Demo of 32 note DIY MU Arduino based sequencer

Chrutil · Post by **Chrutil** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 3:36 pm

Hi all,
I have been building this sequencer for quite a while now and I thought I show it off and start describing how it was done.

First, here are a couple of video demos:

Youtube Demo - Part 1
Youtube Demo - Part 2
Youtube Demo - Part 3

Older Youtube Demo

I am also starting to document the process and components used on my website:
Sequencer Project Page

I will be updating this in the weeks to come with more information.

If you want to attempt building one of your own, there is nothing particularly difficult, but wiring and hooking up all the front panel controls is definitely tedious. Next version I build will probably have panel mount controls to avoid spending a month wiring everything up.

Hope you enjoy it!
Chrutil

Synesthesia · Post by **Synesthesia** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 4:11 pm

loving the ratcheting function!!!

i have most of the parts ordered - waiting on them now - should start drilling the panel

n0rd · Post by **n0rd** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 12:24 pm

the bad producer · Post by **the bad producer** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:19 pm

That is amazing - I think I want one! Only thing is I can't see a CLOCK input - is it possible to clock it from another module's pulse output, eg LFO etc?

edit:

Just saw that!

Chrutil · Post by **Chrutil** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 3:16 pm

Thanks! Yes it's lots of fun to play with

Full external individual clock per row support is on the panel, but I haven't hooked it up and added software support for it yet.
Wanted to add some form of protection circuits for the inputs, and then fix the output buffers too, then it's complete for now, but I'm having so much fun playing with it that I haven't got back to complete it yet

C

Synesthesia · Post by **Synesthesia** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 4:13 pm

Go On the bad producer !

ordered a few more parts today, that's to the Tayda discount (15% Discount Coupon Code : PEACE)

only remaining part is the DAC - God Damn SMD ; )[/quote]

Synesthesia · Post by **Synesthesia** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 4:13 pm

Go On the bad producer !

ordered a few more parts today, that's to the Tayda discount (15% Discount Coupon Code : PEACE)

only remaining part is the DAC - God Damn SMD ; )

TimeActor · Post by **TimeActor** » Tue Feb 10, 2015 4:40 pm

Chrutil wrote:Hi all,
I have been building this sequencer for quite a while now and I thought I show it off and start describing how it was done.

First, here are a couple of video demos:

Youtube Demo - Part 1
Youtube Demo - Part 2
Youtube Demo - Part 3

Older Youtube Demo

I am also starting to document the process and components used on my website:
Sequencer Project Page

I will be updating this in the weeks to come with more information.

If you want to attempt building one of your own, there is nothing particularly difficult, but wiring and hooking up all the front panel controls is definitely tedious. Next version I build will probably have panel mount controls to avoid spending a month wiring everything up.

Hope you enjoy it!
Chrutil

Yes i enjoy it much!
I hope you'll offer it in a Short time cause i'm very impressed!

Please let me/us know.
Thx

Starspawn · Post by **Starspawn** » Tue Feb 10, 2015 5:05 pm

Interested

paulstone · Post by **paulstone** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 3:07 pm

interest , thank you for that

Randy · Post by **Randy** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 6:01 pm

Wow, that is amazing! I figured that would be just what I was looking for in a sequencer, until I saw the back! Yikes!

Randy

abelovesfun · Post by **abelovesfun** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 11:55 am

This is beautiful - I would love to see the schematics. A Panel PCB (or file for said PCB) for soldering pots, switches, and LEDs would be amazing too. Really excited to see more things done with it.

Chrutil · Post by **Chrutil** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 1:48 pm

Thanks all,
Yes I've had tons of fun with this one. To the point where my plans started to gel around building three more. The wiring on it was pretty painful though - okay to do once, but not four times so I started sketching on rev. 2.
This one uses two main panels for knobs/switches and one cpu board on the back. Using a Teensy 3.1 this time and adding switches for ratchet and repeat (2/3/4 times) for each note and more playback modes, etc. This one will be so much easier to build...
I've got lots going on at work right now so this won't be done in the next month or so, but I'm hoping for spring to have it up and running.
Will post progress as it happens.

Here's the new main board and the second panel (split in two to keep panel less than 30cm wide for production)

Thanks,
C

TimeActor · Post by **TimeActor** » Sun Feb 15, 2015 4:45 am

Thats so Great! I would (must) have one or two!!!
Congratulation a Very good job!

tobb · Post by **tobb** » Sun Feb 15, 2015 7:16 am

wow,awesome project,4 rows,quantized and midi..

hope you will offer kits !

