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24

ON THE PCB

Lift the lid off your Altura’s acrylic case, or open the top of your card stock case, and take a look inside.

1.  BATTERY HOLDER

Use a high-quality 9v DC alkaline battery, like Energizer. Do not waste your money on cheap batteries! 
You will regret it. Insert the battery into the holder, and push down to snap the battery into place. You 
may need to use a small screwdriver as a shoe horn to coax the battery into place.

As the battery drains, the ON LED will grow dimmer and the Altura MkII may behave unpredictably. 
You are not likely to damage anything, but it simply won’t work well. Replace the battery!

Plugging in a 9v DC power supply will disconnect the battery. It’s okay to leave the battery installed 
while using an external power supply. The only concern is if you forget the battery is there and years go 
by. Eventually the battery will leak acid all over your Altura MkII, and this could damage or destroy it.

2.  ISP HEADER

On the PCB to the right of the 3-digit display there is a 
cluster of six pins. This is the In-System Programmer (ISP) 
header. This is the data port you use to communicate with 
the microcontroller that runs the Altura MkII. To make use of 
it, you need a little device called a programmer. This is a 
little circuit board with cables thaat connects a USB port on 
your computer to the ISP header. Pin 1 of the header is the 
bottom right pin; look for a tiny white dot on the PCB. (This 
is upside-down compared to how ISP headers are typically arranged.) The socket on your programmer 
will have an indicator on one corner, or a stripe on one wire, to indicate pin 1. Be sure to attach 
your programmer to the header correctly! When installed correctly, the Altura’s LED and display will 
illuminate.

We used a USB-Tiny clone programmer to develop the Altura MkII. Zeppelin Design Labs offers this 
programmer as an accessory. If you obtain a programmer from another source such as Sparkfun or 
Adafruit, be sure it is a USB-Tiny. Some users have had trouble with other types of programmers, such 
as Arduino boards. How to use the programmer is covered in the section “Programming the Altura”.

3.  ARTICULATION ADjUST

We developed the Articulation feature to improve the stability and playability of the Altura MkII. 
Since your hand is a floppy, squashy thing, the Altura can have a hard time figuring out where it is 
exactly. We use a few data processing tricks to distinguish signal from noise and stabilize the Altura’s 
performance. One of these tricks is to simply increase the minimum allowable time between notes. We 
call this adjustment “articulation”. Low articulation values (below about 25) mean faster response: the 

Содержание ALTURA

Страница 1: ......

Страница 2: ...ORY 8 HOW IT WORKS 9 FEATURE LIST 10 REAR PANEL FEATURES 12 9V DC Power Input 12 Power On Off 12 MIDI Out 12 TOP PANEL FEATURES 13 Power On Indicator 13 3 Digit Display 13 Distance Sensors General 13...

Страница 3: ...the battery into place 2 CONNECT A MIDI DEVICE Plug a standard MIDI cable into the Altura MkII s MIDI OUT jack and connect it to the MIDI IN of your Macchiato Mini Synth or any other device or plug in...

Страница 4: ...bel on the bottom of your Altura After the table there s a brief description of each function with much more to learn in the Reference Manual FUNCTION NUMBER NAME CONTROLLER NUMBER DATA FAR DATA NEAR...

Страница 5: ...the Macchiato will override the Altura Using the Altura MkII will override the knob on the Macchiato Function 3 Note On Velocity The Note On Velocity defaults to 127 upon startup Use the DATA NEAR and...

Страница 6: ...ransmitting Function 7 Send Channel Select The Altura MkII defaults to MIDI Send Channel 1 Use DATA FAR knob to change the send channel Function 8 Arpeggiator Load Preset 18 which includes an 8 note a...

Страница 7: ...ying your scales was never so easy 11 TRANSPOSE THE OCTAVE Turn one of the OCTAVE knobs to cause the Octave display to appear Twiddle the OCTAVE knobs until you see 5 5 This means near the sensor you...

