Tuesday is fine by me.
We could discuss the impact of WiringPi being mothballed.
I looked at the webpage and remember the picture of the guy wot wrote it, but other than that it’s lost in the mysts of time…
I had to translate that word to fully understand it.
And, YES, I totally agree. It’s been a while that I ask myself if Zynthian is not too much tied to WiringPi which is more or less a 1/2 died project.
We talked long into the night, despite the efforts of Jitsi to disrupt the meeting. I suspect they need to monetise the service and may be approaching that in the unorthodox effort to disrupt its existing users!
- We talked astronomy. If you are interested in star gazing then join a local interest group who will have enthusiasts with first hand experience, able to advise on techniques, equipment, etc.
- Homes tend to fill with stuff, especially garages, basements, etc. You are warned to cull your stuff and change your (hoarding) behaviour before it becomes a significant problem.
- Swooping season is just ending in Australia.
- RPi5 could present challenges for Zynthian. The apparent need for active cooling (especially to benefit from the performance improvements) is undesirable although these new cases may give some hope.
- More impactful may be the termination of WiringPi support, particularly the forked version that was being supported until now because the RPi5 uses RP1 for GPIO. This could make it challenging to implement switches, encoders, LEDs, etc. A new abstraction layer may need to be used. We have our best correspondent on it right now…
- Talking of the RP1, its datasheet describes multiple I2S interfaces which at first glance appeared to offer up to 10 audio channels but on closer examination, two of the interfaces share the same pins so cannot be used simultaneously, leaving us with just 6 audio channels but that is thrice what we have in RPi4. It could be worth investigating…
- Some live hacking - the JC303 LV2 plugin was compiled with little modification by our very own @Baggypants. Under his instruction I built it and saw it working, complete with GUI on the Zynthian desktop but… none of its controls are exposed to Zynthian. This is because JUCE tends to expose controls as LV2 Parameters but Zynthian supports LV2 Control Ports. A quick hack to alter the ttl failed. We need ot support this kind of plugin as it is being used far more regularly now that JUCE supports LV2. it has been mentioned before but does not yet seem to have made it to the issue tracker.
- Korg’s Keystage appears to have a nifty feature that it can deduce parameters of a software plugin running on a remote workstation via MIDI 2 and display and control them on its hardware encoders. That is a pretty cool feature of MIDI 2 that some of us were unaware of and something we should consider for possible future integration in Zynthian.
- We discussed Zynthian MIDI Device management. There are two concepts: 1. Presenting each MIDI device as an individual entity, e.g. for filtering, targetting MIDI messages. 2. Implementing profiles that automatically map hardware controls to Zynthian functions. The discussion concluded that the latter is most useful where the hardware controller has lots of controls but may be less beneficial for hardware controllers with just a few (say 4) controls.
- Of course we mentioned riban modular but you can find out about that elsewhere. It has its own forum and it could be considered indelicate to mention it here
- Sooperlooper was discussed at length. @Baggypants has produced a video demo that is good at showing the plugin in use on Zynthian. It was felt that an introduction to what a looper is, how it can be used and specific description of its use in Zynthian may be beneficial. Also some Zynthian specific documentation (which I thought I had done but must have dreamt it - what boring dreams I have!). Its Insert mode was considered of limited use, being difficult to use effectively but may be beneficial to some workflows (adding audio within an existing loop to extend its length - timing can be challenging). The addition of MIDI learning for elements in its widget (the GUI in the centre of the screen) may be beneficial - maybe using some of the techniques we are adding to the mixer screen for learning.
- Sooperlooper is a complex beast and we need it to be as intutive to use as we can but that requires users to describe what they want to do and why they can’t (of find it challenging to) do it with Zynthian.
- Marcel License produces videos showing how to build musical instruments, controllers, etc. using microcontrollers. Very interesting for us maker-breakers.
Those left standing at this hour tended to be men of lesiure in the west of the world (based on a meridian running through London). Others had either gone to work, retired for the evening or just fallen asleep! No notes were used in the preparation of these scribblings so accuracy and completeness may be of dubious quality - but at least they are of a quality!
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Also, I hugged a keytar.
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I’ve joined the chatroom just before 19h UTC, but my mother has chose to call me right at that moment. 
It’s a pity, because I was enthusiastic to talk about hardware stuff like RP1 and I2S data lanes, dying WiringPi and mcp23017 native kernel driver, fbtft, which is EOL too and replaced by DRM panel driver. They are not a lot of 3.5inch 480x320 SPI display that are currently supported.
There will be another day. There always is 
.
@Baggypants Sorry I forgot about singing keytars. Obviously made an impression!!! ごめん
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Next time bring your mum.
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Apparently, Superlooper UI and features are based upon the Oberheim Echoplex which I did not know (hidden away in the first line of features on the webpage) & the reason for the image above.
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Nights are drawing in / out (north / south) and its getting cold / hot. Let’s warm / cool each other by meeting and discussing nonsense for a few hours. How about Tuesday 5th December? Any other day next week is also fine with me but if we don’t start with a date then no one tends to commit!
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good.
Depends whether or not my cajon can power my socks. . .
yep. I will try to be there.
HEY !! She’s 94yo !!
And probably still more technically able than some of our community! 
regarding all these electronic stuff: for sure not
but for explaining “Der Ring des Nibelungen” she’s the best
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19:00 UTC today.
A quiet night, gathered around the fire, toasting our chestnuts and eventually, after most had gone away, putting the world to rights - but that is beyond the scope and rules of the clubhouse so will remain apparent only as long as a couple of aging brains retain the info… that may not be long!
As has become the norm, the appointed clerk was not appointed nor anointed and hence the old adage, “You had to be there” is most appropriate. But we did discuss:
- The Yamaha Montage, its recent discounted price, its hardware and software platforms - speculating to what these may be
- Digging a secret tunnel between your basement and out-buildings to reach your rehearsal space more securely
- Keeping your powder (or 3D printing filament) dry
- ESP32 modules with screens and peripherals like this
- Building BLE MIDI devices using ESP32 can be simple or challenging, depending on the board and it takes a lot of power which conflicts with the ‘LE’ in BLE.
- Can we get ChatGPT to write Zynthian software for us?
- There were sneak previews of Zynthian development - special service for those who attend these prestigious events
- Probably for the first time, the US offered more participants than the UK with AU equalling the UK but the rest of the world (including our European friends) were not represented despite aspirations of the contrary
- How many MIDI ports is enough? (Zynthian currently supports 16 distinct ports which I could probably exceed if I plugged all my kit into it but am unlikely to want to do that!)
- Could / should a future generation of Zynthian use the Raspberry Pi Compute Module? It is often considered but dismissed due to various reasons including its lack of interface hardware, increased friction for hobbiests, etc.
- How can electronic musical instruments like Zynthian and riban modular be more accessible to all users including those with impaired sight, reduced mobility, etc. This includes temporary reduction in access, e.g. broken arm.
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