Ok a little run through of what I have done here… after failing to build my R_E_C_U_RBOY properly, I decided that I would actually prefer something that fitted in the 2u of rack space i had left, and chose to make my own input board instead. I designed and built the board above, with the SMD components built on to the board at manufacturing time, meaning i only had to solder on pots, thonkicons and pins. I thought I was being really smart and clever by attaching it to this MCP3008 based RASPIO Analog zero :-
But i was very very wrong, and it was down to my basic lack of understanding of SPI… all the ADC chips i have used before are i2c and I had not factored that the SPI based boards would clash with the SPI based 3.5 TFT screen.
I was pulling my hair out for ages trying to understand… I could read values off my inputs and pots, but it broke the screen every time.
Eventually, I realised that the i_n_c_u_r pcb used a SECONDARY spi channel, unlike my board. I had to rethink.
Then I found this :-
8 Channel 17-bit Analog to Digital Converter for Raspberry Pi Zero by AB Electronics UK
I had to rewrite the user_input.py to use it, but it works great with my inputs, as you can see with my video (the coloured circles are ‘timed’ by the same CV signals that run the oscillators)
anyway, I now have a working solution and I can finally class myself as an “Performance interactive sights and sounds artist” ( i will leave you guys to work out the acronym)