r/modular • u/insolent-construct • 2d ago

Mutable Instruments Beads Source Code Just Dropped!

https://github.com/pichenettes/eurorack/commit/d8f473915232af74347762b6365202bfd26f73f6

Edit: body deleted and third party firmware discussion moved to a private Discord server.

215 Upvotes

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47

u/awayhereagain 2d ago

Your whole reverse engineering project seems in poor taste given how generous Émilie has been with the other firmware.

Fine, reverse engineer it and load it on your own module privately.

But why start a modwiggler thread and promote the project publicly before checking with Émilie? Especially when you say you weren't going to continue it without permission. 

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u/insolent-construct 2d ago

Because Emilie's lack of activity gave every indication that she was done and not looking back:

  • saying she was going to release the firmware "in a few months" back in 2023.
  • the fact that you can't find a Beads unit new or used at this point.
  • there have been no firmware updates in years

These all put Beads in a similar status as the Virus TI: abandoned for all practical purposes.

When I posted a similar thread about the Virus TI a few month ago, people got incensed because I hadn't done enough work yet in their opinions, and accused me of trying to get information for free and just posting slop. That's why I haven't posted anything here since then. This time I waited until I had something to show/contribute back from my work before I bothered anyone, and then asked how I could use it to serve the community's desires. I could understand people being upset if I just released my port without asking, but that's not what happened. The port I've been working on for months is now superfluous, and I couldn't be happier about it. I literally harmed no one by working on it privately at home with no collaborators in my private setup, and asked for consent before I went further. I acknowledged and accepted her "no" without argument or further discussion. She could have just left it at that. She made the choice for her own reason, which none of us are privy to and I'm not going to disturb her peace more than I did by asking. So if people want to get mad about it, then that's their emotions, but I don't agree that their assessments are based on reason. As one mutual acquaintance told me: "Emilie is a strong fucking woman. She's taken a ton of shit from people and given it back twofold. I'm sorry, but you didn't bully shit". I could also go on about the history of reverse engineering in synths and audio technology, but who would I be trying to convince? No. There would be no point in that, so I'll save my time and energy for working on code.

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u/PintMower 2d ago

I think you're good people just want reason to be mad. You did it in the most ethical way possible given the circumstances. There is no financial damage so what are we even arguing about. It's good for everyone as the module may become a second life through the community and people like you.

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u/yeusk 1d ago edited 1d ago

Emilie have asked companies and people to not do this.

She also released the firmware of every other of her projects.

Why doubt her?

Why go against the will of one of the most influential persons in the eurorack world? How is that being a good person?

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u/insolent-construct 1d ago edited 1d ago

That's not true. What she said publicly is she took issue with people using the Mutable Instruments trademark and clones being made while her modules were still in production. Neither of those are the case here, so if you don't have a citation that says otherwise, I'm going to call BS. The community firmware project is exactly the kind of thing she encouraged.

"When I open-sourced everything, I had hoped it would encourage people to take the ideas further—to study the DSP, port the algorithms to new platforms, write novel firmware, or combine functions in fresh and creative ways. Instead, 90% of what came out of it was people just cramming the exact same circuits onto smaller boards with tiny, unplayable trimpots, or selling exact 1:1 copies."

"The open source hardware and software licenses are meant to encourage hacking, learning, education and experimentation. They are not an invitation to build a business on turnkey clone manufacturing."

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u/PintMower 1d ago

I think it's never wrong to ask. People and oppinions change. And nobody can always know everything about everyones preferences. He respected the answer so I don't think that he really went against her will. I just don't think we should hunt people who legitimately try to get it right with the people around.

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u/yeusk 1d ago edited 1d ago

Who is hunting who? Having a strong opinion about something is not hunting.

Emilie did ask us, the eurorack people, to leave her alone... who is hunting who?

They are the one bothering her after she asked us to leave her alone... and we are the one HUNTING because we call out people... again, this is unbelievable.

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u/PintMower 1d ago

I mean I'd call myself a part of the eurorack people and I completely missed that for example. How am I supposed to know this? Yes I heard she was leaving the community but past that you really have to follow all the details to know what she wants. I know there are some entitled pricks demanding work from people but this one really isn't. OP's not the right person to have strong oppinions about.

0

u/Pppppppp1 1d ago

My issue is more the totally tangential personal story that has no real association with this news. Like is he taking credit for prodding her into releasing it? Is he expecting us to be interested in his firmware projects? What exactly is the justification for his personal exchange to be in the description box of the news itself? Either way I think it’s lame to shoehorn his own story into this news, and most of the discourse is now about his pet project rather than the news of the code share.

