Bonnethead: Cardputer drums

DEMO VIDEO

This is a simple and lofi drum machine for the M5Cardputer.

Now available on M5Burner as "Bonnethead"

Features

• 16KHz sample rate
• 16 steps per pattern, 8 tracks
• 36 patterns
• Swing/shuffle
• Channel mute/solos
• Per-step velocity and sub-tick timing adjustment
• Pattern sequencer
• Per-channel filters
• Multiple drum kits
• Tuning, looping, envelopes and filters for samples
• Retrigger and reverse step effects
• Live keydrumming mode
• Render to SD card
• Sampled drum kits from SD card
• Pitching and tuning, including portamento
• Auto-pitchstretched loops
• Tap tempo

UI

The dot grid indicates the 16x8 steps for the current pattern.

Status line

Top

• 0 Pattern number in green
• Next fill pattern appears as a red superscript; as a red number when playing the fill
• If there's a pattern sequence, the patterns appear next to the pattern number at the top line (e.g. 12241223)
• Dancing man
• Mod key indicated ("F O A C ^" for fn, opt, alt, ctrl, shift)
• Record symbol in live keydrumming mode

Bottom

• BPM current BPM (60-320)
• SW current swing (0-99; about 20-30 is useful)
• VOL volume (0-16)
• KT kit selected
• At the right Current note: NNN VV KK FX P
  • NNN: note name, like C#4
  • VV: velocity (0-9)
  • KK: kick timing (0-11)
  • FX: effect name
  • P: portamento time (0-9) 0=off, 9=slowest

Controls

Pattern

• (space) tap tempo. Press four times to set the tempo.

• a-z enter sounds. See the drum map for details.

• 0-9 sets the velocity of the current step (0=silent, 9=max. 6=default)

• del deletes the current step

• [ "kick left" shift step timing back by 1/12 step

• ] "kick right" shift step timing forward by 1/12 step

• fn+shift+← rotate current channel left

• fn+shift+→ rotate current channel right

• shift+[ kick current channel one 1/12 step left

• shift+] kick current channel one 1/12 step right

• ctrl+key set note pitch. q=middle C. Piano keyboard layout: q2we4r5ty7u8i9op for the top octave, zsxdcvgbhnjm for the bottom octave.

• ctrl+[ decrease pitch by 10 cents

• ctrl+] increase pitch by 10 cents

• ctrl+↑ increase pitch by 1 octave

• ctrl+↓ decrease pitch by 1 octave

• ctrl+shift+<n> set portamento time to 0-9 (0=off, 9=slowest). Default is 0

• tab cycle through FX

Global

• fn+↑ increase BPM

• fn+↓ decrease BPM

• fn+← decrease swing

• fn+→ increase swing

• fn+[ decrease volume

• fn+] increase volume

• Button A enter sample edit mode -- press a key to hear the sample preview. Button A switches back to pattern mode.

Files

• fn+s Save the current pattern in the startup buffer (automatically reloaded on startup)
• fn+a <x> Save the file as bank (0-9a-z)
• fn+o <x> Open bank (0-9a-z)
• fn+n New file, reset everything
• fn+r Render the current pattern/pattern sequence to a WAV file on the SD card. The file will be named /bonnethead/renders/render-<n>.wav

Sequencer

• opt+<x> where n is 0-9a-z selects pattern n
• opt+shift+<x> fill pattern n after this pattern, then resume
• opt+ESC toggle pattern sequence mode
• opt+← pattern cursor left
• opt+→ pattern cursor right
• opt+ENTER insert current pattern at cursor
• opt+DEL delete pattern at cursor

channel

• fn+k enter keydrumming mode. Press keys to play the drum sounds. Press fn+k to exit keydrumming mode. (note: red circle at top indicates live keydrumming mode). Fn-shift-K enables quantized keydrumming mode.
• fn+<n> toggle mute channel n (1-8)
• fn+shift+<n> toggle solo channel n (multiple channels can be solo'd)
• fn+enter toggle solo the current channel (where the cursor is)
• fn+- decrease filter cutoff on active channels (16 steps of filter)
• fn+= increase filter cutoff on active channels
• fn+\ decrease channel volume on active channels
• fn+' inccrease channel volume on active channels

Kits

• alt+<x> select drum kit x (note: this will cause a delay as the kit is synthesised/loaded)
  • Only kits 1-4 are available w/o an SD card.

Note: you can create custom sampled kits by placing WAV files in /bonnethead/kits/base-<n>.kit on the SD card. (e.g. /bonnethead/kits/base-9.kit). Each WAV should be named a.wav through y.wav (any can be omitted, and will just be skipped). The kit will be loaded as 9 when you press alt+9 in this example. 5-9a-z are available for custom kits (1-4 are synthesised). WAV files should be 16-bit, 16KHz mono.

clipboard

• fn+d delete current pattern
• fn+c copy current pattern to clipboard
• fn+x cut current pattern to clipboard
• fn+v paste current pattern to clipboard
• NOTE: all clipboard functions operate only on currently enabled channels. So e.g. solo'ing one channel allows you to selectively delete/copy it (or muting all but three channels, etc.)

Drumkit

• a -> h bass, major scale
• i kick
• j closed hat
• k snare
• l click/rimshot
• m tom
• n sweep
• o beep
• p open hat
• q clap
• r low bass
• s cowbell
• t damped bell
• u crash
• z Note off (appears as #)
• , Note continue (appears as '). This can be used to slide notes or change velocity without retriggering the sample.

Preview mode

In preview mode, samples can be played with a-z. The current sample is displayed at the top of the screen. Press Button A to return to pattern mode.

Parameters can be edited:

• detune (cents)
• cutoff (0-1000)
• volume (-5000-5000) centibels
• start start point in samples
• end end point in samples
• lp start loop start point in samples (note: enabled if loop start!=loop end)
• lp end loop end point in samples
• attack attack time in ms
• decay decay time in ms
• sustain sustain level in centibels
• release release time in ms

Keys

• fn+s save kit (i.e. parameters of the current kit)
• fn+o load kit (i.e. parameters of the current kit)
• fn+n reset kit
• fn+r enter live sampling/recording mode.
• opt hold for fine adjust (+/- 1)
• alt hold for coarse adjust (+/- 100)
• alt+opt hold for very coarse adjust (+/- 1000)
• ↑ increase value (+/- 10 by default)
• ↓ decrease value (+/- 10 by default)
• reset parameter to 0
• ← previous parameter
• → next parameter
• tab cycle loop mode (off, forward, stretch, pingpong)