Making Pulse

Pulse is my first MIDI sequencer!

I use Elektron Model: Samples to perform for my Laptop Ensemble class.

It’s a great little thing for music production but it lacks in performance features. It would be awesome to add a module to manipulate its sequences in a more varied and dynamic way on the fly. Enter Euclidean Rhythms!

Euclidean Rhythms are the most dynamic way of creating drum sequences I’ve seen. Basically, it is a simple algorithm that takes in the total number of notes in a sequence and the number of ON notes, and spreads them out as equally as possible. Here’s how it looks:

I’m planning to make a tangible version of that and use it with my drum machine and synthesizers.

Early prototyping:

Components:

Rotary Encoder
Capacitive Touch Plate (under surface)
Push Buttons
LEDs (under surface)
USB-in for MIDI
Power-in
Glass surface
Wooden frame

A lot of coding.

1. Inputs modules

2. Sequencer

3. MIDI

I thought I figured out midi by just using a few libraries that somehow worked with samd21 but I later realized there’s still much more to learn.

Finalizing user interface layout

I started by re-making layout out the user interface.

Parts selection

I selected the best parts. I wanted it to tingle when you touch these knobs. So you can try and confirm it’s a really pleasant feel.

PCB milling

Then the pcb milling time came. I had to use a large 8x5 board which meant I couldn’t use any milling machines except for this one. It’s giving mystery and rawness. So I spent a few days learning it. There’s been plenty of mistakes. Like 4 hours debugging the silent z limit hit, which almost got me insane. Or wrong parameters which resulted in spaghetti pcb. Regardless, I wrote a tutorial on how to use it and now this machine is my bestie. If the board holes are too small, just drop it it, reset the zs and x and ys. And you can also do cool stuff because the input into the system is a png, which is what you can see I made on my front cover.