Since last post I have kept working on it fixing the parts that made no sense and pushing the Cardputer ADV quite a bit further, and managed to make stuff working on my experimental builds.

I am super happy that so many people downloaded it and tried it. Very cool.

Version 0.2.20 now feels less like a technical demo and more like a strange little instrument I can actually use.

The biggest addition is chromatic sample instruments. You can record or import a sample, select a slice, turn it into an instrument and play it across the keyboard or from USB MIDI. Instruments have four voices, envelopes, filtering, tuning, looping and 16 global save slots.

Other new stuff and things that I finally works and made it in this release:

* Long microphone recordings streamed directly to SD
* Up to 16 editable sample cues with zoom and slice fades
* Six-voice synth with eight editable presets
* Eight-part synthesized drum kit
* Step recording and quantized live recording
* Proper count-in and metronome while recording only
* Quantize from 1/4 to 1/64, or completely off
* USB MIDI routed to Synth, Instrument, Slice or Drum tracks
* Separate USB phone-audio sampling mode with monitoring
* Home Wi-Fi and Direct AP modes
* Browser-based SD manager for songs and samples
* Per-track mixing, master effects and automatic output limiting
* Eight song slots
* A much cleaner menu and status system
* Audio that no longer falls apart when I move the cursor around

It is still early software, and I am not going to pretend everything is finished. But this build seems stable, sounds good and has become surprisingly capable for something running on an ESP32-S3 with a tiny keyboard.

Somehow, this tiny ESP32 device is starting to feel like an actual hardware groovebox. I honestly didn't expect that when starting this project.

**What is next?**

The sequencer is still the part I am least satisfied with. I tried several new versions with piano-roll, tape and different lane views, but none of them felt better than the original four-lane layout. They did not make it into this release.

The next goal is a sequencer that is easier to understand, faster to edit and actually makes good use of the tiny screen - without turning it into a tracker or hiding everything behind complicated menus.

Other things I want to explore:

* A proper sample-based drum-kit creator with 8 or 16 slots
* Building complete drum kits from one recording using cue markers
* Better sample and instrument browsing
* More control over saved instruments and patches
* Expanding the browser manager for organizing songs and sample libraries
* OTA firmware updates through Wi-Fi Manage Mode
* More workflow improvements without breaking real-time audio
* Continuing to improve stability, recording quality and navigation

Some of these features will take experimentation, and I would rather leave something out than add a version that makes the device harder to use.

BKLVA Pocket DAW can be installed directly through **M5Burner**. The latest release, complete manual and feature overview can also be downloaded here:

[https://erkanerdogan.dk/bklva-pocket-daw](https://erkanerdogan.dk/bklva-pocket-daw)

If anyone tests it, please let me know what works, what breaks and especially what still feels confusing.

BKLVA Pocket DAW 0.2.20 - the Cardputer ADV is becoming a real little workstation