No love for the Axoloti DSP Board?

[electricanada]

I have two Axoloti that I’m not using. One in a black plastic case, another naked. I also have an unbuilt Thonk axocontrol PCB plus lucite bottom (no parts). Feel free to PM me an offer based on shipping from zip code 23502 in the US. No low-balls please.

EDIT: Both now sold.

[robotfunk]

Back in stock since tuesday. Received mine thursday evening, wow this is a lot of fun. Good thing I have a PC on hand cos it keeps giving my Mac kernel panics.

[weasel79]

next generation hardware now available, about 4x as fast, STM32H7 based:

perfect for eurorack modules as the audio i/o can scale to +/-5v or 0-10v, 2x in 2x out for CV.

https://zrna.org/akso

CPU

STM32H743 clocked at 480MHz
Memory and Storage

32MB SDRAM
1MB RAM and 2MB Flash (processor internal)
microSD card slot

Codec

ADAU1961, stereo, running at 48KHz 24-bit
3.5mm TRS Signal IO, Software Configurable

Input 1: Mono Right or Aux Stereo
Input 2: Mono Left or Stereo
Output 1: Mono Right
Output 2: Mono Left or Stereo

Each jack operates in one of three scale modes: line level, bipolar CV -5V/+5V or unipolar CV 0-10V.

Scaling occurs in the analog domain such that the full dynamic range of the codec is used in each mode. Input signals outside of the codec's range are clipped.

Mono mode supports both balanced and unbalanced interconnects.

DC coupled.

Note See the reference manual for additional detail.
3.5mm TRS Headphone Out

True ground referenced, 25mW per channel @ 16 ohms
Dual USB-C Ports

Device: power in, data, USB-MIDI
Host: USB-MIDI, expansion, rated to 500mA

Power In

USB-C or pin accepting 5V-18V

Typical power consumption: 125mA at 12V (1.5W)

Primary regulator max output power: 6.5W
Power Rail Outputs

+12V
-12V
+3.3V Primary
+3.3V Secondary
+5V

[mckenic]

Oouh! Oooh!

Is it backwards compatible with Axoloti patches?
VERY interested in getting back into this!

[diffrentstrolks]

It does look to be fully back compatible.

I’m right behind ya

[scozbor]

I was just looking at my axoloti and about to break it out again for some new experiments. Super excited about the Akso!!!

[weasel79]

yeah should be compatible with all old objects and projects. i think longterm this is gonna be some kind of hard branch, as the firmware will have to be updated for the new hardware, and i doubt the akso developer will keep it compatible with the old HW.

there is a new forum already where i guess a lot of these questions will be discussed:

https://forum.zrna.org/

ps.
here's a picture. fits eurorack vertically of course.

[mckenic]

Thanks folks!

This is SUPER interesting - 4x (ish) the processing for that price - yowch! This seems really good!

Need to dig out my Axo. Last time I had it out, I didnt have time but got a granular thingy on it that did 80% of what I would want. Need to invest time in getting it to 100% and look at how the library has grown while I wasnt looking.

Cheers again for the heads up!

[weasel79]

yeah the library is pretty insane by now, super easy to do FM, wavetable, granular, VA, sampling, looping, sequencers, effects.

matter of fact it has all the MI braids oscillators ported, so you could kind build a braids clone for 89$, all you need is a frontplate and drag some virtual patch cables. and - snap - you could make it polyphonic and accept midi at no extra cost/effort.

[EATyourGUITAR]

same microcontroller as daisy but only 1MB RAM compared to 64MB. the biggest reason why the axoloti is better is that the software is fully developed. I wonder if there will be any cross pollination of the bare metal programmers from both sides helping each other.

[adnauseam]

same microcontroller as daisy but only 1MB RAM compared to 64MB. the biggest reason why the axoloti is better is that the software is fully developed. I wonder if there will be any cross pollination of the bare metal programmers from both sides helping each other.

Cool idea! The Axoloti library is amazingly fun and easy to use. Especially coming from a PD/MAX/Nord Modular background. I really really like the Axoloti but sold em because of various reasons, ram being one, second being the shitty micro usb jack (always disconnects), 3rd being that I was expecing the next-gen user developed mini axoloti out by now, and it has not materialized

[adnauseam]

3rd being that I was expecing the next-gen user developed mini axoloti out by now, and it has not materialized

Well. I can safely put my foot in my mouth!

https://zrna.org/akso/shop

You can now order the new version! I'm on it!