Страница 8: ...arpeggio and save your work in a bank of presets HISTORY In 1920 as L on Theremin 1896 1993 was developing radio equipment for the Soviet government he heard strange sounds coming from some of his cir...

Страница 9: ...electronic instruments and DIY kits we hope the Altura MkII will continue L on Theremin s legacy of inspiring both artists and electronics nerds HOW IT WORKS Our MIDI version of L on s device uses son...

Страница 10: ...ft Distance Sensor MIDI Control Functions 4 Right Sensor MIDI Pitch 5 DATA FAR Adjust 6 DATA NEAR Adjust 7 FUNCTION Select 8 KEY Root Note Select 9 SCALE Mode Select 10 OCTAVE NEAR Select 11 OCTAVE FA...

Страница 11: ...11 ON THE PCB 1 Battery Holder 2 ISP Header...

Страница 12: ...ltura MkII on The red LED on top lights up and the display does a little dance followed by a letter and number indicating the current key and scale Push the button again to switch it off To display th...

Страница 13: ...EE FOR EXAMPLE IT MEANS A letter and a number D 3 KEY letter and SCALE number See those sections below for details In most cases the display defaults to this after 3 seconds Two separate numbers 4f5 3...

Страница 14: ...trigger the Altura dangling cables a guitar neck loose clothes or a swinging pony tail Keep the play zone clear Since the Altura MkII uses sonar and measures the speed of sound in air its performance...

Страница 15: ...nth Functions 2 6 The left sensor behaves much like the Data slider found on most MIDI controllers Use the DATA knobs to set the maximum and minimum values produced by the slider DATA NEAR sets the li...

Страница 16: ...shows a cute spinny thing to represent Pitch Bend Down and Pitch Bend Up Turn the DATA FAR knob to display numbers 0 12 When using a Macchiato Mini Synth by Zeppelin Design Labs this sets the number...

Страница 17: ...the current Velocity value from the left sensor with the current Pitch value from the right sensor and transmits on the currently selected Send channel The Note On Velocity defaults to 127 upon start...

Страница 18: ...ast the same number of milliseconds whether the interval is one semitone or six octaves For pleasant melodic playing use Time values of about 10 25 The Altura MkII sounds most like a theremin at Time...

Страница 19: ...tton Tap it a few times to set the tempo Move your left hand to set a tempo multiplier 1 2 4 or 3 4 and 3 will sound the same in this context Touch the Preset Increment button to toggle back to Arpegg...

Страница 20: ...he tempo by tapping the Tap Tempo button the multiplier value is the number of notes the Altura will fit into the tap interval For example regardless of how many notes there are in your pattern if the...

Страница 21: ...the Altura MkII You can change this easily to add your own scale by hacking the open source software See PROGRAMMING THE ALTURA MkII on page 25 MODE SEMITONES Ionian Major 2 2 1 2 2 2 1 Dorian 2 1 2 2...

Страница 22: ...Altura MkII covers a single octave and its direction will match the previous selection if it was two octaves ascending then now it is one octave ascending If it was two octaves descending then now it...

Страница 23: ...er Arpeggio Setup mode The display shows ARP and the knobs can now be used to define an arpeggio of one to eight steps See Function 8 Arpeggiator on page 19 Tap this button aagain to return to theremi...

Страница 24: ...grammer This is a little circuit board with cables thaat connects a USB port on your computer to the ISP header Pin 1 of the header is the bottom right pin look for a tiny white dot on the PCB This is...

Страница 25: ...on PROGRAMMING THE ALTURA MkII The Altura MkII software was developed in the Arduino integrated development environment IDE If you are an Arduino enthusiast you can download the Altura MkII open sourc...

Страница 26: ...presets for one style of play or the other Theremin Presets Preset Data Function Key Scale Octave Notes Far Near Value Near Far 0 0 127 35 2 C 1 4 4 Descending 1 4 64 1 C 1 5 5 Ascending 2 127 0 64 2...

Страница 27: ......

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