iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

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that's true... I am definitely undercounting

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Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

the arduino nesso n1 is a pretty cool piece of hardware, aself-contained unit with a small touchscreen, wifi, buttons, lo-ra, etcetera. here's a project I just made with it to control my sonos setup at home without using my phone. project is up on github! www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG-p...

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arduino nesso n1 as a sonos controller

Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

I'm no stranger to derailment, myself! so much to explore, so little time...

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Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

thanks chris! I need to make a video on it soon. I've been dipping my toe into live performance with it lately, in the context of supplementing a DJ set, and it's been a ton of fun

a cyberdeck next to DJ decks, in a brewery

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Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

I love to do my part to help get people into cyberspace!

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Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

yes! through an extremely long sysex message in which you send a packed bitmap. I'm not sure which nerd at novation added this feature, but I salute them 🫡

Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

okay, to close the loop on this one: when I got the device, I was worried I had a big reverse-engineering problem ahead of me... only to find that novation provides robust documentation and hackability out of the box. super impressed. here we are 3 evenings of work later: a custom control surface!

Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

oh nice! DAW mode is well-documented, this doc works for the LC3 as well. you can use note messages to flip into DAW mode and enable relative CCs per row, and control the LEDs and LCD with sysex. sweet! not quite plug and play... but very customizable userguides.novationmusic.com/hc/en-gb/art...

userguides.novationmusic.com

Launch Control XL 3 programmer's DAW mode

DAW mode provides additional functionality, allowing DAWs and DAW-like software to realise intuitive user interfaces on the Launch Control XL 3’s surface. The capabilities described in this chapter...

Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

so, there's a thread I'll tug. curiosity got the better of me, once again.

Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

aha! my preorder arrived. it looks like it does indeed send absolute CC messages through the "LC3 1 MIDI Out" port... but if you can get the device into DAW mode, through opening a supported DAW (or by tricking it?), then it will send relative CCs, through the "LC3 1 DAW Out" port.

Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

sweet, thanks for the scoop! hopefully I can procrastinate long enough on hacking it that they handle it for me

Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

aw man, my preorder just shipped, I had (reasonably?) assumed it would be sending relative CC messages. hopefully could be fixed with a firmware update from them? or maybe I have a new side project ahead of me...

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Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

I just met him for the first time 2 months ago at middlesex. he was immediately nice, we had a good conversation about together fest and a mutual friend who had passed away. I was looking forward to the next time I ran into him. thanks for sharing the news.

Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

I made a simple app that makes it possible to use the Ableton Move as a generic MIDI control surface. it's available for free on github. check it out! youtu.be/3MFJ3M2qzuE #ableton #abletonmove #midi #synth #synthsky

youtu.be

use your Ableton Move as a MIDI controller

Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

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further progress on the bespoke cyberdeck. it's held together nicely with an aluminum frame now, all super sturdy and opens/closes without anything getting squished or falling out. I was planning to add an aluminum faceplate, but it looks cool in this exposed form, so I'll leave it as-is #synthsky

a cyberdeck with an ableton move controller running bespoke

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Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

there's a part of me that _likes_ having everything exposed and messy... but I've finally admitted to myself that it's impractical to stick to that ideal

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Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

here's a look at a new "interface" module, now available in the latest bespoke nightly: youtu.be/doDEtCytQGA #bespokesynth

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new bespoke module: interface!

Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

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here's a demo of bespoke's new latencycalculator module, plus a fun accidental discovery that you can use it to measure real-world distances (???) youtu.be/9TesmE8e3-A #bespokesynth

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latency calculation in bespoke, and the speed of sound

Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

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tassel cowboy was the life of the party

Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

awesome times playing #somerville #porchfest yesterday with acid basket!

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and once I get this technical part out of the way, the actual "recreate the move workflow" part can begin!

I'm using the move's "control live" mode, and having bespoke pretend to be live. much of the "control live" mode works very similarly to push 2, so I'm able to leverage a lot of the push 2 API that ableton generously released on github, and just need to adapt a few things to work with move instead.

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I really love the move hardware and workflow, but (as is my way) I really want the ability to push it a little further add my own features. my goal is to recreate much of the move's functionality within bespoke, paired with bespoke on a steam deck, to make a mini music-making station.

...and it's pretty similar in many ways. the display format for the screen is pretty wild though. once I get further along, the code for this will go up on bespoke's github as well.

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I'm using the public push 2 API (github.com/Ableton/push... and github.com/Ableton/push...) which was mindblowingly awesome of them to release, and then doing some reverse engineering from there. I've got a head start since I already wrote bespoke's push2 integration (github.com/BespokeSynth...) ...

github.com

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Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

I really love figuring out how to make hardware do stuff that it's not meant for

ableton move controller with "bespoke" printed on the display

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there's so much I want to do with bespoke, and so few decades left to achieve it!

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Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

woah, sweet: the ableton move uses a very similar protocol as the push 2 for communication, so with only a minor tweak, bespoke already has some minimal move support

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Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

sweet! I plugged the push 2 into the steam deck, and the integration with bespoke works out of the box, I didn't have to fix anything!

an ableton push 2 connected to a steam deck running bespoke synth

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Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

thanks paul! finally in the clear and out of quarantine

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Ryan Challinor @awwbees.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

"hello, 40 year old man, now that it's several days before christmas: what did you think of that unicorn diary set that you purchased from us in early december? what do you mean, you 'haven't opened it yet'?"

email review request for a child's unicorn diary set that was purchased as a christmas gift for my kid, with little apparent contextual awareness that we're in a gift-buying season

thanks chris! pretty much all better now, and the quarantine period is finally over tomorrow

how does bluesky work? what's the vibe? do I do hashtags here? #bespoke #bespokesynth #synthsky

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how did I find the time to put out a new release of my open source project during the height of the christmas season, you ask? why, I simply contracted a rare influenza-A strain and have been living in my basement in quarantine, which is a pretty effective way to clear your calendar.

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roy of the ravers - emotinium, in bespoke

hello everyone! yesterday was the december solstice, so let's start our new solar year with a new version of bespoke: 1.3.0! download at bespokesynth.com or on github, and here's a song to celebrate: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XjR...

youtube.com