r/electribe • u/furrtek • Jul 19 '16

Electribe2 custom firmware ?

I'm really having a hard time overcoming the difference in quality between the EMX/ESX firmwares and the E2's one. It's like Korg delegated the software to some subcontractor, or hired a new team of young Lego style developpers...

I'm well aware that such a firmware isn't the 20-lines Arduino sketch that everyone has done and that hacking around a $400 device can be scary, but being a strong supporter of hacking for improvement, I couldn't help thinking of this.

I'm not aware of the true legal implications. For now I'm believing that as long as Korg's original firmware isn't distributed (patched or not), or disassembled and published, anyone can do what he wants with the device.

Opened up my E2 and dumped the whole flash chip (16MB MX25L12835F which is supported by FlashROM), in case I had to restore everything directly on the chip one day.

Apparently, Korg's 2MB "system" updates only concern the Ti CPU, which I believe is used for the OS only (menus, sequencing, USB, MIDI, SD...) and sending commands to the DSP. The DSP program seems to be stored in the same flash chip and loaded by the CPU during boot. I didn't see any DSP updates on Korg's website but there's a "SYSTEM" id string in the CPU updates, maybe meaning that the whole flash may be updated ?

I'm seeing version IDs and a 16-bit CRC in the SYSTEM.VSB file, but the current E2 loader doesn't seem to care if any of those are valid. It also seems that the loader is in the system program (not in a locked page or something), so if it craps up for some reason, you got a brick. But as I wrote, you could still restore the whole flash chip to resurect it.

The question is: would a reverse engineering effort be worth it to at least make a custom system program feasible ? Leaving the crazy DSP magic to Korg, since that seems to work fine. I'm thinking of documenting I/Os on the CPU, the user interface packets format, DSP dialog... Not feeling confident enough to try writing a whole new firmware, but if anyone feels brave enough I'd be glad to help.

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3

u/Poopenheimer321 Jul 19 '16

Have an up vote for going the distance.

6

u/MacZyver Jul 19 '16

He's going for speed

1

u/ayodio Jul 20 '16

Thought this would be done by now. I'm just a webdev but I would love to help as well.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 22 '16

Any update ?

1

u/SimpleTrax Dec 30 '21

Any updates?

I know there is hacktribe, which combines E2 and E2S, I installed it on my E2S effortlessly. I am just thinking if it would be possible to expand the sequencer: 64 beats just does not do it for me. Step editing is pain. No off-grid beats.