We Bet You’ve Never Seen A Pink Denture Synth

December 21, 2020 by Lewin Day 18 Comments

At one end of the synthesizer world, there stands commercial instruments designed for the ultimate in sound quality and performance, tailored to the needs of professional musicians. On the other, there are weird, wacky prototypes and artistic builds that aim to challenge our conception of what a synth should be. The VOC-25 by [Love Hultén] falls firmly in the latter category.

The synth is built around the Axoloti Core, a microcontroller board set up for audio experimentation. Packing stereo DACs and ADCs, and MIDI input and output, it’s the perfect base for such a project. Loaded up with vocal samples, it’s played by a keyboard in a fairly typical sense. Where things get interesting is the panel containing 25 sets of plastic teeth. The teeth open and close when the user plays the corresponding note, thanks to a solenoid. Along with the clacking sound of the machinery and pearly whites themselves, it adds quite a creepy vibe to the piece.

With its clean pastel enclosure, we can imagine this piece as the star of an avant-garde filmclip, or merely something to terrify children at a Maker Faire. It’s a fun build, to be sure. We’ve seen some other great experimental synths over the years, too – this 48 Game Boy build comes to mind. Video after the break.

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Remoticon Video: Intro To Modern Synthesis Using VCV Rack

December 15, 2020 by Dan Maloney 10 Comments

Modular synthesizers, with their profusion of knobs and switches and their seemingly insatiable appetite for patch cables, are wonderful examples of over-complexity — the best kind of complexity, in our view. Play with a synthesizer long enough and you start thinking that any kind of sound is possible, limited only by your imagination in hooking up the various oscillators, filters, and envelope generators. And the aforementioned patch cables, of course, which are always in short supply.

Luckily, though, patch cables and the modules they connect can be virtualized, and in his 2020 Remoticon workshop, Jonathan Foote showed us all the ways VCV Rack can emulate modular synthesizers right on your computer’s desktop. The workshop focused on VCV Rack, where Eurorack-style synthesizer modules are graphically presented in a configurable rack and patched together just like physical synth modules would be.

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A Pair Of Steppers Are Put To Work In This Automatic Instrument Pickup Winder

December 13, 2020 by Dan Maloney 7 Comments

For something that’s basically a coil of wire around some magnetic pole pieces, an electric guitar pickup is a complicated bit of tech. So much about the tone of the instrument is dictated by how the pickup is wound that controlling the winding process is something best accomplished with a machine. This automatic pickup winder isn’t exactly a high-end machine, but it’s enough for the job at hand, and has some interesting possibilities for refinements.

First off, as [The Mixed Signal] points out, his pickups aren’t intended for use on a guitar. As we’ve seen before, the musical projects he has tackled are somewhat offbeat, and this single-pole pickup is destined for another unusual instrument. That’s not to say a guitar pickup couldn’t be wound on this machine, of course, as could inductors, solenoids, or Tesla coils. The running gear is built around two NEMA-17 stepper motors, one for the coil spindle and one for the winding carriage. The carriage runs on a short Acme lead screw and linear bearings, moving back and forth to wind the coil more or less evenly. An Arduino topped with a CNC shield runs the show, allowing for walk-away coil winding.

We do notice that the coil wire seems to bunch up at the ends of the coil form. We wonder if that could be cured by speeding up the carriage motor as it nears the end of the spool to spread the wire spacing out a bit. The nice thing about builds like these is the ease with which changes can be made — at the end of the day, it’s just code.

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Cassette Synth Plays With Speed Control

December 7, 2020 by Kristina Panos 10 Comments

Tape may not sound that great compared to vinyl, but cassette players can be tons of fun when it comes to making your own music. See for instance the Mellotron, or this relatively easy DIY alternative, [Rich Bernett]’s Cassettone cassette player synth.

The Cassettone works by substituting the trim pot that controls the speed of the tape player’s motor with a handful of potentiometers. These are each activated with momentary buttons located underneath the wooden keys. In the video after the break, [Rich] gives a complete and detailed guide to building your own. There’s also a polished Google doc that includes a schematic and the pattern pieces for making the cabinet.

Speaking of which, isn’t the case design nice? It’s built out of craft plywood but aged with varnish and Mod-Podged bits and bobs from vintage electronics magazines. This really looks like a fun little instrument to play.

Would you rather control your tape synth with a MIDI keyboard? Just add Arduino.

