Crowd-funded OWL - the Stompbox That Can Become Whatever You Like

Started by Elantric, June 03, 2013, 10:57:06 AM

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Elantric

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marser/owl-programmable-effects-pedal

<iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marser/owl-programmable-effects-pedal/widget/video.html" frameborder="0"> </iframe>

A Stompbox That Can Become Whatever You Like, in Crowd-funded OWL

by Peter Kirn
Yes, this looks like an ordinary stopmbox, but it is reprogrammable. Can I put this massive "prototype" disclaimer over any photos of me tagged on Facebook? No? Photo courtesy the OWL folks.

Yes, this looks like an ordinary stompbox, but it is reprogrammable. Can I put this massive "prototype" disclaimer over any photos of me tagged on Facebook? No? Photo courtesy the OWL folks.

There are stompboxes. They are — for lack of a better word — foot worthy. You can step on them, in a way that is less possible with a computer. (Well, sure, somewhere amidst an endless spinning color pinwheel you may have wanted to step on your MacBook Air, but then thought better of it – financial investment and whatnot.)

Then, there are computers. They can do everything. That stompbox is one particular distortion effect. And it is always just that one distortion.

But what if you could have both?

As embedded technology continues its march toward greater user friendliness, lower cost, and greater sonic powers, it seems the time is right for hardware that combines the durability of dedicated sound gear with the open-ended potential of computers. That is, it's not really clear where the computer ends and the stompbox begins.

OWL isn't the first project to take on this dream, but it's looking more practical than those that came before.

The project promises open source hardware, with open code, that can be reprogrammed into new sound effects simply by uploading new code. As with a new generation of low-power tablets and phones and the like, there's an ARM chip at its heart. (The ARM Cortex M4, to be exact.)

If you're a guitarist who writes your own C   code – yes, there's actually a sizable group of those – you can have a ball making your own DSP routines. If you're not, OWL promises a library of patches, presumably growing with more contributions from the open source community.

There's not a whole lot to look at at this point – while they've got a GitHub repository going, it includes only a little bit of sample code. But in the video, the results look impressive, perhaps enough – given an experience team – for some to go ahead and take the leap of supporting the crowd-funded Kickstarter project.

Patches load directly via USB – so reprogramming the pedal is a pretty easy affair for the average user. If you are a coder, you can use simple C   without the usual mucking about with hardware-specific code. (That's where, to me, the advantages of newer ARM chips comes in: there's enough horsepower here that you don't have to fret over every spare cycle, coding close to the iron. But if you do want to use specific ARM functions, those are supported in the framework, too.)

What you get in the product appears to be a no-nonsense hardware platform with the requisite jack connections and stomp-able switches, and a straightforward code framework. It's not quite as idiot-proof as something like Arduino, but to a growing army of DSP students around the world, it's a beautiful blank canvas.

It'll be fun to watch this evolve. And there appears to be at least enough crowd funding to get it rolling – with additional funding "unlocking" additional work from the team on other features. See more at the Kickstarter site:

OWL Programmable Effects Pedal [Kickstarter]

The team has as its members a number of friends of CDM, including the maker of the Blipbox, and others revolving around the lovely London Music Hackspace.

I like in a way that the product isn't too ambitious: it's simple, uses a smart platform as its basis, and focuses on things people need.

It seems there's more to do in this space. Years ago, the talented originator of Winamp and Reaper made the JesuSonic, dedicated hardware for effects cheekily hidden in a massive crucifix. But now, that sort of technology can easily hit the mainstream – with or without weird religious iconographic housings. The other logical direction seems to be more traditional computers running Linux, the sort which could take uploads dynamically using tools like Pure Data, without having to reprogram the pedal between each set. But both directions – embedded computers and dedicated hardware – hold potential, and both could be reprogrammable. OWL could be the herald of things to come, and if successful, the first real case study in making those things work.

