Sonic Crayon GAS!

[crayola64]

WANT MORE CEPHALOPODZZ!

MOAR CRAYONZ!!!!!!

[Tristan]

Hi Guys,

I'm new here (posted some info in the Introduce Yourself thread for anyone interested).
Just wanted to say I'm very curious about the Anti Nautilus, would love to snag one up if time's there and they're ready.
That Eight Bit Organism looks rad too with the momentary switches and tremolo like bitcrushing sounds and all.
Great Stuff!

[cloudscapes]

anti-nautilus still isn't ready, still. some hurdles to overcome.

[goroth]

Well, it's your fault if they end up trashing the world and we don't have any appropriate guitar pedals to stop them.

[cloudscapes]

yup, this I know. this I know.

[GlitteryChunks]

Bump for sifting through the Sonic Crayon Blogspot as if it would be any different from the facebook

The lack of Anti-Nautilus in the world is hurtful...

Question...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oMQ8IRSZkU Was this assimilated/absorbed into the anti-nautilus concept or was this a different pedal entirely? They sound like they have some similar features but aren't really identical. And also, does anyone have a Turmoil ring mod? I just heard some clips and I'm pondering barraging cloudscapes with pms/email about building one instead of getting a Randy.

[cloudscapes]

Bump for sifting through the Sonic Crayon Blogspot as if it would be any different from the facebook

The lack of Anti-Nautilus in the world is hurtful...

Question...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oMQ8IRSZkU Was this assimilated/absorbed into the anti-nautilus concept or was this a different pedal entirely? They sound like they have some similar features but aren't really identical. And also, does anyone have a Turmoil ring mod? I just heard some clips and I'm pondering barraging cloudscapes with pms/email about building one instead of getting a Randy.

About your question, it's a different pedal (a one off), but with similar ideas. It was made with older tech, and I hit the limits of what I wanted to accomplish with it. Hence why I later learnt new tech and build the anti-nautilus.

Only a friend of mine has the turmoil ringmod. I have only made 2 of those, and I want to redesign it before I consider selling some. I do want to, though.

I've been kind of taking a break this year, so far. Sorta itching to get back, but I needed to take a break. It's extremely time consuming, and I had to concentrate on work/life/other hobbies for 6 months. If I do too much DIY for too long without much else, I'd go insane.

I'm STILL not finished the anti-nautilus. It needs to be perfect, and right now there's an issue I don't knwo how to fix and is too advanced/off topic for anyone I ask, especially if they haven't written the code themselves. I'm slowly coming to the realization I may have to rewrite the code all over. The hardware's fine, fortunately. That part's solid. But yeah, there's a glitch I'm trying to fix. to get technical:

The anti-nautilus constantly records sound to a 0.5 second buffer (digital sample buffer, not "pedal" buffer). When it detects the trigger to do its cool glitch thing, it goes into playback mode and scrubs/ping-pongs the short buffer of sound while modulating the pitch and/or fading it. In addition, there's an extra control that rearanges tiny windows of samples, shifting them around at the smaller scale in varying amounts.

The problem is that whenever sound is digitally sliced, cut, moved around on a timebase, clicks and pops occur at the cuts, and the waveform is no longer smooth. I've been trying realtime interpolation and crossfading each time something is cut, but I'm not smart enough to make it work yet.

[12XU2A3X3]

i think this guy did alot of the dsp design for the make noise echophone, which seems to be free of those kinds of issues. maybe he could help? http://www.soundhack.com/

[cloudscapes]

Yeah I've asked a couple people way better at DSP than I am. Thing is the effect at it's most basic is a hack. And the additional features are more hacks on top of the hack, because when I started it I didn't know what I would add to it later. One guy said it would probably be simpler to start over (aside from the initialization code, and adc/dac drivers and whatever). And I agree with him, glumly.

[cloudscapes]

Some discussion in other threads, so I figure I'd update. Just finished a batch of Hollow Earths, as some of you know. I haven't really made that many this year, unfortunately.

The anti-nautilus IS happening, finally. And it'll probably look something like this:



I'd been struggling with implementing one single feature since the first one last year. I thought it was important enough, and I just couldn't make it happen. So I said fuck it, lets just improve and add stuff that can actually be done and ship this baby out. I'm expecting 3 prototype PCBs next week, and it'll be hastily assembled. Then video. Once I confirm that the design actually does work properly (along with firmware/bug fixes), I'll have some PCBs fabbed and start pushing these out. FINALLY. The main stuff is the same, with some tweaks/additions:

- The "bend" knob (pitch bend) now automates what the old up/dn and 1/6 toggles used to do, incorporates them, so those toggles are off.

- 48 / 24 / 12 toggle switch. It's the sound fidelity (in khz) at which the thing records and plays back. Lower is crunchier, and sample time is around 2.5 seconds ish. The "canvas size" or whatever. 48 is mid/hi-fi, but you only get half a second of "sound canvas". It can be toggled on the fly and whatever has already been sampled is pitch shifted accordingly, allowing you to overwrite parts of it with non-pitch-shifted and different fidelity-ness. Doesn't make sense, I'm no good with words, wait for video.

