I finally got a chance to bend my Bliptronic 5000, and while I was sad that there was no active synthesis, I’m pretty satisfied with the results.
First, I replaced the internal crystal with a Getlofi Precision Oscillator kit. That was easy, and it’s very responsive. I ended up adding a 25k resistor to limit the upper range of the precision oscillator, because the Bliptronic was prone to crashing during any attempt to “speed up” the sample rate. Sampling down was fine though, and the downward range is quite huge.
I also found a spot on the audio IC that creates a rich harmonic drone. I should note here that this bend should be done through resistance- I used a 500k pot and found that the audio would distort and cut out when resistance approaches zero.
Additionally, I used a HighlyLiquid MD24 kit to send 5v pulses to the Bliptronic’s Sync In jack, which let me send a MIDI note from Ableton Live to start the Bliptronic’s sequence at the start of each measure. This allows the Bliptronic to sync with my other devices with relatively good timing.
By Michael Una
Tags: Circuit Bent, Clock Bend, Drone, LTC
Couple questions on the B5K. When you run the headphone out to a mixer, does your unit send a ton of clicking? It’s not a clock freq, as it speeds up and slows down, just series of clicks. Do you have to fiddle with your line out to get the audio to come out? I have to leave my cable almost all the way out of the jack to get anything out. Have you ever seen it where the unit will not trigger on the sync pulse unless the line out jack is empty? I set up a MIDI trigger with Arduino, Instructable soon, but my unit is being really flaky and I wanted to know if this is commonplace or just me. Is there some way you’ve found to cancel the trigger/stop the thing playing? The internal clock is very inaccurate compared to my MIDI clock.
I was getting some audio clicking while I was working on bending it, but that seemed to go away once I closed up the case. And yes, I don’t get any signal out of the line out, it only works thru the headphone out.
I haven’t been able to stop the sequence once it’s been triggered, I found you have to wait until it finishes before you can trigger it again. My solution to that was to only trigger it every other measure, which is pretty weak but it stays mostly on time then.
It’s not the most amazing device, for sure. But I like these kind of button grid things
I was wondering about that. That’s really awesome. Did you experiment with the pulses to the grid squares LEDs? Not actually the LEDs themselves but the voltages sent to them. I was wondering how well it triggers. Also how fast were you able to get it to play, at what BPM does it crash? I probably should just get a bliptronic5000. Thanks for the posting.
did you actually replace the crystal. i’ve tried a lot of different resistance values and with the old clock still in place i get a weird droning loop (which is interesting and pitches up and down) but it is not the sequence. with the old crystal removed i cant get a sound out of it using either spot like it won’t boot with the new oscillator. maybe i just still don’t have the correct values.
any suggestions? love the bliptronic. sweet device.
also do you think the oscillator out to another bliptronic to make both the exact same pitch (i guess theyed have to share ground)?
Karl: It doesn’t like being pitched up and always crashes, which is disappointing because I was hoping for the same thing.
Bwack: It sounds like you’re very close with the Bliptronic, I think you just need to find the right range for the Precision Oscillator’s resistor. If you adjust the precision osc’s potentiometer with the Bliptronic on, does it make any sound at all? I monkeyed around with that for quite a while until I found the correct range. One thing I noticed is that the Bliptronic really doesn’t like being pitched upwards and will crash. So you’ll have better luck starting at the low end of the range and working your way up until it crashes.
I would assume that you could run two Bliptronics off the same precision clock, with the grounds tied together. I only have one here myself so I can’t test that theory, but I don’t see any reason for that not to work.
I have a show tomorrow so I don’t want to open up my Bliptronic again to check out the precise values, but after the show I’ll pop it open and take some pics to show the hookup and added resistance values.
hey, you were totally right, i just needed to narrow the resistance values. working great.
i’ll probably get another bliptronic pretty soon and i’ll post if the same clock can control two.
bwack,
i’m very curious what values you have used…i’m struggling with mine.
Damn I removed the crystal and replaced it with LTC a couple a weeks ago and got no sound at all
Did you guys leave the crystal in and added the ltc to one leg?
And by the way We’re talking about X1 here ?, cuz I didn’t find another crystal in there….
Man I really want this to work!!!
Nice!!! I am going to try something too??? wish me luck.
are there any effects in use on the the output of the bliptronic or is this just the post bent bliptronic?
Hi Eli. Yeah, there’s a tempo-synched delay on that. But nothing else so far.