Muff's Modules & More

legionhwp

Some of you may have seen this:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/musical-instruments/c4e1/

A $49 handheld pattern based sequencer. Circuit bending circles have been waiting for it's release to see if it could be used for parts, bent, etc.

I got mine today and thought I'd share a few pics of the inside.

Unfortunately the actual guts are of the "black blob" variety and Surface mount stuff which doesn't lend itself to hacking but I did manage to burn out the internal speaker in less than a minute so that's something smile

The main "brain":

The matrix:

I have discovered the only two easily bendable components are the most fragile. These are two resistors attached to the internal speak/headphone jack. I *think* they are about 8-10 ohm and have miraculously burned one of them out twice by plugging in the headphone jack. Will be tracking that down later but here's a pic of the area:

Anyone else take a look at this creature yet? The main chip is labeled so I'm wondering if there is some master plan which can modify it? The sounds are all digital playback cheap casio type things but the interface is cool as hell and they can be linked together as well.

thetwlo · Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 1:50 am Post subject:

more info on its' design:
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/11/25/bliptronic-5000s-creator-hack ing-tips-prototyping-and-the-switchnome/

Luka · Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 6:45 am Post subject:

ive been watching the hype on these things and the usability of it's guts. i almost bought 2 the other day. keen to see what fun things can be done with the pads

jenamu6 · Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 6:54 am Post subject:

Blobs can be bent..........no problem.

But I guess with fm sounds, no real nice happy accidents will occur.

wetterberg · Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 12:50 pm Post subject:

the hackosphere is interested in this because it's a relatively cheap, readymade scanning button matrix with LEDs in a spacious case. From the looks of it it's really simple, diodes in the right places, everything brought down to a DIL header. You can fit an arduino in there easy, then it's just a matter of fitting a USB connector and you're off - 80 dollar hackable controller.

money bags · Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 2:38 pm Post subject:

something needs to be done. the demos sounds horrible. i like the idea of adding in the arduino maybe get something going on controlling sound and video. cant wait to see what comes of it. i would give it a shot but for $80 i cant experiment. if it broke i would cry and you guys would never hear the end of it. (hides)

sylvie · Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 8:36 am Post subject: Bliptronic guts

Hey Guys;...
Does anybody has a clue where the clock crystal is on this thing?
I saw this silver long cilinder thingy next to where all the caps are ....but I'm not sure hmmm.....

..... it's marked X1 on the board...
If i find the crystal I'll replace it by a precision oscillator so the thing can be tuned very low and high....
Thanx
x
Sylvie

daverj · Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 2:24 pm Post subject: Re: Bliptronic guts

Waz · Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 3:25 pm Post subject:

Once someone figures out how to pop an arduino into this. Bye-bye Monome 40h

jazzdoktorn · Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 12:03 pm Post subject:

Hello!
Im from sweden and i hope that you are tolerant with my spelling.

This is my first post here, and i found this thread after searching the net for possibilities to do something really funny with my Blip.
My first thought was to use it as is, with effects in my daw.
But then i noticed the Gakken sx-150 and i started to have trouble sleeping at night.
A Gakken and a Bliptronic in the same box.
"The TB303 of 2009"
When i close my eyes i see the sync jacks as CV jacks.

Could this be possible somehow?

My hope is as usual, that someone more intelligent than me, could find a way to make this happen.

sylvie · Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 7:19 am Post subject: Re: Bliptronic guts

daverj · Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 2:29 pm Post subject:

You would need to use an oscillator with a similar frequency to the crystal. If it's a crystal up in the megahertz, then that's what you'd need.

Synesthesia · Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 3:52 pm Post subject:

hey jazz.com,

i have a gakken with cv / gate input mode, and actually a bleep tronic - i can give a go tomorrow - in fairness i'm not sure is the sync output on the bleep is a cv in kind of thing ...

legionhwp · Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 7:22 pm Post subject:

I haven't been having much luck finding a bend in this sucker either. I did notice that the white keyboard is glow-in-the-dark however smile

D_

Synesthesia · Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 3:56 am Post subject:

glow in the dark buttons ??? nice one, I didn't even noticed smile

sylvie · Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 10:09 am Post subject:

darenager · Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 12:14 pm Post subject:

I wonder if the voice switch can be shorted to get two (or more) voices at a time?

If indeed it is FM I don't think changing the clock would do much to the actual sound? Likely it would just slow down the cpu, if the FM chip and cpu are separate, could be wrong though.

The small board with the blob has labels for the pins, and seems to have a part number on it, has anyone googled for a datatsheet? I don't have one and can't quite make out the part number on the picture, but that would be a good place to start.

daverj · Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 4:09 pm Post subject:

sylvie · Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 4:34 pm Post subject:

Any luck bending yet?
The soundchip seems not really flexible....

sylvie · Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 4:38 pm Post subject: