And now, a abramson-sized-mega-thread about hobbies, motivation, and keeping things fun! an illustrated journey through my silly mistakes and occasional joyful success.
if you know me, you know I've been working for years on a megaproject called #DreamsPS4, that just came out (you should buy it, it's great!)
to keep myself sane, back in 2018, I decided to take up a hobby, namely, building (eurorack) synthesisers from scratch. Things quickly escalated from buying a single premade synth & rack (the minibrute 2 + rackbrute, since you ask), to building befaco DIY modules (hexmix...)
but I found that as usual I am just the sort of person who prefers making tools/instruments more than using them. (cf my day job). so I found myself designing 'martha the music machine'. and here started a pattern, it all got rather complex rather quick.
this was based on teensy 3.6, a small CPU-on-a-board that I'd stumbled on early on and seemed to be a good platform for learning. I'll skip over this bit of history, but I was trying to build what amounts to 8 distings bolted together, crossed with an Ornament and Crime.
Either way, it got out of hand, and nothing really worked, and I lost all motivation in my hobby. it was no longer cleansing and relaxing after work, it was just... more work.
I noticed enough that I wasnt doing anything with my (expensive!) hobby, and tried to motivate myself by making an emulator and forcing myself to code on it.
but it was still too much like work. I left it to gather dust for almost a year. my hobby languished, and I missed it, but didnt know how to motivate myself after a long day to grind more.
(what I should have realised was, I was trying to too much, too quickly. anyway). at some point I started thinking about how eurorack could differentiate itself from software. and tactile control seemed the core of it to me.
so I made a silly joystick - just a couple of batteries wired across a stock joystick (which is really just 2 knobs), and it was fun again! took an hour.
suddenly I was having fun!
and it made fart noises, which was a bonus.
but it wasn't enough to rekindle the hobby properly. I needed an idea. almost a year past, during long break, I looked back at my failed complex projects. just looking at them made me feel unmotivated. blah, so much complexity, so little fun -
then suddenly in july I thought - whats the simplest thing I can make that I'd enjoy playing? an idea popped into my head, inspired by the immediacy of pocket operators. a teensy + captouch + leds. plinky was born.
I'd learned that I hated writing software for a hobby, so decide to make software first, so I have no excuse. it sounded promising! (LOUD)
when the boards arrived from china, I was excited to build them.
they were simple enough that they pretty much worked first time. this was incredibly motivating. simple wins!
even the bringup was fun, and I felt like I was learning and having fun again. my daughter agreed! first demo:
but oh no! the CURSE OF AMBITION happened. as soon as I get success out of simple, my brain explodes with new ideas. I tried out plucked string - but gave up on this later
now I'm in full alex-complicate mode. in a fit of complex-lust, I decide to turn it into a full eurorack module with 8 ins and 8 outs, no plan what they do really, just because. <headdesk>
hey why not add a screen because I can. (this actually was a good idea, but it was just aimless at this point)
and so my real addiction of quickly designing and ordering PCBs kicks in. It really is magical being able to order professional grade PCBs from your laptop. v2 boards arrive !
this one took me out of my comfort zone for SMD assembly - but I learned alot.
I was getting a lot of support from lovely people on twitter. Thanks especially to @LPZW_Modules who taught my a recipe for SMT reflow in an oven.
But already my mind was wandering. teensy - why do I always use it? surely I could make my own CPU board... nevermind lets keep assembling
as the build progressed, I got more and more excited
there was still a simple core in there, and I didnt really care about the euro jacks even tho they were on there. a warning sign I ignored. anyway, bringup goes well!
with each success, I did the trap again: I start designing an *even more* complex version. because its going well, I somehow have to push it harder. (and lose the joy). idiot! -
while that is happening, I actually get plinky to the point that I *love* playing it. this demo got thousands of views and, for me, a *huge* reaction.
at this point people started asking if I was going to sell it? suddenly my hobby for joy was turning into... work again. but I really wanted to deliver! plinky was so much fun to play, why not release it more widely?
why not indeed. my ambitions SKYROCKETED. oh no. my motivation.... plummeted.
I tried to keep my motivtaion up with a software emu that I could hack on in the train. removing all barrier to incremental work can be a big win for hobbies.
