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Comment by spin | Hacker News Reader

mbed + ethernet is wonderful. If you need some firmware for such a thing, may I suggest my own github:

  https://github.com/mfassler/eFirmata

The code is still a bit messy, but I'm still actively working on it. (I've got a bunch of changes that I haven't checked in yet.)

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Thanks! I'm extremely interested in the possibilites for embedded MIDI processing, as my music-making is hardware-based and I prefer to minimize the computer use.

Sounds like a great project! I hope you share it when you get done =) I'm a big fan of electronic music, although I don't care for MIDI due to some quirks.

Are you thinking of the traditional route of making new instruments to do off-board audio generation to your mixing board?

One of my favorite projects so far was to make our LED lights MIDI devices so you could sequence them using something like Ableton directly.

http://blog.saikoled.com/post/49255468343/myki-show-tell-epi...

The second application is my favorite.

No, doing instruments is hard and at most I would build from a kit there. I already have a bunch of good quality instruments and get the sounds I like from programming those. What I'm interested in is hardware sequencing and in particular combinatorial methods for sequence generation, eg where you combine a rhythmic sequence of one length with a note sequence of another to generate changing patterns. At present I do this sort of thing with a Nord Modular but it gets unmanageable for more complex structures. Also, I don't love the sound as much as I used to but I can't give up the control over MIDI in hardware XD

I approve of the audio clips on your website BTW, we share some similar musical tastes. I'll keep an eye on the project.

Thanks! I can't say I fully understand what you mean; I was mostly taught to do electronic music using Max/MSP, so most of the stuff I make is all about generating sounds without much direct conception of things like notes or patterns. It's a little unusual of an approach, myself I do things like build simulations of throat singing based on research papers.

Here's a video I did with my throat singing simulator accompanying an LED art piece I did a long time ago.

http://web.mit.edu/neltnerb/www/artwork/ultraluminous-2008-0...

I guess I don't understand how a rythmic sequence would get so complicated as to overwhelm a computer =) Is this like Conlon Nancarrow stuff? His work is incredibly bizarre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conlon_Nancarrow

Here's my embedded MIDI/audio platform on the (ARM based) Raspberry Pi: http://www.joebutton.co.uk/blog/tags/baremetal-pi-audio/

I've neglected it lately but I'm currently picking it up again.

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