Kastle - pocket modular synthesizer

[man0111]

Has anyone tried any of the other firmwares? When it was first coming out I mostly knew about it as an attiny project and heard there would be interchangeable firmwares (or maybe that was just me dreaming...). Bastl had some other stuff going on like this with attiny as well, as far as i know. (Trinity), but it seems like it didn't catch on/ didn't find a community and kind of got left behind. The are still some other programs kicking around in the github for 1.0 but I didn't dig around enough to try to understand if they're stable or anyone is doing anything with them. The readme says "other firmwares are a work in progress, have fun dudes". Preliminary Google searches returned nothing. Any leads? I've got some attiny85s in the drawer and a kastle on loan briefly, wouldn't mind returning it with new possibilities.

[Tajnost]

Heard something about sampler firmware but never seen it, maybe just a rumor... would be nice

[cliffemu]

Kastle drum firmware
Can anyone try it and post results? Just ordered my kastle but need to get setup to flash it.
https://github.com/bastl-instruments/ka ... leDrum.ino

[bmot]

Kastle drum firmware
Can anyone try it and post results? Just ordered my kastle but need to get setup to flash it.
https://github.com/bastl-instruments/ka ... leDrum.ino

That sounds interesting, I’ve not heard of it. I’ve got the first version of the kastle, would it work on that do you think? Is there anything else you can tell us about it?
Cheers

[cliffemu]

Is there anything else you can tell us about it?

I only picked up on it over here:
https://llllllll.co/t/new-kastle-firmware/37800/7

[athletic_beetle]

ooooohh very interesting...

[Muzone]

[athletic_beetle]

ok so lets talk about getting that spicy new drum firmware onto the kastle v 1.5 i already have. has anyone done this yet?

[Technologear?]

Yes please I'd like to do that to my kastle too

[VanCool]

Yes i'd also like to do that.

Looks like Bastl isn't providing support themselves.

From the Kastle Drum website " Kastle is an open source project with all resources obtainable from GitHub. Given that anyone can do anything with the code, we cannot provide any support for user upgrades from Kastle v1.5. All information is easy to find online for curious users, but please understand that we do not have the capacity to help you with that process."

Is it as " simple" as flashing the ATTINY85 VCO chip using the Kastle Drum firmware with an Arduino?

the firmware lists this description for flashing the chip and creating the breadboard to do so http://highlowtech.org/?p=1695

[athletic_beetle]

my hasty opinion having just had my second cup of coffee this morning:
Bastl should sell a mini kit that's just the front panel, and two pre-programmed ATtiny85 chips for everyone who already has a Kastle 1.5, that way all ye hafta do is pop the panel off, swap out the chips, put on the fancy new front panel and get wiggling.

it's not like arduinos are expensive, i just don't feel like getting that whole setup just to program two little chippies. life is hard

[cliffemu]

@athletic_beetle but aren't 2 kastles better than 1? It's not like this new firmware supersedes the v1.5 model. They accomplish different things. And you can cross-patch Also I understand some of the 1.5 models don't have replaceable chips, maybe the later builds

[athletic_beetle]

@athletic_beetle but aren't 2 kastles better than 1? It's not like this new firmware supersedes the v1.5 model. They accomplish different things. And you can cross-patch Also I understand some of the 1.5 models don't have replaceable chips, maybe the later builds

oh i agree 100% !
i’m just impatient. and the first run of the drum kastles seems to have sold out very fast

[cat_abyss]

A friend linked me this thread https://llllllll.co/t/new-kastle-firmware/37800/ (and it's also been posted in here as well). They talk a little about reprogramming 1.5's, it seems that also those with soldered chips are reprogrammable with the right equipment. I bought yesterday a used kastle 1.5 for the purpose of reflashing the chips and getting a kastle drum for a cheaper price. Or at all, since it sold out so fast....

Didn't flash any chips since an assembly course two or three years ago, we'll see how that goes. Need to get some equipment for it as well, i'll probably manage to get something incompatible. I hope i wasn't too quick on the trigger, but in the worst case, a regular kastle isn't too bad in of itself.

[cat_abyss]

Hm i can get 10 mhz or 20 mhz attiny85.. anyone know which is used in kastle? or where i can find this...

[athletic_beetle]

according to the docs here https://github.com/bastl-instruments/kastle it looks like the kastle firmware runs at 8MHz so either chip will do

Features
Writen by Vaclav Pelousek 2016
open source license: CC BY SA
http://www.bastl-instruments.com


-software written in Arduino 1.0.6 - used to flash ATTINY 85 running at 8mHz
-created with help of the heavenly powers of internet and several tutorials that you can google out
-i hope somebody finds this code usefull

[cat_abyss]

according to the docs here https://github.com/bastl-instruments/kastle it looks like the kastle firmware runs at 8MHz so either chip will do

Ah, thank you! So 10/20 in this case is more of a maximum possible clock rate?

