NoiseAXE Minisynth

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The NoiseAXE is a miniature synthesizer based on the Picaxe 08M microcontroller.  Its operating principle is fairly simple: a conductive stylus touches the leg of one of eight resistors to play one of eight notes, while a photoresistor controls the amount of modulation, creating a variable vibrato effect.  While the synthesizer’s output is rather limited (the NoiseAXE isn’t exactly a Yamaha DX7), it’s still a pretty cool little project; you could use its unique sounds to add that gritty analog touch to your next electro hit.  Check out the video clip below to see and hear it in action.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi03V_I3Zpk]

[photo: rarebeasts]

8 thoughts on “NoiseAXE Minisynth

  1. If you hooked the touch leg upto infrared reciever diodes or the like you could make it convert the IR in a room to sound..

    arrange the IR diodes in a circle facing out.. so they dont all go off the same..

    doing that, adding rotation may make an interesting effect…

  2. This project does not produce a nice sin only because its a low part-count project, pity, because an inductor and a 220nF with 4.7KOhm would have improved the sound. Gonna try build my own one next week :-)

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