[darraghenright]

Interesting article with some very useful information. This reminds me of a perennial, and mostly untouched back-burner project of mine :)

I've owned a Roland MC-202 Microcomposer for many years. It's an early '80s analogue monosynth with a two track sequencer that's a LOT of fun, but is infamously awkward to program. It allows you to dump sequences in an audio-based format to tape and load them back.

Rather than endure the slog of programming sequences directly on the machine, I've often dreamed of a workflow where you could program sequences in a UI, and then encode that information to generate an audio file that you could then load into the MC-202.

For example, it'd be relatively straightforward to create a web-based UI using HTML5 audio to create a simple sequence builder that you could then dump to some text/cell format.

The challenging part would be using this information to encode the final audio file. I've done a little research, and I read the MC-202 uses an encoding format that's similar to, but not the same as, the Kansas City Standard. One day I'll dive into this (hopefully it won't be too complex for me!)

[ajxs]

Author here: Thanks for your kind words! I know someone has helpfully linked an application with this functionality, however in case you were still interested in building an app yourself, I say go for it! The PCM format for encoding raw audio is actually relatively simple, and if the mechanism the MC-202 uses to 'sample' the incoming audio is anything like the method Yamaha used then it's very resilient, and doesn't require a very precise 'wave' at all. Maybe you can find a similar encoding to what the MC-202 uses in this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cassette_tape_data_sto...

[tenebrisalietum]

I had an MC-202 for a while as well.

Here's how hard it is to program, from what I remember:

- You had to enter your pitches.

- Then you switch into a different mode, and enter the durations of the notes.

- Then you switch into a still third mode, and enter whether you want the note on or off.

All this on a 5 character 7-segment LCD display.

Anything beyond simple bass lines was too difficult for me, but this machine was really good at those.

[darraghenright]

This is pretty accurate :D The third mode is the gate mode, you can choose a note to have a gate value of 0 to turn the note off, up to any value matching the length of the note.

One reason why I'd like a more expressive editor is to really play with stuff like this. For example could have two patterns, otherwise identical, but one might have a final note length of one less then the other. Then they would phase in and out with each other over a period of time, like some sort of acid house Steve Reich :D

Interestingly, since I originally posted I came across a really interesting mod project for the MC-202 that's currently work in progress. Sounds like an amazing upgrade, will definitely be checking this out!

https://tubbutec.de/mc-2oh2/

[Supernaut]

Someone has already implemented that same idea!

https://defectiverecords.com/portfolio/mc-202-hack/

[darraghenright]

I actually found this a long time ago, totally forgot about it and found it again this week. I've been doing a lot of MC-202 related searching I guess. I tried the demo and it works well! I do like the idea of a more matrix-style editing interface. Nevertheless, I will probably shell out for this.