Sideshow · Post by **Sideshow** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 3:32 pm

Mind reader! I thought about making an Arduino based sequencer myself, inspired from the Moon sequencer (which is really nice).
However there are no need for it when you already made this lovely sequencer

I was wondering though, how is the progress with rev.2? And what changes are you going to make to it?

tekzon · Post by **tekzon** » Sun Aug 02, 2015 4:10 am

Hey!
Super nice job, congrats!
Would you think possible to add slide and maybe accent, for 303 sound like?

Thanks

Chrutil · Post by **Chrutil** » Sun Aug 02, 2015 1:40 pm

Thanks all,
Unfortunately I botched the cpu board for the second revision of the sequencer, so I have to redo it - I tried to rush it and ended up with too many problems on it to be able to "fix it in post", so I'm redesigning it and will make a new batch. It's taking a little bit of a back seat position since I'm also working on a 2MU real-time/step sequencer thingy that I discovered I couldn't live without.

The rev 2 looks really nice though, to make things a little faster the brain is now a Teensy 3.1. I also added front panel switches for Ratchet and Repeat and a switch to set 2, 3 or 4 repeat/ratchet counts, and I also added two different ping-pong modes for direction and a switch for some midi clock options. I did the second panel before our revered JLR showed us how clever and cool per-channel transpose on/off switches are, so four on/off switches for transpose are are added to the third and fourth panels (building four of these). Panels 3/4 also has two gate and two CVs per row so to eliminate a multi for driving two oscillators/envelopes.
I also found a use for the two remaining sequence modes. Now there are the standard 1x32, 2x16 and 4x8, then thew two remaining ones are 2x8-G and 1x16-G where each note has two knobs, the first row defines the voltage and the second row defines the gate length per note.

Here is new new populated front panel:

and, of course, the backside is a little bit more sane than rev 1:
(shown here without cpu and output boards, but there's no more wiring)

Since I have yet to complete the redesign of the cpu board and I'm designing another sequencer in between, etc, a finished version is probably two months away or so.
I don't know about kits, but if I don't make kits I'll surely provide schematics/source.

Oh, and for tekzon - for accent and glide I'm running out of real estate to put anything on the panel, but I think I would do accent using a parallel row going to the filter and/or vca, and the glide could be done, I'm speculating, with a gate channel going to the control input on a slew limiter.

More to come when progress happens...

Thanks,
C

Sideshow · Post by **Sideshow** » Wed Sep 16, 2015 12:44 am

A small suggestion, how about the gate knob assignable, so that you can use it for gate lenght or shuffle-beat?
I doubt there's space for a dedicated knob for shuffle..

r0main · Post by **r0main** » Thu Apr 27, 2017 1:52 pm

Hello,
Interest, do you have a BOM, pcbs?

Best regards,
Romain

Chrutil · Post by **Chrutil** » Fri Apr 28, 2017 12:15 pm

r0main wrote:Hello,
Interest, do you have a BOM, pcbs?

Best regards,
Romain

Hi Romain,
Unfortunately not yet.
I guess I got either too confident and sloppy, or too eager to have it so the PCB second revision ended up having problems that I couldn't really fix in software so I decided to step back and redo it.
At the same time I switched to using Eagle CAD so I also had to learn a new tool, but the PCB's are finally designed and I'm going through trying to validate the designs and breadboard or simulate some of the stuff I'm unsure about before I order the PCBs.
Having some time off this summer so I'll be spending some time on it again in a month or two, but nothing imminent.

Thanks,
C

rvlt · Post by **rvlt** » Sun Jun 11, 2017 10:48 pm

I just stumbled upon this on youtube, and I have to say this sequencer is excellent. Everything I need in one sequencer without having to use two or three additional modules.

Definitely interested in future PCBs.

Lars

Schlumpfhut · Post by **Schlumpfhut** » Wed Nov 15, 2017 2:34 am

While browsing through the SDIY bookmarks in my Firefox i stumbled on your website and i was wondering if there is something new on this very nice and intriging project.

rvlt · Post by **rvlt** » Wed Feb 21, 2018 10:04 am

Hi Chrutil,

are there any updates on this? Would love to build that sequencer.

Your files on circuits.io are not the latest / finished versions, are they?

Best regards
Lars

Chrutil · Post by **Chrutil** » Fri Feb 23, 2018 2:49 pm

Hi Lars and all,
Yes thanks for making me feel bad about dropping the ball on this.

The Rev 3 sequencer works works well enough to use it, but still has some issues I need to fix, but haven't tried to resolve yet.
I *will* eventually get back to this. Just seems to always have something else to build first...
Must give this priority. Just finished building a Deckard's Dream, and next up is an 8 voice crOwBX, but I haven't got the pcb or parts for that, so maybe now is a good time to fix the Sequencer once and for all...

MUFF WIGGLER

MUFF WIGGLER