What?
What would you like to depend on?
What did MiniMoog players depend on?
How much would you pay for such a hardware device?
You do realize many musicians have a computer or phone or tablet?
What would be different having to depend on another device? Wouldn’t it be just another “whatever”?
Just curious...

I have iPads and an iPod touch, I really dislike using them in a live set. If you forget to charge or don't have a stand, it's not easy to read and control during live play as it would seem to be. I actually made a device to clip my iPad touch to the Reface (it's posted here somewhere) but even then it's not as I would like.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate and love the functionality of the app for saving and collecting sounds, it's just that I don't love it for recalling things in a live situation.

To me the thing that would be different is easy tactile control. I like real buttons and dials and simple hi contrast displays. I want to press a real button and flip through patches with hardwired buttons sets or arrow keys.

Tomi - I have been working on a hardware based patch device for my CS, and have successfully make a prototype. My biggest thing is, "does anyone want this besides me?" So I am considering making it more of general product that also works with the Reface series. If you are interested feel free to get in touch. Thanks!

Bob

Yes! I would love the thing. Do you have any picture? Can you approximate the costs?

stefan wrote:

Yes! I would love the thing. Do you have any picture? Can you approximate the costs?

HI Stefan,

Still TBD, it's Arduino based and I'm still trying to decide on form factor. I could make it pretty small, but thinking a standalone box with a little heft might not be bad.

What do you think a fair price for such a device would be, and what capabilities would you want it to have?

The current iteration is midi out only, which saves a good amount of cost and effort, but you then have to transfer the files from a computer or load them onto and SD card. For my prototype I managed to load patch data into the Arduino memory and transmit it to the the CS, it's not much to look at yet. Just a screen and a couple of buttons.

Ideally, it would be cool if it both received and transmitted midi, so you could save patches while you are editing. But then you you need a UI for naming, midi-in hardware and it gets more complicated quickly.

I am leaning toward the midi out only solution, where you would either load sounds onto and microSD, or transfer them via USB to the device. Let me know what you think. Thanks!

Bob

Hi Bob,

it sounds interesting. How do You load files to SD or USB (or how do you create them)?. Midi out only would be ok then, but wouldnt MIDI in/out from Refaces USB be simpler and more compact solution?

How would you control it? Display, or set of buttons?

I am not programmer, so maybe the questions are completly stupid.

St

Hi Stefan,

Not at all, it is great to get your opinion as a potential user of the product. Everyone has a unique vantage point on how things should work. I appreciate the feedback and interest.

I was excited about the USB on the Reface, but it did not work in the ways I expected it to. It requires a host, and I was unable to pass value to it from the Arduino. If I could it would be ideal, but I think I'd need different hardware.

I think I'd have to make a desktop app for gathering and transferring the files for SD, which sounds tedious. There are ways to download the sounds from sound mondo, but it's all very kludgy. Maybe having preset packs is the way to go?

I have a 32 char display and push buttons right now. I think good feeling arrow buttons would be optimal. If the device is larger possibly having 8 preset buttons would be cool.

What do you think? Thanks.

Bob

Well... 8 buttons would be extremly cool (I dont mind for large display, when you dont have thousands of sounds)

I can see that the main problem is a way to create and transfer sysex files. Desktop app would be way better than preset pack.

Another thing is power. Can Arduino run on batteries?

It all looks wery complicated.

I think that would be nice too, with some kind of modal button to switch between banks. Arduino memory is limited, so you wouldn't have thousands of patches. More old school like 64 or 128. Unless we go the SD route, but that's another can of worms. Thanks for the input, Stefan!

64... that sounds heavenly!

Cool! I think 64 could do the job, too. I just ordered a USB host device to see if I can get it to read and write. I'll let you know if I have any luck

Hi Bob, did You have any luck with it? I would love to se the project work.

Hi Stefan - Not with the host portion yet. Work has been too busy. The board I ordered does have much documentation, so I'm thinking about ordering a different one from overseas. If I have any success I will post here. Hope all is great with you. Thanks!

Bob