Man, I dont even know why people are still coming to my site at this point because I have had nothing but disappointment to present to you all in the last two years but I suppose it is time to reflect on where things stand with the various projects that I have been working on that I hope to be able to share with you all very soon. Recently, I have started to dig back into my Volca Sample audio recording add-on and actually have made some decent progress on it by completely changing directions and moving towards a new hardware solution that is showing a ton of potential to be exactly what we want in order to pull this off:
https://github.com/marchingband/wvr
The WVR is an ESP32 based platform that is designed to be a DIY sampling tool. I backed it on kickstarter as soon as I got a look at it as I immediately realized that it could be the missing piece of the puzzle that I have been looking for. As a sampling tool it is still pretty basic at this point but the community around it has been working on adding additional functionality and tools to it to beef it up. For our purposes though, it has the potential to be a killer add-on for the Volca Sample. Out of the box it can already do the following:
- Upload/Download samples via a network connection
- 1/8″ Audio output and supports Korgs required audio sample rate for playing back SYRO stream data
- Ability to support an audio input (Our biggest want here)
- Relatively inexpensive and could potentially be built even cheaper if developed as a focused “VS” tool
So picture this if you will, how awesome would it be to have the ability to upload new samples to the onboard memory of the WVR and immediately take those and turn them into a SYRO stream that could be uploaded to your sample? Taking it a step further, being able to store full SYRO streams as backups to the WVR for recall at a later time and being able to swap them in and out on the fly without having to worry about audio interference or messing around with the volume settings on your playback device to appease the Samples strict and often times fickle volume requirements? (Look, that one to me is worth the price of admission because I dont even remember the last time I uploaded new samples to mine because I hate the process of doing it so much!) All of it is a win-win in my book and hopefully you can see the potential there as well.
So where do we go from here? Ive been saying this for two years now so I fully expect your expectations to be tempered but I can tell you that this project is juuuuuuuust about to completion. At the moment I am working on the code to convert uploaded samples to a Syro Stream and trying to find the best way to do that using a minimalist UI since I want to be able to do it from the hardware directly OR through the web browser when you connect to the device directly. The best option currently appears to be sectioning off the first 40 or so banks of the WVR sample memory for use as the holding tank for samples that will be converted when the user presses a button on the device. The only issue I am running into with this method is that it does not give feedback when samples are to long, the wrong format or when the device memory reaches its limit so that will all have to be done via the web browser itself.
Stay tuned! More to come after the holidays while I continue working on the code for this. Hoping to have some exciting updates to share with you all in 2022! Thank you for your continued support and the kind words Ive received the last few years, it means a lot and has helped me navigate the stress of my personal life and dealing with mounting depression and personal struggles. Much love to you and your families this holiday season!