I managed to get the arp mode working on hw... but it made me want to add a sampler too.
and now I would need masive amounts of UI. so I went on a (quite fun) side track to make a font
meanwhile I get some feedback from some synth people about maknig it a product. they all tell me its too complicated. I sort of ignore them. Im thinking about maybe instead the complex euro features arent quite right?
I tried making a stripped down design. I hated it. it didn't feel right, and I felt it betrayed what I was dreaming of. except I'd forgotten that the original plinky was actually a very simple thing in itself.
instead of simplifying, I decidde I want 4 audio ins and 4 audio outs, which means 2x codecs. ok lets make an even more complicated plinky then! that'll work!
v3 arrives - the orange one. the beast. this one was *cursed*
here I was, making it. still unaware I'd cocked up the design.
and all the while hating that it still used teensy. 'too easy'.
when you're doing this in the hours after kids are in bed, things go slow. too slow for me, and I cant stop daydreaming. but its getting there
oh no! I found the mistake in the design, the connector is backwards for the front back connection
my self worth crashes to 0. sounds silly doesnt it? but I hadn't realised - at this point I was so excited about plinky getting out into the world, not to make money, but to just have a thing out there musicians could use - suddenly my ego needed it to succeed.
and as soon as a problem came up, I irrationally collapsed. it sucked. oh well at least everything else is ok...
I pick myself up, order a new front panel, but while this is happening I decide that using teensy is not hard-mode enough, and a few people on twitter encourage me to try STM chips.
at this point I start buying cheap STM proto boards off amazon and trying to wire them into the audio parts of yellow plinky. its really fun, Im learning new stuff but the reality of making plinky a thing has faded away.
now funnily enough you may think this is a bad bit of the story. but I was back to learning new thnigs, absorbing new ideas, and thus I actually enjoyed this bit. it stretched my brain at least.
the new front panels arrive for yellow teensy version, but Im already deep into stm at this point so they never really get used
I discover that stm can run SDRAM chips, start getting excited about giant sample ram, huge delays - more complexity! but it's super fun, so design begins
with encouragement from many, especially @ebrombaugh, I go all in on an STM design. my first hand routed board
@ebrombaugh meanwhile I try to convince myself that this stm thing is gonna work by wiring bits of the teeny design to STM boards.
I was sooo lost from the origins of plinky, but at least I was having fun with my hobby again. small wins felt great
front panel working!
if I'd taken a moment to reflect, I'd have seen a pattern: a hobby is best when it's a contrast to your work, when you're able to enjoy it for yourself (and not for external validation), either because you're learning or just having fun.
I certainly had moments of that, but I kept complicating things and returning to external validation. anyway, my first stm boards arrived
get ready to bake, hours of painstaking pick and place and a very very patient girlfriend and...
EVERYTHING IS FUCKED. the solder paste had gone bad. my mood collapsed. I went to bed at like 2am utterly dejected.
but as usual, I just kept trying. I guess I'm stubborn? I had enough parts for 3 builds, and so... I made 3 builds.
the 3rd one had better work...
it did! fnially get to this point, relief
the high was unstoppable. so what do I do when I have success? that's right, I add more 'work' for myself. Alex of the future, are you reading this and learning? please say yes.
I CANT STOP MYSELF start designing a test jig, im so excited im gonna mass produce this shit right?
omg it is coming to life everything is amazing allessandro cortini and I dunno famous people people are gonna love this
I take a moment to look back at all the horror so far. I am so deep in the hole right now. 'this is all fine'. I guess it did bring me lots of joy, and lots of pain...
its looking good right? I'll admit. I was keeping myself going with thoughts of these things ending up in radiohead's rack or whatever. world domination etc. WHO NEEDS FUN HOBBIES. Im gonna rule the world
but wait... what was the original point of plinky again? captouch. does stm have captouch? it does not. sounds like a bit of a blocker right?
I mean, the whole point of plinky was simple fun project (oops) with capacitive touch as its USP (oops). I had bet on using a simple RC timing circuit.
Had I ever tested this circuit? nah, not really. I mean its like, 1 resistor and 2 GPIO pins. WCGW? well, it turns out, everything. its noise immunity is pants. it's unplayable.
this enormously fancy thing I have built, with megabytes of ram, multiple audio channels, 16 eurorack jacks, doesnt even have working touch, which is teh whole point. my hobby world collapses. I am sad. It is November 2019.
and that's where we're gonna leave this thread! tune in for part 2, another day!
the journey continues! part deux
