Using Zynaptik module for encoders [SOLVED!]

[jofemodo]

Great! Welcome to the OZINE club (One Zynthian Is Not Enough)

Anyway, i will add some code to ease the use of zynaptic MCP23017 for controllers (zyncoder library), so no “radical” solutions are needed in the future

Thanks!

[dhrupadiya]

@jofemodo - thanks !

OZINE - I like that ! Sounds not so far from insane…

Btw @dhrupadia_dad has also two zynthians by accident, one based on RPi3 and the other on RPi4.

Well, actually when you isolate A0 pin on mcp23017 and connect it to the ground - it automatically detects on 0x20 address without any extra changes in configuration. I guess will be a bit more difficult with a few mcp units (there can be up to 8 of them

BTW - Audioinjector zero is a nice card, completely satisfied with it’s signal/noise level. Audio input is quiet too.

[wyleu]

@dhrupadiya

BTW - Audioinjector zero is a nice card, completely satisfied with it’s signal/noise level. Audio input is quiet too.

Yes I think it’s pretty acceptable. You can squeeze it in to some interesting places. .
It just does what it does, and it’s all making recording guitar for instant playback very slick . . .

I wonder how many of them you could string in a chain … ?

@jofemodo

Great! Welcome to the OZINE club (One Zynthian Is Not Enough)

Now your talking :-D. It’s understandable that having a 3B & 4 Zynth is a situation that people could easily end up in, how do people wire it together or is it now possible to play with some else … ?

Could the 3B run as a good controller for the 4 located off stage talking only Ethernet ?
I have something similar and it’s having the appropriate patch loaded on both machines that is the only really missing feature ( Oh my piano has got sustain on, how do I clear it from onstage…?), so controllers must match up… How easily could a layer be marked as virtual? ( i.e. elsewhere), and how much data would we need to throw around to keep that agile?

Sorry just thinking out load.

really can’t wait for this one …

[dhrupadiya]

Hopefully, when we will have working midi sequencer or looper, the 2nd zynthian could be controlled from the first one via MIDI cable or in future via lan. This kind of chain would give more options for arrangement and even complete music pieces (16 extra midi channels, more instruments simultaneously).

For me the best reason not to destroy or upgrade 3b zynth is because I got used to it too much — can’t just kill it as it is so stable and working great. It’s like favorite pet, tamagochi, kind of friend ! Wouldn’t sell it ever too !

Regarding Audioingector zero, it has some wierd setting in alsamixer (EDITED: “Output Mixer HiFi” something, will write correct name later), that makes input signal mixed and phased in a strange way by default. Turning it off (muting it - press F5 to see all settings in alsamixer and then “m” whe you reach HIFI setting with your lest-right arrows) gives clean undistorted signal (in my case it was 3b audio playback with fx on 4b). More than satisfactory for me !

@wyleu, agree with you, this card can fit into very narrow space and still be great

[piattica]

where is it possible to buy the flat cable with 4 connectors?

[wyleu]

You can connect the encoders to the GPIO pins but it is becoming increasingly involved as various pins get low level functionality. Personally I don’t do it any more as I’ve had to reallocate specific pins for the reason I outlined above and it canbe quite an involved process detecting this when your natural first suspicion is you’ve got a hardware fault somewhere… There is a handy chart on zynth discourse somewhere. if you do want to give it a try…

Encoders at gpio

One of the pins that had previously worked produced this error after an update. The solution I employed was to disconnect the encoder from that pin and choose another Pin and alter the settings in wbconf. IT’s important that you understand the quite involved pin allocations on the setup, because the values in the webconf settings are found in this table… [pi_pins_encoders]

[piattica]

ciao Chris
I have an unused Raspberry 3B, LCD 3,5", and a HIFIDAC
I would like to build my 2nd Zynthian.
How to do it?
First problem: I would like to connect LCD and HIFIDAC but I cannot do it without a GPIO duplicator. Could you suggest me a good ready solution?
Second the problem of encoders: is there a 3rd part board with connectors or maybe is possible to use a menu on touch screen?

[wyleu]

@piattica

How to do it?

How do you want it?

I happened to want a 60W Midi piano for easy use at events.

A Build with Variations variation: HiFiBerry Amp+

A variation on a variation! I have a Hifiberry Amp+ in the hifi berry generic case and have decided to see if I can implement a fair bit of zynthian on it using bits that I have lying around… Here is the topless hifiberry peaking out from under the desk . . . [image] Here is the top of the case with the four encoders mounted on stripboard [image] The cuts have been made in the stripboard and links has been added to take the centre track (0V) at the extreme ends to connect 0V to one of t…

Depends on what you will genuinely use it for. The problems you describe are precisely those of the ongoing development but it is surprising what you can do with GPIO to power encoders. What you also loose is the s1-s4 switches which serve as a very useful control midpoint between the encoder world of znthian GUI parameter displays and the free for all world of MIDI devices. . .
I’ve not seen a GPIO implemetation of the the S1-S4 switches which indicates that 12c zynaptik type connections are a way forward.
If the application you have in your head involves use of these switches then this is something to consider. I use them for Record,Playback for MIDI and audio configured as toggled.

LCD screens are a hell all of their own. The closest I got was another Pi3 build with a Waveshare touchscreen which ws a saga all of it’s own…

https://discourse.zynthian.org/search?expanded=true&q=%40wyleu%20Waveshare

@piattica

without a GPIO duplicator.

Not sure what you mean by this.

@piattica

Second the problem of encoders: is there a 3rd part board with connectors or maybe is possible to use a menu on touch screen?

There is the zynaprik card

All | Zynthian Shop

and I’m sure @jofemodo would be happy to supply encoders as well! But you can certainly run a zynth without encoders. A mouse and HDMI will provide a working solution.

[piattica]

let me study carefully your answer

[wyleu]

Take your time!
Most of the stories are out in this forum. It’s really a matter of getting the correct search string.