Indeed such a module is not very challenging for an electronic designer. But
you have to keep in mind some pre-conditions for a modular system:

1. All inputs, outputs, controls and so on have to be available at a
suitable front panel
2. All inputs and outputs have to be protected against over-voltages and
short circuits.

From my experience these two items take more than 80% of the development
time. Building a prototype without front panel, manually wired I/O sockets
and controls, and without protection circuits can be realized very simple
and fast for many applications (especially with microcontrollers). But for
the final modules one has to find suitable electromechanical parts and the
right positions for all inputs, outputs and controls, and arrange them in a
suitable way to optimize the pc board layout.

For some A-100 modules with microcontrollers the additional circuitry for
(2) is more than 50% of the hardware. A standard microcontroller with
built-in ADC (like Arduino) usually withstands only a 0...+5V CV. In the
A-100 modular system voltages in the range -12V ... +12V may be present. So
you have to add suitable protection circuits for all analog and digital
inputs to avoid the damage of the microcontroller.

Anyway - if there are sufficient inquiries for an arpeggiator module we'd be
happy to develop such a unit.

Best wishes
Dieter Doepfer

> > I would love to see this module happen! The monophonic nature
> of analog could be handled with a bank of switches to select
> scale relationships, along with 1 or 2 extra cv or switching
> inputs for more control. It doesn't need to be perfect or on par
> with the best arpeggiators out there, I'd be happy with just the
> 32 pre-defined patterns as suggested. Clock in, main CV in, chord
> cv in, gate out, cv out would make me very happy :) Maybe also a
> way to control the pattern via cv but really in use I don't think
> it's needed, flipping a switch is probably easier than playing a
> chord on a real keyboard :P
>
> You know, such a module is fantastically simple to implement in
> software using, say, an Arduino board. Solder on some CV inputs
> for root pitch and clock speed, and a button and some LEDs for
> scale, some others for direction (up, down, pingpong), a switch
> for one-shot / loop, and some CV outputs for pitch and gate.
> Then probably a few dozen or so lines of C code, written over a
> few days, should be sufficient. If there's not enough interest
> for a proper commercial arpeggiator module, I could whip up an
> amateur one like that over a few days. (Alas, as to *which* few
> days), it would have to be after I've finished Stepper Acid and a
> few other projects, which are actually more complex than an
> arpeggiator anyway. I would have made the arpeggiator first if I
> had any use for it, but I simply do the arpeggiation in MIDI
> before converting to CV as it's more versatile that way.)
>
> Anyway, let me know if anyone would be interested in, say, such
> source code and schematics.
>
> All the best,
> Zoë.
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>