ATmegadrum

[phm78]

I installed, today,  ATmegadrum software in my ATmegatron and is very funny.

Just two questions:
- It seems that nothing passes on midi out (for exemple: Note on message for each instruments)?
- You can trigger different instruments with midi in messages?

Philippe

[paulsoulsby]

Hi Philippe,

I emailed you, but I'll paste the email here too in case anyone else has the same question 

I'm afraid there's no pass through to the MIDI out with this software. The Atmegadrum software stretches the Atmega processor to the limit and there's only a few bytes left in memory too! So I had to make the MIDI implementation very minimal.

It can receive MIDI clock and you can also trigger the sounds via MIDI. The note mappings very roughly follow the General MIDI drum mapping. See the MIDI tab of the Arduino code for a list of notes.

To add more MIDI features you'll probably need to make the drum samples shorter to save memory. I'm going to add the drum sample converter to the website later this week. Unfortunately it's PC only at the moment.

[ploom2]

a few quick questions.

is it possible to alter midi channel.
can i turn pattern start off from external clock , so that its just triggering samples from an external sequencer , or do i just need to blank the pattern each time or disable sync from my daw.
are there any midi cc's things for tweaking each drum / overall sound.


thanks
wayne.

[paulsoulsby]

Hi,

Answers are:
1) Afraid drum is currently locked to channel 1.  When I convert the software to use the new libraries, MIDI channel change will be possible
2) Yeah you'll either need to turn off sync, or clear the pattern in memory.  It will always start when it receives a clk start message
3)  At the moment there's nothing - I wanted every byte possible for drum sample memory, so stripped everything out.  I may see if I can add some again when I convert to the new libraries, which uses more efficient code.

[ploom2]

Thanks for the info.

I think personally it needs to be a little more stable , it can often get a bit overloaded.
Less samples wouldn't bother me , 8 could be fine.
If it slows down due to reduction of sample rate / delays perhaps you could pre generate them to reduce cpu load ? Though I've got very little idea on programming .maybe 4 version could still sound fine.

[paulsoulsby]

Yeah I know what you mean.  Lots of sounds all on same beat + high pitch = freezes up! 
I wrote that quite a long time ago now.  I'm getting much better at putting safety measures in to prevent it seizing up.  Atmegadrum is definitely at the top of my list to bring up to date.  Hopefully will get on to that in a month or so, once the Oscitron is out.

[ploom2]

hiya

are there any improvements on the atmegadrum following your reworking for the eurorack box?
congrats on the new launches , theyre getting a great reaction..

i still need to build my mini atmegatron...

[paulsoulsby]

Yes - eventually I'm gonna port the new Oscidrum back to the Atmegatron as Atmegadrum MkII.  It'll still be only 8 sounds of the Oscidrum, but using the higher sample rate, the new sound sets and the "per instrument" volume/pitch/length/delay. 

[ploom2]

cool , i dont need so many sounds at the same time , more stable/solid timing would be good.
you seem very busy right now...some good reviews coming too... congrats.