Is still someting going on here? Any dev-activity?

FlavioB wrote:Hi guys!
Nothing new here it seems...
What about the "official" firmware development? And also, what about this "new idea" discussed in this thread?
BR,
Flavio.

Yup... It's easy to write HEY LET'S DO THIS on the forums, much, MUCH harder to actually deliver a functional product

I have been quite frustrated with the bug I alone discussed viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1081 here.

Also I have found out the bug in mute mode is also a probably bug in the software, the "two resistors touching" fix worked 'cos the unit was rebooted. Jumping between pattern-play and pattern-edit seems to bring up that same bug again, currently I power cycle the unit to get rid of it.

Sadly I these two bugs are things that should work for me 100% so the unit feels like it's crippled. And no input from e-licktronic which makes me even more sad.

I am a professional software developer and have looked at the codebase, which is a mess (which is what e-licktronic told it would be, no problem here) and comments are in French. Comments are always suspect but when they are in a different language altogether...

So, is there anybody on this forum here that would actually be willing to a) fix the codebase or b) pay for someone to fix the codebase? If b), we could do a small kickstarter/whatever, pledge actual coin and get the project up on github? Honestly I don't see a) happening anytime soon or ever. The project is not a simple thing to build right! It's easy to wish for features and (extremely) hard to write the software in a way that the basic functionality is correct and when you add a feature you don't break anything old.

I'd really like some input from e-licktronic specifically about these bugs. If I was aware of these bugs in the sequencer... Well I would have bought the kit anyhow

Awesome sound! But no way in hell will I buy a Nava or anything else if this is the level of support for bugs in firmware.

My two cents,
.p

Hi halides.
I replied to your other thread - confirmed what you experience plus another issue (please read and eventually test it by yourself).

I fully agree with you about the "no input" from e-licktronic on here...

And I also agree that it's easy to talk, harder to DO something (regarding the firmware in this case).

Anyway, I'm still willing to support this firmware "revision" and bug fixing!
BR,
Flavio.

halides wrote: Yup... It's easy to write HEY LET'S DO THIS on the forums, much, MUCH harder to actually deliver a functional product

FlavioB wrote: And I also agree that it's easy to talk, harder to DO something (regarding the firmware in this case).

I see 2 people saying "easy to talk.." without actually adding anything constructive to the discussion on the previous page

It looks like nobody will be fixing bugs in the original code, especially now there's a new yocto coming I also wouldn't expect it from e-licktronic (but hey, I would be awesome to hear from them

).
I guess most developers will want to start from scratch..

Let me quote one of antto's posts:

to do it for the 808, it'll take:
- someone who *knows* the behavior of the 808, to answer all kinds of questions, both in the big picture but also about small details
- someone who has an 808 and can perform specific tests (black box modelling, remember? )
- figure out what are the differences between the 808 and the yocto and whether that would cause a problem with the sequencer approximation ...
- decide what extra features can be squeezed into the yocto without destroying the authenticity of the 808 sequencer, and without those new features looking like aliens in the workflow
- figure out the pattern structure, and any other memory structures (tracks? )

once these things are solved we can begin building the big picture for how the interface should look like (a diagram will help here, or just anything that looks like a map, or even plain text)
and at that point, things will be very clear and the sequencer can be implemented

I couldn't agree more with that.
Though as I said in my post that followed it, we don't need to copy the 808 1:1. But we do need people to think together about the direction we're heading, which should result in a solid plan to start writing the firmware.
So we need people to talk about this first! Think/talk first, code later.

rv0 wrote:
halides wrote: Yup... It's easy to write HEY LET'S DO THIS on the forums, much, MUCH harder to actually deliver a functional product

FlavioB wrote: And I also agree that it's easy to talk, harder to DO something (regarding the firmware in this case).
I see 2 people saying "easy to talk.." without actually adding anything constructive to the discussion on the previous page

Hi rv0 - in fact we were stating the obvious. What is not obvious, is the fact that I'm a so called "end user" and no programmer at all. This is why I cannot DO anything actively, besides being available for beta-testing.
OTOH, I have to SAY that I listed the bugs which I personally feel as "annoying" and also asked for some new features (like SysEx Dump).

It looks like nobody will be fixing bugs in the original code, especially now there's a new yocto coming I also wouldn't expect it from e-licktronic (but hey, I would be awesome to hear from them ).
I guess most developers will want to start from scratch..

Honestly it's sad to read the above (but no official statement has been made, thus the "it looks like" has to be either confirmed or denied by devs).
Assuming that no bug fixing will happen on Yocto v1.0 I would get very disappointed, as one cannot "simply" move to another hardware to get some (firmare) bugs fixed or new features implemented. Of course, if there are technical limitations that prevent bug fixing and new feature development, then it's a different story.

