Ucreate Music
The ucreate music is from mattel as part of their ucreate series (currently two ‘toys’) that are designed to stretch childrens minds in a modern, artistic and affordable way.
It immediately caught my attention, it’s like a kaos pad for 6 year olds and only costs $30. My immediate thought was “this is the speak and spell of the 21st century, this could be huge”. So I brought one – after getting it this evening, I will probably be buying one for every child I know who for Christmas this year, as it’s one of the most awesome things I’ve seen in a long time.
I posted my immediate thoughts on the Monome forums, I’ll just borrow that for here:
http://post.monome.org/comments.php?DiscussionID=6224&page=1#Item_23
You basically have 4 banks (the rows) they can contain any of the samples in the “manager” each row starting one stops the current one, all 4 rows can run at once.
Each row can be selected and that’s when the FX comes into play, you cab choose from something like 7 or 8 FX using a dial and when you press and wiggle the big button the FX is applied to all the selected tracks with 2d motion (the low pass is just awesome lo-fi madness).
There is a manager app, the mac one looks like a flash app. It connects online and you have to sign up for an account.
In the manager are another hundred or so samples and you can move around any sample to anywhere. So in effect rather than having a row for each “type” of instrument, you could fill it with 12 drum samples.
There is no way to add your own sample…. BOOOO !!!
That said the 5th row is a sample row, you can record using a mic or the audio in and then you get 1 hit or loop on that sample, there are 2 A/B that you can fill, but you can only play one at a time.
It doesn’t show up in OSX as a drive (expect when I first plugged it in it appeared as a CD but that stopped once I installed the manager.
I’ll post the USB info.
The manager has a “store” section, so that makes me think they will be pretty restrictive about allowing anyone to add their own samples.
I have no idea how to hack something like this the USB connect bit, but my wish list would be simple:
- An ability to add your own loops to each of the 12 slots.
- The ability to download a recorded song
- Maybe the ability to add future fx
I also posted to the myucreate forums, I was the second post after a spammer:
http://www.myucreate.com/forums/Default.aspx?g=posts&m=4
I just got a ucreate music, and I can see a huge market for this device with electronic music production. It has the potential to be the speak and spell of the 21st century for electronic circuit benders and tinkerers.
I’m curious if this is a market that Mattel or Radica has considered and whether they will embrace it.
Embracing it would mean sharing some information that would allow people to go in and get down and dirty with the circuits and or the software that manages and is run on the ucreate.
Off the top of my head, I would love to be able to add my own samples to the 12 positions in the trigger board, I can’t see any easy way to do this with the manager. The only options seem to be limited to the samples available in the downloadable library.
I did notice a “store” section, and I could see it being seen that having the ability to add your own samples might limit users potential upsell to buying from a sample store (itunes style). If that is the case I think it’s shortsighted, as there will always be a market for more junior or less advanced users who just want samples that work, and those more advanced users who want to be able to play their own samples specifically.
I’d love to hear peoples thoughts on this. I’m hoping a solution can be found whether official or otherwise.
Thank you for producing such a well put together piece of hardware at such a reasonable price. I’ll be buying them for maybe 10 people from age 3 to age 43 this christmas.
I’m really hoping that radica, mattel or someone realize the potential sales they have the opportunity to amass IF they embrace a community that might not want to use this device in the exact way they have intended. If they in anyway open up any information that would allow 3rd party open source development of tools that can link to this hardware the have the potential to become the next huge thing that every electronic producer from the basement DJ to hip-hop moguls will have to own. Why do I think it will be that big? A combination to three things – it does a lot, not too much and it’s cheap. I own 2 stylophones. Stylophone have sold millions over the last 20 years. It’s cheap, it has a great sound and it’s tweakable. Geeks (and be honest that’s what every electronic music producer is (to quote Moby))… geeks love to tweak.
So I will be tweaking.
I’m going to crack mine open as soon as I can find the time and will post some internal shots.
I also will be posting the local copies of the .lop file and .sng file which I’m guessing is what is loaded onto the ucreate when you change the samples using the manager application.
I also have a log file, which might contain useful info to someone.
I’m at a bit of a lose though. Hacking USB protocols and handshakes and drivers is not something I have ever done, so I’m hoping some sort of community will rise up around this and then even if Mattel don’t see the opportunity we can try and make it work for us anyway.
More info to come.
Hi JP,
Lurking on the monome-forum I found your blog. I also bought a ucreate and trying to find a way to upload my own samples to it. Just did a first attempt but no luck.
Still, I thought i might as well share it with you.
As you found out the samples from the website are first copied to the loop directory. According to the log, when the file is already downloaded it doesn’t need to be downloaded a second time. This is what they mention in their video: “first time it takes a while, second time it will go faster”. This could be an opening.
A sample from the manager has got a unique number. After putting the same beat onto all the 12 keys it logged the same filename. (fe 15_)
So I was hoping that by altering a .lop in the loopdirectory the manager would see the file already there and copy this slightly hexedited file to the device and let me hear a distorted sound. According to the log-file this is how it works, but unfortunately it’s has to pass a checksum – which could be hidden in the file name after the underscore- it did not pass.. :/.
I can’t find out how this lop-file works, but even when one could save an audiofile as .lop it would have to pass this checksum..
Well, i just thought to type this 10-minute attempt here..
Best,
em
(monome128-user)
Just lurking for the moment, but hopefully I’ll have one of these before the end of the year… and then I’ll join the fray of trying to figure out how to do more with it than it was originally intended to do!
Please keep us posted on any and all progress you guys make!
- Jesse
the IC where it’s all about is probably one of those:
http://www.generalplus.com/products/speechandmusic/index.htm
a lot of detailed information about them online.
i still have not opened the toy, so i don’t know if there a type_id printed on the IC, did you find it? if yes, we should be able to send data to it.
..and then we need to interpret the .lop files.
[...] be moved from the bottom row. So I’d like to figure out how to install custom sounds. I found one other blog post asking about this, but no one who’s made it work [...]
please upload those .lop files. maybe they are raw pcm?
id like to see what they are. im actually quite anxious.
@ruin, indeed!
can import it as raw data (8 bit pcm) with audacity!
(i do mostly video, not much experience with audio)
will take a look at the id of the IC when i’m home.
I’ll do a sync again tonight with the ucreate and post the example files. PCM looks promising, especially with audacity being free
Next issue might be the checksum though.
opened it up today. the microcontroller is a dead end since its all covered with molded plastic, so no type or id for reference, only thing i know it’s manufactured by General Plus. for now i don’t see a way to approach the memory to bypass the ucreate-software and it’s checksum.
btw, the only visible part is a 16mbit 39vf1601 flash chip, probably used to store the sounddata for the realtime fx.
Hi..
I just did something..
I’m also looking to add my own loops etc to this device.
I imported as RAW, 8bit unsigned PCM into audacity.
Exported as a WAV, but changed to ALL FILES and extension .lop
I had to rename the saved file as the original was named.
When signing in to the music create site and clicking on save to unit, I noticed that the files inside the loop folder were being re-downloaded and THEN saved to device.
So I quickly recopied the file into the directory before it had a chance to save to unit overwriting the one which it had just tried to download.
and presto! – the sample saved to the device.. BUT it is playing a single loud tone instead of the sample…
Its a start…
I don’t know much about the technical side of wav files and things.
wow, sounds hopeful! will try that out tonight!
try to export it back as pcm 8 bit unsigned. audacity can do that. (and manualy rename the pcm to .lop)
HOLY CRAP.
It just worked!
Ok so I just located the .lop files on my computer, and imported one as a RAW in audacity.
you then just export as a RAW file with unsigned 8bit PCM (I had to look in preferences to change export options)
Make sure you rename the exported file the same as the original.
Sign into UCreate site, and then click save to device, the moment it finishes downloading lops… BEFORE it writes them to device, Just copy and replace your modified lop into the documents folder… if you time it right it writes it to the device.
I can confirm that it works and I have a reversed lop file on here…
NICE!
Right time to get my own tunes on there…
Absolutely awesome !
I’m going to try this out tonight. Congratulations and thanks for breaking the news here
I wonder if it’s possible to write a shell script that swaps the files for you automatically in time.
No worries, Posts on this article gave me the knowledge to try it out.
I just figured that there must be an easier way, although It would be very interesting to look inside (via sftp or ssh?? I’m probably talking crazy, but would something similar to dropbear work on the chip?)
It would be good to have an easier more permanent method, as to replace ALL the lops you need to be pretty quick.
Oh…
Also we need to find out the BPM of the files? (maybe im just being dense)
There was some propeller heads software that could analyze the bpm.. or maybe just open the wav in ableton?
Yeah, i guess as long as all the samples you load are the same (or divisions of the same) you should be fine.
How much time do you need between the download and the transfer? Does it transfer only the lop’s that it’s downloading? or the ones updated?
I’m going to play some more with this over the weekend.
When you click on save to device, you can see a percentage progress meter when it “downloads” .. Its downloading the lops one by one into the UCreate folder..
Once it reaches 100% it jumps to transferring the lops to the device, which also has a progress meter.
because it does it one by one, there is just enough time to copy each file..
I just waited until the lop I was trying had finished “downloading” then replaced it BEFORE it jumped to the next progress meter.
Hope that makes sense.
oh, so they were raw pcm, i thought so. it doesnt make sense for a microcontroller to load wavs or anythign, since i think that would require decoding, more so than raw pcm. glad my little tip off paid off. now i want to get one to see what else is possible. id like to see something made my some hacker that uploads the files for yo without the software theyve given..
There must be a simple way to handshake with this thing. I can’t believe they put any amount of real “security” on this thing, since it’s a kids toy. You’d think so shell skullduggery would be fairly simple.
I just tried putting some samples on, I get a bit confused with PCM and Hz etc..
The loops were a bit crunchy and also didn’t loop correctly, so I am doing something wrong. But it kind of worked.
Its probably my lack of knowledge of samples etc, that is getting in the way.
Ruin – maybe when you get one, you could try it out and see what you think.. You seem to have a better understanding of wavs etc.
Load your samples into Audacity at 16000 hz, 8bit unsigned, then play them in audacity. At that bit rate they sound good. Just trying the reverse process now.
Make those settings also in audacity’s preferences so it saves the wav’s as that.
However not having much success getting the files to go over to the ucreate.
No further luck, I can’t even get them back across – I suspect because I was trying to change the top left one (the first one transferred) and it was happening too fast.
I also did a whole bunch of digging around to see if I could find and monitor the USB serial connection, but no amount of running “screen” in the /dev directory helped, I can’t see any of the ttys connections that seem to be the ucreate.
All in all very frustrating. I just keep thinking that if someone from the developers came forward and explained what handshake we needed, it wouldn’t be so difficult to make a new UI that allowed the transfer of any sound clip you wanted onto your own hardware, and the possibilities would then become huge and Mattel would sell bucket loads of these.
I can’t see any downside for them, it’s not like it would harm anyone, and they would probably make more money.
Ho hum.
i managed to get the first one changed by a own sample.
the top left one gives you the most time.
first i didnt work because i accidently renamed the new sample to .raw.lop
trash the loop-directory
when saving to the unit the first file that is copied is the top left one.
trash it when it gets in (while other .lop’s pop in)
copy your own
nice!!
Just bought this for my son and want to load it up with animal effects and stuff (he’s two but he won’t leave my ableton alone!!) – many thanks to you all for clearing this one up. am going to make a bank tonight and leave it here when i’m done.
JH
uCreate looks very very cool.
Works for me, too. Kind of.
Grabbed lop file (I just picked the first one as a test) from C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Application Data\Radica\UCreate Music\SongLoops.
Opened in Audacity as 8 bit unsigned PCM > no endianness > 1 Channel (mono) > Start Offset 1 > 100% > 16000Hz.
Exported to Ablton. BPM was 96. File lasts for 2 bars.
Created new loop at 96BPM in Ableton, exported, opened in Soundforge (couldn’t figure out how to export raw data in Audacity), resampled to 16000Hz, saved as 8 bit unsigned PCM.
Renamed file to match the lop file in the uCreate app data directory
OPened uCreate app and did a ‘Save to unit’. Replaced the file after uCreate dropped it’s own one in there.
It plays on the device, BUT – only the first beat of the first bar, looping.
Any ideas what I did wrong or what I could change to get the full two bar loop?
Nearly there..
Richie
One issue I was finding was that if I pulled a “normal” sample into Audacity, matched the length etc, then resampled, the sample grew in length considerably. I’m wondering if you open your custom lop in audacity how it compares with the ucreate one.
All of the loops appear to be 80014 samples long; or 5s. 16khz 8bit mono unsigned. more to come
I’ve successfully loaded custom sounds by downloading the “hello my name is” pack. copying the .lop files to a temp folder, editing them, then performing a “save to unit” again. if you copy/replace the edited files into the SongLoops folder at just the right time, it will transfer your custom sounds to the device. It is important to keep them all 80014 samples long; or 5s. 16khz 8bit mono unsigned pcm, and by staying consistent with the sample pack “hello my name is” the checksum based file names will stay the same.
also interesting is the sfx appear to implement .dll files. I’m curious if these might be vst based; customized where the rocker varies one or more parameters each effect is aware of. One could try loading the dlls as vsts in a windows based audio app, though there are other proprietary files for each dll in the same folder.
Mom’s getting my nephew one of these for Christmas and after seeing this stuff I just had to carefully open it up and check it out. It’s pretty sweet. I didn’t hook it up usb or anything, but I’m impressed with it out of the box. Definitely looks like it’s ripe for hacking. Hopefully some genius out there is figuring out the flash upload protocol and throwing together a standalone upload app. VST dll’s also sound amazing..
um do you have to pay ? I hope not
Can u download your song from the web site then save in to documents then save to my music then burn it to a cd?
A super easy way to get some custom noise onto this thing without messing about in audacity is to just sample both A and B recordings on it, connect to the software and do ’save to my packs’ and then ’save to unit’ – the samples will thus appear in your loops folder; back them up to somewhere else, rename with the filenames of whichever of the offical loop you wanna replace, then load them back on using the tricks detailed above.
The two i just tried came out at 72k as opposed to the standard loops’ 80k, not sure if that means they won’t sync? my test samples were just blowing into the mic noise so it’s hard to tell ^_^;
more testinggg now!
I think these lop files actually DO have a header!
when I make raw files of the supposed correct format + length they tend to be messed up; weird fades, clicks, incorrect looping, not looping at all but going to the next sample, etc etc sometimes.
All the official lop files seem to have a spikey rogue couple of samples at the start and a single click at the end, but sound ok thru the toy, i think these are some kind of header/loop info.
Trying some experiments now.
Interesting find. I’ve not had nearly enough time to hack about with this. I still think the potential is huge, I just wish it were easier to get into it and hack it. Such a shame they won’t open up some of the documentation, or firmware.
OK my further findings:
Not sure exactly what the header is/says but by basically looking at the waveform and trying to avoid damaging it I’ve managed to:
* make a near-perfect sine wave (bit of a faint click) which additionally was a really short sample, not the full 5 sec, but seemed to play ok and not mess anything else up.
* paste like an extra 5-6 seconds AT THE END OF ONE OF THE STOCK LOOPS AND IT PLAYS THE WHOLE THING O_O with no apparent loss of any other samples etc.,..uhhh how much spare space does this thing have on it I wonder? (or would it maybe crash if i try and record a song?
anyway promising. Hope someone can properly crack this thing for more convenient and controllable mods tho.
Hmm i tried to put a whole bunch of new samples on it and it failed to upload + now won’t power up… lights just glow very faintly, hoping it’s just dead batteries and not fried it somehow. Will get some more tomorrow and check.!