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Giving Micro Channel Bus Computers A Sound Blaster Bark

December 1, 2020 by Maya Posch 15 Comments

Not many people today probably remember what ‘Micro Channel Architecture’ was about, though its acronym ‘MCA’ might ring a bell. Created by IBM to replace ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) and presumably claw back some of that sweet, sweet licensing money, it didn’t quite pan out as IBM hoped. As history shows us, PCI ended up replacing MCA in all of IBM’s systems. The IBM PS/2 systems that used MCA didn’t miss out on classic 1990s cards, such as the original Sound Blaster, but today MCA versions of the Sound Blaster are admittedly rather… rare, not to mention expensive.

But, no longer: decades after the last PS/2 users have moved on, [Tube Time] proudly presents the Snark Barker MCA. It’s a fully Sound Blaster compatible sound card. It supports AdLib synthesis, digital sound playback and recording, as well as a joystick input and MIDI. Based around a Xilinx XC9572XL CPLD and featuring what looks like a full-length MCA card, it would have made an original Sound Blaster card proud.

The GitHub repository not only contains the schematics, BOM and Verilog-based HDL for the CPLD, but also extensive documentation on the assembly and programming. As a bonus, there’s a troubleshooting section which covers some of the joys that came with the sloppy implementations of MCA across systems. Definitely worth a read.

If anyone decides to build this project and use it in their IBM PS/2 system, we would love to hear about it.

Of course, if all you need is a garden variety PCI Sound Blaster clone, the original Snark Barker is the way to go.

(Thanks, Darry)

He’s The Operator Of His Pocket Arduino

November 27, 2020 by Bryan Cockfield 6 Comments

The band Kraftwerk hit the music scene with its unique electronic sound in the 70s in Germany, opening the door for the electronic music revolution of the following decade. If you’re not familiar with the band, they often had songs with a technology theme as well, and thanks to modern microcontroller technology it’s possible to replicate the Kraftwerk sound with microcontrollers as [Steven] aka [Marquis de Geek] demonstrates in his melodic build.

While the music is played on a Stylophone and a Korg synthesizer, it is fed through five separate Arduinos, four of which have various synths and looping samplers installed on them (and presumably represent each of the four members of Kraftwerk). Samplers like this allow pieces of music to be repeated continuously once recorded, which means that [Steven] can play entire songs on his own. The fifth Arduino functions as a controller, handling MIDI and pattern sequencing over I2C, and everything is finally channeled through a homemade mixer.

[Marquis] also dressed in Kraftwerk-appropriate attire for the video demonstration below, which really sells the tribute to the famous and groundbreaking band. While it’s a great build in its own right and is a great recreation of the Kraftwerk sound, we can think of one more way to really put this project over the top — a Kraftwerk-inspired LED tie.

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3D Print Your Way To A Modular MIDI Playset

November 16, 2020 by Tom Nardi 6 Comments

Have you ever wanted to experiment with MIDI, but didn’t know where to start? Or perhaps you didn’t think you could afford to properly outfit your digital beat laboratory, especially given the average hacker’s penchant for blinkenlights? Well worry no more, as [Johan von Konow] has unveiled a collection of DIY MIDI devices that anyone with a 3D printer can build on the cheap.

The LEET modular synthesizer is made up of a keyboard, drum pad, chord keyboard, arpeggiator and a step sequencer that plug into your computer and interface with industry standard digital audio workstation (DAW) programs. The down side is that they don’t do anything on their own, but this simplification allowed [Johan] to really streamline the design and bring the cost of the build down to the bare minimum.

Integrated wire channels mean no PCB is required.

You don’t need to build all the components either, especially if you’re just testing the waters. The keyboard is a great starting point, and even if you have to buy all the components new from eBay, [Johan] says it shouldn’t cost you more than $10 USD to build. You just need an Arduino Pro Micro, some tact switches, and a section of WS2812 RGB LED strip. There’s an excellent chance you’ve already got some of that in the parts bin, which will make it even cheaper.

There is one missing element though: the PCB. But not because you have to source it yourself. Like his clever Arduboy clone we covered earlier in the year, the 3D printed bodies for all of the LEET devices have integrated wiring channels that serve as a stand-in for a traditional circuit board. Simply place all your components, push some stiff 0.3 mm diameter wire down into the channels, and solder the ends. It’s a very neat approach, and something we could see becoming more popular as desktop 3D printers become an increasingly common sight in the home workshop.

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