[athletic_beetle]

i did it! i got my regular kastle 1.5 running as a kaslte drum. it was so easy, and it works great. now i kinda see why arduino is so popular...


i bought an arduino uno, some capacitors as per the tutorial, and two new attiny85 chips. already have a breadboard and jumper wires. i guess one can flash the existing two attiny85s but theyre cheap and so i got 2 new ones so i can swap in the old standard kastle chips if i want to go back to that firmare without hooking up all the arduino stuff. anyway.
i used these instructions https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub/ar ... uno-afb829 to hook everything up.
later i found out that sparkfun has a dedicated usb programmer for the attiny which i stupidly didn't know about at the time i ordered this stuff. so that https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11801 makes it easier. oh well. next time.

so it's basically:
1. get the arduino IDE up and running on your machine, follow the aforementioned tutorial right up until they have you upload Blink as a test. in other words the last step i follwed was burn the bootloader to make the attiny85 run at 8MHz instead of the default 1MHz. instead of Blink course we want to upload kastleDrum.ino and kastleDRUM_CLK_LFO.ino respectively.
funny note, i forgot to burn bootloader to get the second chip (the one that handles LFO/Clock) and so it was running at 1MHz!oops.
and it "worked", but the LFO speed was suuuuuper slow and everything produced these crunchy digital noise sounds which, hey, maybe that's your thing? maybe have some chips running intentionally slow? or at different speeds than each other?? go nuts.

anyway it was a fun crash course in using an arduino as a programmer. Bastl is awesome, open source is awesome, i'm stoked!

one thing i noticed from reading this thread: https://llllllll.co/t/new-kastle-firmware/37800/21 is that not all Kastle 1.5s have IC sockets that make it so easy to swap out and in the attiny85s; instead they're soldered on so flashing the new firmware is a leeeeeetle bit different; you use jumpers directly to points on the board but that doesn't sound too bad.

[athletic_beetle]

here;s what it sounds like!

[cliffemu]

here;s what it sounds like!

So good. Congrats on figuring out the chip flashing.

[cat_abyss]

Nice to see it was "easy" (and thanks for the mouth watering sound demo). Didn't order new chips, i'll see if the local chip joint have them over the counter, otherwise ill just reflash the original chips. I was lucky with the used kastle i got, since the chips indeed were not soldered. Got the sparkfun thingy on the way from france. Looking forward to the fun

RE bootloader and clock speeds - do i understand it correctly that these have an internal clock (the attiny85)? That can be changed during flash?

[athletic_beetle]

RE bootloader and clock speeds - do i understand it correctly that these have an internal clock (the attiny85)? That can be changed during flash?

that’s in the tutorial (https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub/ar ... uno-afb829)
i would embed the image that shows the dropdown menu in the arduino ide thats relevant to this step, but im on my phone rn and its not cooperating

[cat_abyss]

Got the flasher in the mail and so i tried to flash both chips during lunch... you'll need some "tool" (screwdriver) to get them loose, at least i did, they're placed between the pot fundaments and so my largeish hands couldnt get them out... eitherway, i mightve fucked something up...

LFO works, the "basic concept" works like it should ie. modulating pitch gives me drum sounds. But the sounds themselves seems to be a bit off - maybe. What i get is reasonable drum sounds from the drum knob until 10/11 o clock where i get buzzing that doesnt decay regardless of the decay knob setting (although it changes in character depending on decay knob to the left or right). With the drum knob right of 12 o clock i get silence or faint noise, basically. Perhaps better noise towards the end of the knob range.

Any ideas? Or supposed to be like this? I'll try flashing both chips again after work but i think there's gonna be overtime today. Didn't find any chips locally either, so got no spares.

EDIT: and i mean it sounds fun. but i'm sceptical as to wether it sounds "right".

[cliffemu]

my v1.5 kastle synth triangle LFO stopped working. Everything else works fine, pulse LFO, stepped, etc. Anyone ever had this happen before and have any suggestions to fix it? I've tried to contact Bastl.
Update: so I ripped off the battery compartment, opened the schematic, and started connecting points with the pin wire to see if I could troubleshoot the failure. Then I figured I could try to solder something. Not finding any conclusive failure point, suddenly it started working perfect! So now I have a voided warranty, and batteries no long work, but I’m happily enjoying my kastle again any trick for taking the sides off to resolder the battery connections?