Let me quote one of antto's posts:
to do it for the 808, it'll take:
- someone who *knows* the behavior of the 808, to answer all kinds of questions, both in the big picture but also about small details
- someone who has an 808 and can perform specific tests (black box modelling, remember? )
- figure out what are the differences between the 808 and the yocto and whether that would cause a problem with the sequencer approximation ...
- decide what extra features can be squeezed into the yocto without destroying the authenticity of the 808 sequencer, and without those new features looking like aliens in the workflow
- figure out the pattern structure, and any other memory structures (tracks? )

once these things are solved we can begin building the big picture for how the interface should look like (a diagram will help here, or just anything that looks like a map, or even plain text)
and at that point, things will be very clear and the sequencer can be implemented
I couldn't agree more with that.
Though as I said in my post that followed it, we don't need to copy the 808 1:1. But we do need people to think together about the direction we're heading, which should result in a solid plan to start writing the firmware.
So we need people to talk about this first! Think/talk first, code later.

OK, so I can state my point here: I don't know the 808 to answer all kinds of questions and I don't own one. I don't need either a 1:1 copy of the TR-808: I'll be happy to get the bugs fixed and SysEx Dump implemented. But that's only me and my very personal experience (even though some requests and bugs have been experienced by other users as well)

So... I'll be reading this thread and participate for what I can contribute in...

Cheers!
F.

FlavioB wrote: Hi rv0 - in fact we were stating the obvious. What is not obvious, is the fact that I'm a so called "end user" and no programmer at all. This is why I cannot DO anything actively, besides being available for beta-testing.

I feel you're slightly missing my point.
You actually can do a lot of things besides beta-testing.

To quote another one of antto's posts:

antto wrote:if we decide not to stick with the original sequencer too much - things are slightly easier
- we don't need someone with deep knowlage of the 808
- we don't need someone who has an 808
but we still need to decide what kind of features we wanna have, because the memory structure depends on that, as well as making the diagram/map of the different features

The planning of this firmware is the most difficult task and that's where the "end user" can help a lot, it doesn't require any developer skills..
There's a very limited amount of buttons on this machine so we really need to think this through. So far, besides the mapping of the mode selector switch, no suggestions have been made by anyone. We'll need more than that, we need to define which button does what, and a general flow/diagram of the sequencer. That's exactly what's needed now before a programmer can start on this efficiently, otherwise we'll end up with yet another half-finished firmware and several rewrites at the end of the road.

The problem here is time.. someone needs to take the time to do all this boring stuff

rv0 wrote:

[...]

The problem here is time.. someone needs to take the time to do all this boring stuff

OK - I see what you're saying, in fact I was "missing the point" in terms of only thinking about the practical/programming part.

Well, I have to think about what actually has to be discussed/defined. What comes to my mind as a "first shot" is that I'm quite happy with the Quicksilver 606 sequencer, so I would be happy having that kind of functionalities in the Yocto as well.

SysEx Dump: is this really doable?

F.

FlavioB wrote: SysEx Dump: is this really doable?

Technically there's no reason I can see why this would not be doable... It's been done before on much more limited hardware.

rv0 wrote:
FlavioB wrote: SysEx Dump: is this really doable?
Technically there's no reason I can see why this would not be doable... It's been done before on much more limited hardware.

Great - that's good news.

Now, let's hope some other ppl will participate in this thread, as it won't bring us anywhere if there's only me and you here

Cheers!
F.

FlavioB wrote: Well, I have to think about what actually has to be discussed/defined. What comes to my mind as a "first shot" is that I'm quite happy with the Quicksilver 606 sequencer, so I would be happy having that kind of functionalities in the Yocto as well.

perhaps you could elaborate which features and how you think they should work within the yocto
the QS606 has the same problems as we're facing here: lack of buttons. So it would be interesting to see a summary of what they did there to solve it

I could try to summarize, maybe it'll need more than one post because I don't have everything in my mind right now...

Individual accent
To program a step (enable it), just click on the corresponding step button.
By double-clicking, it gets accented. This works per step and per instrument, individually.

Individual mute
By double-clicking the "Function" button, you enter a special mode (don't remember how it's called, I'd call it "live mode").
From this moment on, step buttons 1-8 represent the individual drum sounds (where 1 is the ACcent). By pressing those buttons you can enable/disable (unmute/mute) that particular drum channel/sound. This setting gets retained for each single pattern and (I might be wrong) it could also be set to behave the same way along pattern changes (like "global mute").
Roll function
Step buttons 9-16 deliver the "roll" function. In the above "live mode", you select which instrument will be subject to "roll" - so for example you press button 11 for the SD. It remains lit. Then pressing and holding the "WRITE/NEXT" button, and one of the step buttons between 9 (OFF) and 14 (1/2), ranging therefore from 1/32 (step button 10).

There are loads of other nice functions, like copy/pasting instruments or patterns, rotating, reversing and randomizing patterns and instruments independently.

I'd be very happy if I'd get pretty much the same functionalities, if possible.
Maybe a look at the manual could be helpful?

http://www.socialentropy.com/engine/pdf ... _v101A.pdf

BR,
Flavio.