[tele_player]

same microcontroller as daisy but only 1MB RAM compared to 64MB. the biggest reason why the axoloti is better is that the software is fully developed. I wonder if there will be any cross pollination of the bare metal programmers from both sides helping each other.

Daisy uses an external 64MB SDRAM.
Akso uses an external 32MB SDRAM.

There's also some SRAM internal to the STM32.

[adnauseam]

same microcontroller as daisy but only 1MB RAM compared to 64MB. the biggest reason why the axoloti is better is that the software is fully developed. I wonder if there will be any cross pollination of the bare metal programmers from both sides helping each other.

Daisy uses an external 64MB SDRAM.
Akso uses an external 32MB SDRAM.

There's also some SRAM internal to the STM32.

That's cool. The Akso will use existing Axoloti modules and has it's own patching environment. I suppose if you're ok with writing your own Daisy C code from scratch the Daisy is better.

[tIB]

Does the akso software environment live update the patch or is it still a case of uploading changes?

(I'm probably using the wrong terms here!)

[EATyourGUITAR]

Can you update the product page to show 32MB of RAM? Or maybe it is there but I didn't see it.

[tele_player]

Can you update the product page to show 32MB of RAM? Or maybe it is there but I didn't see it.

I don’t work for ZRNA, I’m just a huge fan of Axoloti.

It’s on the Technical Specifications page:

https://zrna.org/akso/shop#specs

[Bartimaeus]

are there any control boards for akso, like there are for axoloti?

[weasel79]

i dont think there are any control boards yet, but i am sure the community will come up with something soon,just like they did on the old axoloti board. it is extremely easy though to just hook up a couple pots and buttons and put it all in a cookie box.

also, yeah, the product page does mention that its 32MB RAM which feels more than enough for me.

for real bare metal programmers the daisy might be an interesting alternative, i feel like this one caters more to the "casual" diy person, with the full blown and convenient patcher and especially the eurorack compatibility out the box. it is also a good entry point, because you can start with the ready made objects but eventually dive into easily modifying/creating the underlying C code yourself. daisy promised a whole lot of library support but afaik a lot of the kickstarter promises were just that, promises, and are not actually implemented yet? i guess i will see when my daisies finally arrive this week.

[forrest]

Pretty excited about this as well, gonna get a 4hp panel made up soon as mine arrives and start messing around.. Maybe an 8hp version with some pots & a slider.

[Bartimaeus]

Pretty excited about this as well, gonna get a 4hp panel made up soon as mine arrives and start messing around.. Maybe an 8hp version with some pots & a slider.

actually, if you or someone else could make a design for an 8hp panel with pots available that'd be even cooler than a control board!

[ersatzplanet]

I have an Axo board and never did anything with it really. I even bought a Doepfer A-192-1 CV to MIDI module to control it with. I designed a panel with 16 knobs and access to the PCB but never made it. It would allow 32 controls, 16 manual and 16 from MIDI. These smaller new boards look like they would work much easier. They say the I/O pinouts are the same so I would imagine the controller board made for the Axo would just plug straight in.

[tele_player]

No, the pinout is not the same, Axoloti controllers will not just plug straight into Akso.

That's not all bad. For instance, probably the most popular controller for Axoloti, partly due to it being the first one available, is the Music Thing Modular AxoControl.
Well, AxoControl is handy, and useful, but the designer of AxoControl carelessly selected some of the IO pins, making the AxoControl incompatible with I2C OLED displays. An honest error, but unfortunate. There are plenty of other pins which can be used for LEDs, but I2C can't be arbitrarily assigned to different pins.
Revising the board to free up the I2C pins would be trivial, but it never happened.

So, going forward, maybe somebody will design a control board which gets this right.

[Eloc]

(edit) tele_player's comment above was posted whilst I was writing this

I have a 'Euxoloti' PCB and Panel set that I never built up or got an axoloti for. Would one of these Aksos be compatible with that?

I believe it's all open source, so that might be an option for people wanting a (large) panel for Euro conversion if it works with the Akso too:
https://github.com/HerrPaule/Euxoloti

Guess I'm stuck with this euxoloti PCB

[adnauseam]

There are axolotis floating around taking up space in a drawer. I see a few for sale each year.