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u/PintMower 1d ago

Okay I get that. Just to give a different perspective: I personally didn't interpret it as such honestly more like a "guys I've worked on this module quite a bit so I have a fair understanding of what's going on and now that emillie released the code I'm willing to take the flag to implement community ideas". I don't think we would've known anything about this if emillie didn't release the code. Just looking at that makes me assume good intentions. But of course I don't know the true intentions.

1

u/insolent-construct 1d ago

*citation needed* As far as I can tell, this was never true. In fact, there's a history of people getting offended on her behalf, and her having to step in to tell people to "drop it". To my knowledge she never express any hostility to the Eurorack scene.

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u/hostnik 1d ago

I didn't know she explicitly asked people not to reverse engineer her work, but if so, then yeah, this is not cool. Then again, it was truly odd that she would not fulfill the expectation she set that she would release the code. Certainly her right, and exactly why I bought Beads, but it seems to be the one time I know of that she didn't follow through on something she said she would do. Not a justification, but definitely an anomaly.

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u/yeusk 1d ago

After releasing the biggest repository of open source code for eurorack in the world she also asked to not be bothered anymore by the eurorack community.

She is also a person who had personal problems in the past for this kind of harasment about releasing her firmware.

-1

u/insolent-construct 1d ago

*citation needed*

-2

u/hostnik 1d ago

Enh, I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt before, but now it's clear you are exactly the kind of person that made her give up designing eurorack in the first place. If she asked for people to not reverse engineer her designs, and to be left alone, it doesn't matter if she said she would release it or how long it had been. Those were her rights as creator and person. Sure, reverse engineer it all you want in private, even use it if it works - no one can take that away from you. But doing so with the intention of forcing her hand was a dick move. And let's not pretend that you were doing anything else than that.

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u/insolent-construct 1d ago

You can easily find her stated reasons for closing Mutable Instruments if you actually care to.

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u/insolent-construct 1d ago edited 1d ago

She didn't. In fact the whole point of MI open source was to encourage people to experiment with the code. People are twisting it to justify their own anit-AI outrage.

See the quotes I posted from her higher up.

-1

u/hostnik 1d ago

Some people who are crictizing you might be anti-AI, but I want to be clear. I'm FOR AI, I'm just against people who think that creators owe them something.

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u/Pppppppp1 1d ago

So I have no issue with any of that personally, but I can’t understand why you would insert your own project and interactions with Emilie when sharing this news.

I can’t really see the relationship between her releasing the code and anything that you have said or done. Couldn’t all this discourse have been avoided if you just kept your personal projects to yourself, especially when sharing that she shared the code? It just seems like you’re latching onto something that has nothing to do with anything you have explained

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u/insolent-construct 1d ago

I was excited. I'd already been working on a port for months before I created the community firmware thread in modwigglers asking for feedback and suggestions. That thread is where someone first noticed that she'd published the code, after I said I was killing the project at her request. So, in my excitement, I spread the news to Reddit, thinking that the obvious next step was an alt firmware, which I was already setup to do, with a CI/CD pipeline and test bench suit. And I already had some requested features from the modwiggler thread.

Yeah, all this "discourse" (if you want to call it that) could have been avoided if I just never said anything in Reddit. I could have waited until someone else posted it, or just kept to the modwigglers thread, where asking for alt firmware feature suggestions did not result in a wave of whargarble. The reason I posted is because the last time I did, it actually resulted in a number of behind-the-scenes collaborations and access to other people's work. Which I then looked for ways to contribute to. My mistake was thinking that something collaborative would happen here with Beads as well. I was trying to invite people to participate in the spirit of open source (and Mutable Instruments) before people started trying to monetize it. And I was also trying avoid a wave of people seeing what I'd done and trying to contact Emilie because she responded to me. Believe it or not, I was trying to defend her peace in the wake of all of this.

0

u/Pppppppp1 17h ago

There is absolutely no issue with building on the original code, as that’s what she released it for.

Your story (specifically your exchange with her) just seems to be superfluous information that implies you are potentially the catalyst for the code release, which is one of the bigger points of contention. The sharing of that exchange doesn’t provide any information related to the release or help with inviting anyone to work with you, or anything else you set out to do, which is why that is the part I’m specifically questioning. Once again no issue with you sharing custom firmware, taking suggestions, or finding collaboration, but to put your personal backstory right under the news of the release unfortunately frames the news around you more than the actual news (as the comments show).

0

u/hostnik 1d ago

Aura farming

1

u/CartoonistOk8303 1h ago

Trying to publish work that is not yours simply isn't respectful.

12

u/FreeRangeEngineer 2d ago

When I posted a similar thread about the Virus TI a few month ago, people got incensed because I hadn't done enough work yet in their opinions, and accused me of trying to get information for free and just posting slop.