- "erode" knob is a new thing. It erodes the sound (destructive sample/loop editing). Almost like shitty tape loops. Won't call it that because it's not trying to be a tape sim or anything. To get technical, it's literally digital erosion, in the geological sense. Pretend there's heavy rain falling on the audio waveform, I'm smoothing out the high frequency stuff first (pebbles and stuff) and the lower end stuff takes longer and gets emphasized a bit more. It's weird, and I made the algorithm by accident while trying to get a digital lowpass to work, one that would work selectivly on only really steep audio pops and clicks..

- "seek" knob is fucking exciting! Video will explain better, but this, in conjunction with that new fixed/sweep/random toggle, you can sort of manually "shift" the "playback/record head" along the "tape". SO MANY QUOTATION MARKS! You can crop a tiny section of loop/canvas, and it'll playback almost frozen in place but repeatedly, then use the seek knob to shuffle it around manually. Also, random mode, fucking awesome. Wait for video. Tim Hecker in a box. HYPE

- Because of so many new ways to isolate parts of the loop/canvas, I've added an 8-LED bar that is a rough aproximation to where the "playback head" is at any given moment.

- Usual input / blend / output knobs as well as bypass toggle are down near bottom now. For now I got rid of the stomp switch because this thing just makes more sense as a tabletop thing. Also, the PCB is absolutelly fucking MASSIVE and I doubt there'd even room for a stomp. It takes up nearly all the room inside. Maybe after selling 10 of these I'll revise the layout and PCB a bit to allow a stomp.

FYI, the feature I'd been having so much trouble with and didn't implement was a way to minimize or get rid of the "pop" that occurs at ever sample "cut". Every time time the thing shifts bits of sample and shuffles things around, the audio waveform does a sudden cliffface or dropoff resulting in a click or pop. Sometimes it's mild, other times not so much. You can hear it in the original video. I'd been trying to fix it with crossfading and predictive linear interpolation, but all that is fancy DSP wizzardry that I just don't posses. I'd finally concluded that to fix that artifact, I'd have to make it "not" what it is, if that makes sense. It wasnt wrecking sound in a pleasing way anymore, and I tried for nearly a year, different ways. I don't have the skills to pull it off properly, so I just accepted that this will be more of a mid-fidelity machine.

$325

2014 is the year of the nautilus

Ugh, other stuff. It's been a really rough year for me, which is why lack of pedals/updates. Went through work-related burnout, and in a real sense still am. Yeah I know, TMI.

Now with the ultra tough and time consuming R&D of the nautilus is mostly out of the way, I can look forward to new designs! I have two I want to make in the near future. Dunno which one first yet:

1. Drone box synth. I'm thinking 8 voice/osc drone box with different kinds of modulation (ring, fm, random) and osc shapes (sine, tri, square, ramp, saw, random, noise), and resonant filters obv. I want to make the ultimate beat frequency box, with oscillators playing with each-other and fighting with each other, textures. Maybe integrated delay feeds back into the oscillators or something. Beat freqs, look it up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_(acoustics)

2. New ringmod. Actually already started! The nice thing about the nautilus proto I have is that hardware-wise, it's essentially CPU+soundcard+analogbuffer. So I can code in a completely different effect into it. Started on a ringmod with kinds of modulation and samplerate reduction. It's cool. Not as cool as the drone box though.

[behndy]

first off, hope you're feeling better. burnout/depression is horrific since it seeps into every aspect of one's life. sorry you've been going through that.

second, SQUUUUEEEEEE ANTI NAUGHTY LIST!!

[cloudscapes]

Also, I agree the spontaneous-sale-here's-a-sword-yall-fight-for-it announcments is bullshit. I just don't know any other way and make it "fair". I'm not very "business-y".

[01010111]

NICE! Glad to head things are still moving along, and I hope you're doing better. Burnout and depression are a bad combo

[MEC]

That Ringmod sounds like awesome would sound if it was a ringmod!

Also, I agree the spontaneous-sale-here's-a-sword-yall-fight-for-it announcments is bullshit. I just don't know any other way and make it "fair". I'm not very "business-y".

Maybe a non-paid preorder list?
When you are getting close to having stuff available you email the next few people on the list and give X # of days
for response and payment. If you don't hear anything, email the next person on the list.

If you decide to go that route, put me first on the list for the ringmod thing.

[hazelwould]

That Ringmod sounds like awesome would sound if it was a ringmod!

Also, I agree the spontaneous-sale-here's-a-sword-yall-fight-for-it announcments is bullshit. I just don't know any other way and make it "fair". I'm not very "business-y".

Maybe a non-paid preorder list?
When you are getting close to having stuff available you email the next few people on the list and give X # of days
for response and payment. If you don't hear anything, email the next person on the list.

If you decide to go that route, put me first on the list for the ringmod thing.

I think he's done that in the past... At least I seem to remember those emails way back when.