A little preview of something we have been working on here at Fort Rebel: the Wizard, and its sidekick the Alchemist. Two tiny OWL devices to take with you on your adventures, big and small!
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Time for some rough specs:
Wizard
- USB MIDI Host
- 2x CV in
- 2x CV out
- 1x trigger in
- 1x trigger out
- 5x assignable knobs
- 4x assignable buttons
Alchemist
- 1x CV in
- 1x trigger in
- 4x assignable knobs
- 2x assignable buttons
Both
- USB MIDI Device
- stereo minijack in and out
- 24bit 48kHz audio
- runs all OWL patches
- RGB led
- 9v DC or USB powered
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The Wizard looks like the perfect buddy for my Korg Arp Odyssey already. Can’t wait to try it out.
It’s coming together, slowly but surely! Here it is as USB Host to a TouchKeys MPE keyboard, running the Poly Sub subtractive synth patch:
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Ah these look like they’ll be awesome. I’ve been keen to buy an owl for a while, but the alchemist will probably suit what I want better because of it’s size. Are the hardware specs the same as the owl? Also will you get more than 4 user patches at a time on the alchemist?
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The hardware specs are very similar, but we’re looking at giving it 8Mb buffer memory instead of 1Mb on the OWL. For storing more user patches we will roll this out in a firmware update for all devices 
And here’s the master of the trinity: the Magus!
20 bidirectional analogue patch points, six push encoders for maximum control and a beautiful OLED screen.
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@mars, looks really cool.
When will the kickstarter launch? What firmware changes will there be compared to the other OWL devices? Will you be running on FreeRTOS again or is something like RT linux planned? Bela uses Xenomai Linux which looks like a really interesting alternative if youve got something like and sd card slot going e.g. Anything like this planned for Magus?
Keep up the awesome work.
Cheers,
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Looking to launch next week!
The new firmware is here: GitHub - pingdynasty/OpenWare: Firmware for OWL devices
We use FreeRTOS for some things but not for scheduling - same as in OwlWare, the current firmware. This is how we get so much performance out of the Cortex M4 chip: about 99% without audio drop-outs. It would never be possible with OS scheduling overheads.
BTW we’re launching the Bela Modular at SuperBooth this year: http://bela.io/modular/
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Sounds good, Ill be sure to take a closer look into the new firmware. Interesting point on disabling scheduling, i see you have configured FreeRTOS preemption. So apart from the main rt task everything else like change programs, flashing etc. is handled in ISRs? And the analog encoder values are just handled with DMA and read in the main loop… cool to see how you tied this stuff together.
Re: Bela Modular… thats amazing. Just saw the core will have a BB Green (Cortex A8)? So youll be adopting the Linux RT OS that Bela uses for this? I’ve wanted to attend SuperBooth for a while but I never seem to be free around May :(. Next time…
Please welcome backer #4 - Magus looks too exciting to miss it!
Would it be possible to tweak a bit the wizard/alchemist in order to fit in a 1U eurorack panel ? (Powering it with 5 or 12v ?)
It would be another interesting option ! (smaller than the Owl modular…)
The Alchemist pcb is apprx 65x60mm, so 1U probably won’t work.
It would fit behind a normal 3U, 12HP panel, though!
Hi, I backed the Kickstarter and ordered the Wizard, but now realised I’d love to also get an Alchemist too. Kickstarter doesn’t seem to have an in-built way to change a pledge after it has been successful and charged, which makes sense so I may have missed my chance. Is there some other way I might be able to buy an Alchemist? Or should I wait now for them to become publicly purchaseable?
Do you think it would be difficult to solder some wires, in order to mount the PCB at right angle position to the panel, with brackets ? (60mm deep is OK for the case I’m planning to use)
Some tricky solution also should be found to fix the buttons…
Hi,
do the Wizard and Alchemist have the same output levels as “normal” eurorack modules? I.e. can i use them as effect boxes for my modular straight away without amping them up?
No they both have line level output, so would need to be amped up to full Eurorack level.
The Magus has both line level stereo mini-jack inputs and outputs, and (on the front) modular level inputs and outputs on mono jacks.
Ok, thanks for replying. Magus has too much of what i need very little of, so amping up the alchemist would be the ideal solution or using it as a send/return effect with a mixing desk.
Cheers!