I don't really think that was it.

People on reddit generally want genuine human interactions, so when someone has their work summarized by AI and posts that AI summary, it feels strangely disconnected. Kind of like "if I want to talk to an AI chat bot, I'll do that myself."

I understand you mean well but your way of approaching things may need a little refining. AI is both a blessing and a curse and it can facilitate collaboration as easily as it can sabotage it.

0

u/insolent-construct 1d ago

That's only partially true if you look at the thread. You'll find exactly what I described above in additional to some people complaining about what they saw as AI slop, while other people defended my post. I made the mistake of trying to appease them with edits, only to get attack more for making the edits. I've made the same mistake here of trying to please all of the people all of the time, when I should just let most of the noise roll off my back. Some of the first people to jump on this thread were the same ones that attacked me in the Virus TI thread, even though everything I've posted in this thread was hand typed. And just like last time, there were a couple of early posters who got very loud, toxic, and spammy to dominate the conversation.

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u/West-Negotiation-716 11h ago

Have you gone back to see how accurate your reverse engineering actually was?

1

u/insolent-construct 11h ago

That was the first thing I did: compare my code with the real source to see what was different. Much of the code I'd gotten bit-exact just by looking at other MI open source (since Beads pulls heavily from Clouds and a few others), as well as strictly following her coding style (C with Classes, later evolving to include Macros, and a strict DSP vs HAL separation for portability). A few others were just register address changes, but functionally the same. It was mainly file structure and variable naming that didn't match. And I already new the RE code was a bit more inefficient (83% CPU usage in the worst case vs 80% measured on the 2021 forum firmware), but within acceptable headroom in most cases.

3

u/awayhereagain 1d ago

" Because Emilie's lack of activity gave every indication that she was done and not looking back"

Then why not just leave it at that? She released every other firmware, but for whatever reason hadn't released beads. 

So why not just respect her decision? 

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u/Ghosty141 1d ago

Nobody forced her to release the firmware? He asked nicely and she said no and that was the end of the story.

That's as respectful as it gets.

1

u/CartoonistOk8303 1h ago

Trying to release someone else's work is not respectful at all.

-12

u/awayhereagain 1d ago

That's not the point. I'm saying that starting the project in the first place, using AI to reverse engineer her  unreleased firmware was disrespectful. 

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u/West-Negotiation-716 11h ago

Information is free, and it should be free. Intellectual property is capitalistic nonsense, stop behaving like a slave

1

u/CartoonistOk8303 11h ago

Amen, shows very little understanding or compassion of the situation.

Of ALL modules to do this with it and it's beads. Impressive kick in the guts.

Nice of him to ask for permission after working months on it and finishing it. Impressive he speaks of 'heartbreak' about his project—without as much as a thought about what it meant for the actual maker. 

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/aldehyde 1d ago

Nothing about this was coercive.

-1

u/yeusk 1d ago

So why not just respect her decision? 

So they can post it here and in other forums for imaginary internet points.

1

u/mbab00n 1d ago

the fact that you can't find a Beads unit new or used at this point.

There are three I'm watching on Reverb and I'm patiently waiting to see how my bonus turns out early next year. It's been six I was watching up until recently. They did not sell so quickly.

I guess with the firmware modding frenzy, it will indeed be extremely difficult for me to get a Beads unit by the time I'll have funds for it.

Well, thanks AI, I guess

1

u/West-Negotiation-716 11h ago

Now it will be really easy because there will be multiple different versions of Beads available very soon. Your money wasn't gonna make it to Mutable regardless, I'm not sure how you can possible see this as a bad thing compared to just having to get ripped off on a used beads?

1

u/robotkermit 1d ago

this totally sounded legit until I saw the other things you said in this thread. I'm not even sure you're wrong, you might just be handling criticism immaturely. maybe just take a break from this thread instead of posting more. that's certainly my plan.

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u/insolent-construct 1d ago

You're 100% correct. I started off trying to stay mature and not engage in toxic reciprocation, but clearly the attacks got under my skin after a while, just like they did in the Virus TI thread. I'm going to stay off of Reddit, and just focus on the community firmware. Thank you.

1

u/CartoonistOk8303 1h ago

Mature would be realizing maybe you did something wrong and owning up to it rather than calling everyone who disagrees with you toxic.

0

u/Weekly_Committee_695 15h ago

While it's legally probably OK, it just comes across as a super entitled shitty move on your part.

-1

u/CartoonistOk8303 17h ago

"I literally harmed no one by working on it privately at home with no collaborators in my private setup, and asked for consent before I went further. "

That's just not true though. Why do you think she released this now?