Plinky. Non-commercial sampler/granular polysynth

[Madrayken]

I love this thing. Alex is a super-talented guy, but I don't think he has any dreams of making this in any volume.

[meska]

Love it !!

[BLX]

I love this thing. I just spent an hour going over that guys twitter feed to see what else I could find about it. Nothing but well worth the investigation

[spoor]

Yup, agreed - so much to like about this. I reckon I’d have a couple - one standalone, one for the rack. He hinted at a kit being a possibility - hopefully he can hook up with Thonk or Pusherman and it can happen.

[BananaPlug]

Wow. Can I contact this person without joining Twitter? Is Plinky available? I could only follow so much in the rambling hour long demo but it seems very playable and capable. Tell me more, please.

[meska]

I just sign up twetter for ask him no responce ^^

[mmalex]

oh sorry i may have missed something! ask away. i just found this thread, im not a regular here sorry but will try to answer any qs as we grt closer to something you can buy! getting closer defo. steve from thonk has been egging me on for a while, ive now built 4 of these so ill be sending him one next week. just gotta write the 1v/o cv in out ui and its good to at least beta.
gotta decide on knobs now...
https://twitter.com/mmalex/status/12996 ... 15936?s=21
and as a little muff wiggler exclusive, heres the half finished manual to whet your appetites. it doesnt go into exhaustive detail cos hopefully its relatively self explanatory after you get the basic workflow...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/d7j2a7jm3mcn ... l.pdf?dl=0
thanks for your interest!

[mckenic]

[meska]

Great news

[mmalex]

i wonder if i should turn this into an informal progress thread
calibration done
https://twitter.com/mmalex/status/1300 ... 11136?s=21
but the external gate cv isnt retriggering properly, and now i want to add a mode to the seq that steps to next step on each external trigger (rather than on division of clock)
so, a few small things to do
the pitch seems well calibrated over 4/5 octaves tho so that worked out ok
ive been developing it mostly as a standalone jam box so the cv stuff is coming in last
fixed my fifth copy as well, id missoldered the usb connector so the ground was dodgy. now thats fixed, i have 5 working units out of my planned 5! (all spoken for atm, but it means i am learning a bit about the foibles of making more than 1 of something lol)
plan is to fix the last few bugs, improve the cv in/out stuff (just tweaks), send out the 5 to some friends for feedback, then... maybe start thinking about kits, or splash out in some more units. not sure.
its not gonna be super cheap, but not extravagant either. its basically a 2 layer pcb for front panel, 72 leds (20p each alas), 30 ish quid for the mainboards (pcb, parts + assembly in china) plus jacks pots knobs power headers from thonk, plus import tax, postage. blah blah not sure what all that will add up to for final kit price. thinking out loud

[Aleyas]

Just gave the manual a skim and noticed you could record samples directly - but I’m curious, does Plinky have the ability to granulate live incoming audio?

[meska]

Yeah you can turn it in informative tread , everybody is listening.^^

Honestly , im shure you project will find people whant it, its inovative, small , sound awesome and cheap for the fonctionality ( if i remenber corectly your live, even with add all the taxe ect ) !! And Euro compatible !..

Good luck for the last bug find

[mmalex]

hi all! thanks for the kijd words. atm it doesnt do live granulation because i use slow serial flash ram (also cheap lol) and i cant easily wipe it fast enough to do it all realtime. the cpu has 192k of ram total, almost all of which is used for the delay and reverb; i guess i could have a mode that disables the fx and uses that for realtime looping / granulation. maybe in a future patch, but ill nit prioritise it for now

another request has been usb midi, which makes sense especially for realtime cc control. maybe mpe. i haven’t tried that ever but its doable so thats on my radar for v1.1 software i also broke out a 16 pin expansion header that is currently unconnected, but it has the usb pins on it, a uart for real (not usb) midi in/out, and an spi bus that could do eg more cv channels or triggers. the idea was in a eurorack context i could add a small expansion unit with trs midi, extra cv in out, maybe an sd card or usb stick socket for samples. but that’s for the future also, but it gives an idea of the possibilities even with v1 hardware.

[mmalex]

added a couple of sound example videos in this twitter thread
added a compresssor too, really glues it down
https://twitter.com/mmalex/status/1300 ... 06954?s=21

[meska]

Sound awesome

[mmalex]

quick update and new demo
let me know in the comments if youre up for a kit so we can get steve from thonk (more) excited

[mckenic]

Oh hellz yes please!

[EDIT] Will there be a standalone version available? Like in that demo vid above? Thanks!

[MoyaMoya]

Count me in!

[Fedor]

interested!

[meska]

Oh hellz yes please!

[EDIT] Will there be a standalone version available? Like in that demo vid above? Thanks!

It is stndalone usb; is for power (and midi , but idk i itS done)
Compatible euro with conector under it, he juste 3 d printe a case

[mckenic]

Ah! Thanks!

Thats cool as Id like to get a case with the i/o stuff on the top :-)

All good!

[mmalex]

thankyou meska for the super accurate & fast reply! yes, mckenic - its a hybrid standalone and euro thing. you can screw it straight into a euro case and power it from euro, in which case the stereo line level jack in and out are unavailable underneath, but thats ok coz you get the same at euro level on the top. Or, you can pop it into a 3d printed case like I did in the video, and power it off USB. the USB will also (eventually) do usb-midi, if I get my coding together on that one. for now, its only used for power, and for re-flashing it with new software versions.
I dont yet have a way to mass produce cases, so I just plan to publish the CAD file (STL etc) for it, and people can 3d print it themselves. who knows, perhaps in the future I can find a way to make cases, but for now, it's a 3d print or put-in-eurorack thing.
it's very shallow so it should fit in even small euro cases.

[mckenic]

Wonderful! Thanks!

[Granny]

Thats cool as Id like to get a case with the i/o stuff on the top :-)

looks interesting! the standalone should definitely have the in/outs on the top

[Unborn Gore]

Love it