Arduino-based MIDI Synth

November 8, 2011 by Mike Szczys 2 Comments

[Charles Gershom] has been tinkering around with his keyboard and Arduino in order to build his own version of a MIDI controlled synthesizer. It looks like he’s gutted the enclosure of some commercially available MIDI hardware to use for the project. This works nicely since it gives him both the MIDI and audio jacks that he needs. The box also provides a nice control surface where a set of four LEDs indicates the synth mode currently in use. There are also four potentiometers mounted on the panel, but they’re not yet up and running.

Check out the video after the break to see what this can do so far. [Charles] shows the device synthesizing sounds coming in from the keyboard. It is also used to playback the audio from Super Mario Bros. which is fed in by a music notation program on a computer. Only one voice is playing when this happens which makes us think this can only handle one channel at a time right now (but we could be wrong).

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7400 Drum Machine Is A Delight

October 22, 2011 by Mike Szczys 24 Comments

[74hc595] just finished his entry in the 7400 logic contest. It’s a drum machine built entirely from 7400-series logic chips. He hasn’t quite reached full completion of the project yet. The hardware works just fine, and he’s built a foam core face plate with many more controls than you see here but much of the circuit is still on a breadboard at this point and only two of the channels have been complete thus far.

Jump to the video clip after the break to get the details of how the system works and to hear it in action. This demonstration is one of the best we’ve seen for a synthesizer project as he actually talks about what each control does, and how that is accomplished with the hardware. We’re not going to go into detail about the circuitry he’s designed. As we said before, it uses 7400 logic but also sources a 555 timer to keep the beat. The page linked above has a PDF of the schematic available and you could really lose a lot of time studying how he did this. We might even try to build it in a simulator to see what we can learn.

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Modular Synthesizer Is Rack-mounted And Reconfigurable

May 31, 2011 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

[Dirk] let us know about this fantastic music synthesis experimentation setup (translated). Turn your computer speakers off (to avoid the auto-playing music when every page loads) and dig into the wealth of information in this repository. Literally dozens of modules have been built and superbly mounted on a rack system. Each can be connected with other modules into an incredible number of different setups using patch wires that terminate with banana plugs.

The module enclosures themselves are made to fit in a standard 19″ rack. The front bezels were designed in CAD, with the rest of the housing made mostly of aluminum. Since each module tends to be quite small several are ganged into one rack skeleton to save space. You can see in the images above that there are as many as eight modules per rack slice.

You’ll enjoy reading about the many different sound chips that are in use here. But it doesn’t have to end there. If this has whet your appetite for your own rack-mounted system you’re in luck. The download area has schematics, board artwork, and build information for most of the modules.

Beat707 Takes It’s Cue From A Vintage Drum Machine

April 22, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 19 Comments

We always like musical hacks at hackaday, so we were pleased to see the team at [Beat707] come out with their Beat707 MIDI groove box.

The Beat707 takes it’s inspiration from the venerable Roland TR-707. Like the Roland, the Beat707 can save songs and has MIDI In and Out. Unlike the TR-707, the Beat707 doesn’t have an audio out – it’s purely MIDI based. Don’t think of that as a drawback, though. Just connect the Beat707 to your favorite softsynth and start jamming out.

The Roland TR-707 was heavily used by acts like the Chemical Brothers, Aphex Twin, and the Cocteau Twins. Because of this history, the popularity of the TR-707 has exploded over the past few years, and getting a hold of a real TR-707 has been an expensive proposition. While rebuilds of vintage synths like [Ladyada]’s TB-303 clone, the x0xb0x have been around for a while, we’re pleased that more projects are paying their dues to the great music machines of the 1980s. Do any hackaday readers want to tackle an 808 or 909 for their next project?

Video of the Beat707 after the break.

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SudoGlove Gets A Big Software Upgrade

March 26, 2011 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

[Jeremy Blum] recently finished writing a couple of software packages for his SudoGlove system that turns it into a music controller with a lot of features. We’ve seen the hardware in a previous post and as a goal for this iteration he decided not to alter the hardware or the firmware controlling it whatsoever–making this a PC-side software only hack. It’s nice to see improvement on the original ideas as we feel most of the glove-based projects we’ve covered end up getting thrown in the junk box after the developer’s interest wanes.

After the break you can see and hear a demonstration of the complete system. The front end of application shown ~~was written using Processing and~~ includes a slew of user configurations for each sensor on the glove itself. Under the hood [Jeremy] built on the PureData framework in order to really unlock the potential for translating physical movement into synthesized sound. There is also a visual feedback application which will help you practice your movements, important if you’re giving live performances where each finger is a different instrument. Everything for this project, both hardware and software, has been released under a CC license so check out [Jeremy’s] site if you’re interested in building on part or all of the good work he’s done.

Update: [Jeremy] wrote in with a bit of a correction for our synopsis. The application shown in the video is written entirely in PureData and the visual debugger was written with Processing. The two are standalone packages that don’t depend on each other. He also sent us a link to download the code packages.

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8-bit MIDI Synthesizer

February 18, 2011 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

[Derek Enos’] toils are starting to yield results. He’s been working on an 8-bit synthesizer that is MIDI controlled which he calls the deMIDulator. As he demonstrates after the break, the device has sine and square wave functions that produce quite a pleasing sound. But it also offers the option to record your own samples which are then modified based on the MIDI commands coming in from your device of choice. In this case he’s using a Rock Band 3 keyboard (or keytar if you will) in a much more creative way than its originally intended purpose.

For now we’ll have to be content with the demo video and a list of features as there are no other details. But open sourcing the code and hardware information are on his to-do list. Continue reading “8-bit MIDI Synthesizer” →

Intro To Circuit Bending

January 11, 2011 by Joseph Thibodeau 54 Comments

Electronic musical instruments are a lot of fun for a hacker because, with a small palette of tools, know-how and curiosity, they are easily modified. As with any hack, there is always the chance that the subject will be ruined, so it’s not necessarily worth the risk to muck about inside your thousand-dollar pro synthesizer. Luckily for all of us, there are shovel-fulls of old electronic musical toys littering the curbs and second-hand shops of the world. These fun little devices provide ample opportunity to get familiar with audio electronics and circuit bending techniques.

A note on definitions: the term “circuit bending” can be synonymous with “hardware hacking” in the world of audio electronics, and we have seen some debate as to which term is better suited to a given project. We welcome you to share your viewpoints in the comments.

Keep reading to get started.
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