mbenigni

Very interesting.  I see they already made the funding level required to add 1/4" Expression/Switch pedal input.  I hope they get to the MIDI and Stereo I/O.  The only misstep IMO is that they're going with USB MIDI only.  I think this sort of form factor would do well with 5-pin DINs as well as USB.  The kind of environments/setups where USB MIDI is convenient are usually situations where there's a laptop banging around already, making the OWL a redundant proposition.

datsunrobbie

I don't see a problem with the usb midi, since I would not expect to be reprogramming the pedal at a gig. This looks very much like an open-source version of the Line6 ToneCore DSP development kit, which has been around since 2008 http://line6.com/tcddk/.

mbenigni

Quote from: datsunrobbie on June 03, 2013, 12:07:16 PM
I don't see a problem with the usb midi, since I would not expect to be reprogramming the pedal at a gig.

Let's not confuse USB connectivity for reprogramming - which is part of the base configuration and requisite to the entire design - and USB MIDI.  The latter would be useful for things like MIDI sync, control of OWL parameters (on MIDI IN) with external footswitches, control surfaces, sequencers, etc.  And it could also be useful for wackier things like controlling external MIDI gear (on MIDI OUT) according to pitch and amplitude of guitar signal.  My mind went immediately to the full-scale realization of this: an efficient pitch-to-MIDI algorithm running on that ARM processor.  For all of these applications, 5-pin MIDI would be very desirable. 

The USB connector is already there, and I can see where they would hesitate to add cost/bulk of additional ports, but in their absence, anyone interested in MIDI integration will find themselves looking at the additional expense of some kind of converter, e.g. http://www.amazon.com/musical-instruments/dp/B004NDLXOW

datsunrobbie

Excellent point Marc - I had not even considered using it for a midi controller. Maybe they will expand on the hardware as the funding grows - they did mention additions for an expression pedal and "extra ADC headers for hardware hackers".

Elantric

#5
https://cycling74.com/articles/review-getting-to-know-the-owl-pedal



The OWL gives users the chance to implement their own bespoke effects and become part of an open-source DSP development community, and for those that don't develop themselves there is a growing library of ready-made patches available for download.

Using the provided framework and online tools, patches can be easily developed, compiled and loaded to the on-board ARM Cortex M4 chip, allowing the user to change the function of the device without any hardware-specific knowledge.

With a minimum of coding and signal processing knowledge, the OWL can become any kind of effect or synthesis engine that you can imagine, or a chain of unique effects. Alternatively, you could build a patch comprised of several effects that you could switch between using one of the assignable pots on the pedal.

With a strong emphasis on open-source hardware and software, the OWL is also a good entry-point for those wishing to program their own audio algorithms, or for those wanting to learn more about digital signal processing in general.

For developers:

Write code for a hardware DSP architecture in plain C/C++
Open source platform and tool chain
Easy to change and upload patches over USB

For musicians:

Load patches from your computer via USB
Collection of sample patches available and growing
Same input/output characteristics as a standard guitar FX pedal


admin



Another video from our visit to We Are Robots - future music technology conference in Lond om- we talked to Martin from Rebel Technology - they make a variety of Eurorack modules that allow you to run custom PureData and GEM code patches in hardware form. We saw the OWL module and also a new standalone instrument called Wizard - soon to be launched on Kickstarter.
Check our  Awesome MAX4Live Synth: http://bit.ly/wavejunction

http://discchord.com/gear/2017/11/03/rebel-technology-wizard-standalone-puredata-module
Another video from our visit to We Are Robots - future music technology conference in Lond om- we talked to Martin from Rebel Technology - they make a variety of Eurorack modules that allow you to run custom PureData and GEM code patches in hardware form. We saw the OWL module and also a new standalone instrument called Wizard - soon to be launched on Kickstarter.
Check our Awesome MAX4Live Synth: http://bit.ly/wavejunction

Hurricane

8)
Really cool , but with out a hardware 5 pin in/out it's not gonna fly with me .

EZ :

HR