It’s a hobby project to learn a bit more about MCUs and music hardware design, especially in the realm of UX and feature set within a limited interface.
I work with sheet metal design and fab daily, so that side will be easy. The code and electronics will be the biggest learning curve.
I finished the conceptual panel layout and how all features should interact. As of yesterday, I proofed out all of these features with computer launched code instead of the eventual embedded unit.
Perkon’s handled it all like a champ and I ticked off the box on all the edge cases I was worried about.
At the end of the day, this is just a fancy cc generator, but you can do some cool stuff within that paradigm.
I’ll post the renderings and planned features I have another time. I don’t want people thinking it’s a real update and being disappointed because SB ha
Heh, I love that they made this. I was watching the video very closely to see if it seemed like a real artifact or if they just kind of tacked on a keyboard and made it seem real in post.
From the ebay description:
“One of a kind instrument, only one unit ever made - Perkons Drum machine with a keybed - takes performance on a drum machine to the next level. Use keyboard to trigger sounds, play along sequence, program notes per step - your skill is a limit. All proceeds from the auction going to the animal shelter “Ķepu Ķepā”."
It’s hard to resist the temptation to feel like the update will never happen.
It’s been teased for months.
That being said, it’s probably a good sign - major update and they want to get it right.
Here’s hoping.
perkons arrived just now and its a total mind bending time swallowing dream machine - could see myself using this and a basic sample pad loaded with vocal hits for a gig - job done
would be great if you could autosave - i keep forgetting to save my jams, i suppose its like octatrack that way you just have to get in the habit of saving everything
It’s going to be a hardware midi expander for the Perkons that adds:
Keyboard note entry ( I am the April Fool now )
Per voice patch saving
Parameter randomization and Morphing
It will be it’s own sheet metal enclosure that attaches to the Perkons with extended wood sides that replace the existing ones. I want this to feel like one unit.
This is mostly a learning experience for me. I have other synths I want to eventually expand as well as a few other projects that grant functionality with simple midi cc manipulation.
Scope the Devlog for the full manual that should address any questions and curiosities. Feel free to poke at the edges and bring up anything that isn’t clear or doesn’t make sense.
While I’d love to chat about the choices I made and what else would be cool to add, I’m moving on to focus on the harder phases of the project and can’t change the feature set from here.
