NIBBLE-KO

NIBBLE-KO is the percussion half of NIBBLE (uglifruit/WorkshopNibble), expanded into a dedicated twelve-voice drum machine: every voice independently synthesised or sample-based, chosen and uploaded from a browser WebUI.<br><br>

Patch one output of the FOUR VOLTAGES module into CV In 1. The card learns which voltage each button combination produces, the same ten-level detector and SHIFT technique as NIBBLE's Percussion half: hold one button as a bank select, tap another to play it repeatedly - twelve ordered gestures from four buttons and six pairs.<br><br>

CALIBRATION IS THE WHOLE GAME. Use output 1 of Four Voltages with its knob near twelve o'clock, and give the card ten well-separated voltages. Levels that sit close together do not fail cleanly - a pad plays the wrong drum, fires twice or does nothing, differently each time. The card blinks LEDs 4 and 5 when two captures are too close; move the knob and run it again rather than playing around it.<br><br>

The momentary switch is a MODE SELECTOR rather than a trigger. Hold it and press a button to choose - drums, mute groups, or twelve performance effects - then Middle plays that mode and Up records it. Because the mode latches, everything is recorded through one mechanism.<br><br>

THE EFFECTS are four banks of three, the shift picking the family: filters, destruction (crush, decimate, wavefold), rhythmic (stutter, flam, gate) and transport (reverse, tape-stop, silence). Up to four layer at once, in series. The transport bank means different things to different voices - a sample plays backwards where a synthesised voice runs its ENVELOPE backwards, a swell instead of a decay - so one press gives backwards kick and hats over swelling toms at the same time. Each shift records two lanes, the effect and its own parameter curve, so a sweep can be drawn once and effects punched in and out over the top of it.<br><br>

THREE PATTERN SLOTS sit on the fourth mode, where the SWITCH is the verb: hold D and tap A, B or C to recall a slot instantly, or do the same with the switch UP to store the live loop into it instead. That reuses what Up already means everywhere else - commit this to the loop - so there is no new gesture to learn. Recall does not move the playhead, so switching mid-bar reads as the band changing part rather than a stop and start, and it discards whatever you were playing, which is what makes it possible to try something over a pattern and abandon it.<br><br>

PATCHABLE. CV In 2 takes over the Main knob, Pulse In 2 fires a random effect for as long as it is high, and Audio In 1 and 2 set that effect's depth and a global CHAOS level. Chaos drives two glitch generators on the CV outputs - one sparse and beat-anchored, one dense and syncopated, both following the live quantise grid. Patch either back into Pulse In 2 and the card glitches itself.<br><br>

1.2.1. Drums, the looper, mute groups, the twelve effects, pattern slots, sample playback, the browser sample manager, flash-saved calibration and the CV expansion above are all played and working on hardware. Patterns can be SAVED TO YOUR COMPUTER and loaded back from the browser tool, as plain JSON files - the card keeps its three slots in RAM, so the file on disk is the permanent copy. A pattern stores voice numbers rather than sounds, so one saved against any kit plays against any other. New in this release: the LOOP LENGTH is settable from 4 to 16 beats, so odd time signatures are playable - the click is unstressed and nothing marks beat one, so fourteen beats is 7/4 twice, or 5/4 + 2/4 + 3/4 + 4/4, or whatever you hear in it. Shortening is non-destructive: the card always records the full sixteen beats, so putting the length back brings the hidden hits with it. The loop also keeps playing while the browser tool is connected, so a voice can be re-pointed at a new sound and judged by ear against the pattern it has to sit in. 1.2.1 fixes the browser tool failing to find the card when the computer shows it under another Workshop card's cached MIDI name - it now identifies the card by asking rather than by matching the port name. That is a change to the web page only: THE FIRMWARE IS UNCHANGED FROM 1.2.0 AND NEEDS NO REFLASHING - the UF2 below is the same binary, so if you are already running 1.2.0 just take the new browser page. See the repository's README for the fuller detail.

Copy the UF2 onto the Computer's program card (RP2040 bootloader drive).