to see if i can send syssex to the push via the usb midi to show a "hello world" on the screen. From looking at this it seems as that could be possible, right? What are your thoughts, am I missing something vital here? Does the push expect some sort of handshake, that the microcontroller would have to emulate before it fires up? Cheers |
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Post by carlborg on Mar 5, 2016 12:57:35 GMT -5
Yheay managed to get some text on the display via sysex. This was from SysEx librarian though, but the principle should be the same from a teensy. Will let you know how it goes as soon as I have gotten the hardware and set it up.  Excited  /Niklas |
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Post by Stray on Mar 6, 2016 6:15:16 GMT -5
Good stuff! Happy experimenting.
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Post by carlborg on Apr 13, 2016 3:55:28 GMT -5
Hi, I've got my hardware set up now, and it seems fine. However my usb-host is connecting to the push via the Live Port, which doesn't seem quite as free to control as the User Port. Firstly: what is exactly the difference between the two ports? Secondly: could I unlock the full usage of the Live Port by emulating a handshake in any way? If the User Port is the recommended way to go after all, I'll just have to figure out how I can reprogram the usb-host to prioritise the User Port over the Live Port. Cheers   |
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Post by Stray on Apr 13, 2016 7:15:17 GMT -5
On the first question, the Live ports are used in Live Mode (the default) while the User ports are used in User Mode. The modes and their ports are functionally identical AFAIK except when used in Live where Live hides the Live ports (they're not listed in the MIDI Ports section of Preferences) to prevent users from turning on Remote switches for the ports.
On the second question, no handshake needed. If you want to use User Mode though, check out the Other SysEx section of the implementation pdf you referenced in your previous post.
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Post by carlborg on Apr 13, 2016 16:10:40 GMT -5
Yhea thanks Stray! I had totally missed that It made the trick! Been having a lot of fun implementing some basic scales this afternoon. Think I got the polypressure working correctly but the sensitivity still feels rather stiff. Do you know if the native sensitivity settings are merely in the script or if they actually change something on the push side? Here is a short demo video |
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Post by Stray on Apr 13, 2016 16:57:28 GMT -5
Nice! AFAIK, sensitivity settings aren't stored internally. They need to be sent to the controller via a script/app.
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Post by carlborg on May 13, 2016 3:26:04 GMT -5
Thanks Stray! The project is going well I implemented a "usb hot-swap feature" now that initialises the push as soon as it is connected. What I am struggling with however is the rate at which I can update the entire grid of leds without having dropped out information. What is your experience with this? Do you use short breaks in-between midi-messages to not flood the push? And here is a short jam from the other day Have a nice day! |
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Post by Stray on May 13, 2016 18:52:18 GMT -5
Great work! As far as the issue you're having, that's not something I've experienced or heard reports of with Push and I regularly update the entire grid at once. Are you sure that the messages are actually being sent to Push and aren't malformed or something to that effect? Any difference if you use an external power supply with it?
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Post by carlborg on May 16, 2016 4:39:34 GMT -5
Thanks for the kind words and useful info. That the push can handle fast streams of midi data is good news, then something else has to be the weaker link. So far I've been using the MIDI.h arduino library to handle the communication. It seems as this is causing the issue. I made my own function for sending midi on-notes just to try, and it was a lot more stable than the one from the library, even though not perfect. I'll keep investigating |
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Post by carlborg on May 19, 2016 2:16:27 GMT -5
Hi Stray,
May I ask if you have encountered any compatibility issues after updating the push to Firmware Version 1.16 (available from Live 9.2)?
Cheers
Niklas
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Post by Stray on May 19, 2016 6:17:57 GMT -5
No, thankfully, none of the firmware updates affected our Push-related products at all. Why? What's the problem? And which firmware version were you using prior to 1.16?
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veggie
Junior Member
Posts: 58
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Post by veggie on Jun 19, 2017 13:34:52 GMT -5
Hi Carlborg,
Amazing concept! Any progress with this project? If eventually all midi/sysex-only non-Live/audio functionality of push can be ported to a portable device (various sequencer modes storing/revalling midi sequences, encoder modes, etc.) push mk1 would become the best hardware sequencer on the market!!!
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Excited
