Getting Started with WVR Arduino

[David Battino]

I'm an Arduino noob. So far I've loaded sketches onto two dedicated devices I've built, a Drumkid and ArduTouch. From the WVR manual, it appears we can load Arduino sketches onto WVR from the firmware screen? If so, what sketches would you recommend trying? My boards have just the MIDI input — nothing attached to the other GPIO pins (yet).

[WVR Audio]

Yes you can upload compiled sketches (.bin files) to the firmware tab in the GUI, and boot them.

All the published .bin files are organized here https://github.com/marchingband/wvr_binaries

And the corresponding Arduino .ino files are here https://github.com/marchingband/wvr/tree/main/examples

I don't think any of those would interest you in terms of functionality, although they do demonstrate some techniques. The wvr_thames.ino file in particular does a bunch of cool things, such as a sustain pedal for example, but it's all specific to the Thames pedal from the kickstarter.

WVR was designed primarily as a no-code device, and the custom-firmware-via-Arduino side of it hasn't been taken up by anyone yet that I know of. I do have hopes that some day more coders will be attracted to WVR as a platform, and it's all set up and ready, if they do.

If you get interested in implementing some custom functionality, I'd be more then happy to help out! I made a custom firmware a few months ago for a user who wanted some specific MIDI CC functionality for their MS20, its here : https://github.com/marchingband/wvr/blob/main/examples/wvr_custom_cc/wvr_custom_cc.ino

[Robert Petersen]

Once you upload a compiled sketch to the firmware tab and boot it, does the Arduino sketch run in addition to the WVR audio code?  So I would still have access to all of the audio functionality as well as the WVR GUI?

[Robert Petersen]

OK, I think this thread answered my question:

https://groups.google.com/g/wvr-audio/c/MZN3idxtqqU

Yes, it does appear to run both the WVR audio program, and the uploaded arduino code at the same time.

I will start another thread with my next question!

[WVR Audio]

That would be amazing, unfortunately I don't think that's possible until someone writes a ESP32 kernel/OS of some kind.

The WVR Arduino library has all the code that runs on the default WVR firmware, so writing a custom firmware means adding to that code.

wvr_basic.ino is what ships with WVR, which basically just calls wvr.begin()
wvr_thames.ino is an example of a custom binary, where a lot of new functionality is build into the Arduino program. A sustain pedal for a piano, and encoder to scroll through voices and set the volume, controlling some LEDs, a cool way to simulate the hi-hat on a drum set, and some other stuff. This binary also calls wvr.begin().

It is very important to note that a FTDI->USB module is needed to safely hack on WVR code.

[Robert Petersen]

Ah, I see.  So they don't run "in parallel".  The downloaded Arduino code actually includes all the WVR code as well.  This will also work for my application.

[WVR Audio]

Great!

As far as I know, you will be the first user to work with the Arduino library, so that's very exciting!

Let me know if you need any help, or if anything in the user experience with the libraries is sub-optimal.