MIDI-enabling the arpeggiator?

[vanderholm]

Hello fellow brutelovers & brutebuilders
A question to the latter that may also interest the arp-minded among the former:
As it is the Arpeggiator does not send MIDI Notes, and I am considering investing in a MIDIpal to be able to arpeggiate my Minitaur. Before doing so I would like to know whether there is any possibility of the arpeggiator being MIDI-enabled in a future firmware update?

/V

[rove]

While the MB does not send the arpeggiator out thru midi (which would be cool), it does send the arpeggiator out via CV, and the Minitaur accepts CV, so you may want to experiment with that before investing in something like the midiPal.

[beefinator]

The arpeggiator is entirely digital, and therefore something that could be updated in future firmware.
I think this is on the to-do list, but that doesn't give any indication of when/if we might see this.

[vanderholm]

@ beefinator: It is good to know that it is a technical possibility, thanks.
I'll just have to hope that the techies, make their plans know on this forum at some point. A stickie with possible future improvements would be great.

@ rove: I have been experimenting with CV, it works fairly well on my monotribe with the 2.1 update on that. there is, however, a voltage scaling issue with the minitaur causing the pitch to be all wrong. The Minitaur accepts 0-5v and the minibrute sends out 0-10v, so I made a simple voltage dividing cable with some resistors, which seems to work when testing with a voltmeter, but the pitch is still way of on the minitaur. I have read somewhere that the Mg synths are not really 1v per octave and this might be the reason, but far from being knowledgeable about CV I have more or less given up on direct CV connectivity. The Mg CP-251 Control Processor might be a solution, but I am not sure and it is too expensive to get just for the experiment. A different route is translation through my midi-hacked monotribe that can receive CV from the minibrute and send midi to the minitaur, but the pitch still comes out wrong for some reason, but I'll keep experimenting with this. Anyhow thanks for the suggestion, I hope that anyone reading this with better knowledge on CV might offer some constructive advice on the pitch problem of this ArpturiMg monster i am trying to bring to life.

/V

[rove]

In order to get my Mg Ring Mod to track along with the minibrute I need an attenuator, I would suggest building one of these (http://www.doepfer.de/DIY/a100_diy.htm) rather than using a voltage divider with fixed resistance, so that you can dial it in specific to the minitaur.  Also, if you haven't already, check the Mg forums, lots of Minitaur specific discussion there.
good luck.

[beefinator]

So are you just using a voltage divider to change the Minibrute's 0-10V to 0-5?

Think about it... I can't imagine that could ever work.
You're taking a volt/octave CV signal, which would then be 10 octaves over 10 volts, and just dividing it by 2... so now it's 10 octaves over 5 volts...   

I think the stated 5V limit on the minitaur CV input is mostly due to the fact that it's designed as a bass synth, and isn't intended to go higher.  I would bet that either it'd be fine with higher voltages (maybe not be perfectly stable in tune), or that there's some voltage regulation/protection inside (I'd imagine that it'd have that anyway, with Mg's reputation for quality).
Otherwise, perhaps a zener diode or something to limit the voltage.  You don't want to divide the voltage by 2; you want to limit it to 5v or less, while still keeping it the same at voltages less then 5V.

Also, have a look at the Minitaur editor software.  I read on the product specs page that the CV input is processed to be 1V/octave.  If that implies there's an analog-digital-analog conversion happening, there might be a setting to customize the scaling, you could then change it to 0.5V/octave and use your divider cable.