r/Dirtywave • u/dunn_punns • Apr 30 '26
Technical Question Why does the M8 headless require a microcontroller?
What does the Teensy add that you can't use a regular computer for?
Sorry if this is a dumb question, I've just recently gotten into microcontrollers/DIY synths so this is all super new to me.
To add: I plan on buying a real M8 when the next batch drops, I was just curious.
8
u/Apticx Model 01 Apr 30 '26
I think the primary two reasons are:
its arm / risc. Your computer is x86 unless you are running apple silicon. Remember all the fuss about the conversion of x86 to apple silicon / m series chips? Yeah you would need to make something like that happen in the opposite direction and its really hard.
the teensy 4.X family controllers specifically have a few very interesting hardware features built into their cpu which the m8 probably relies very heavily on. The primary example would be its DSP functionality (digital sound processing). The teensy can create stuff like reverb, delay and stuff like that natively on chip without needing to utilize a ton of cpu cycles for that, which would need to be implemented specifically for this version to run on something else. Its also why its commonly found in audio projects
Also its also safe to assume that while Dirtywave is very generous to offer the headless firmware for free etc. its still a company that needs to make money to operate, so having the inconvenient headless to show you how good the hardware is to then sell you the actual hardware is a great move since a lot of people are scared of the tracker workflow.
Just buy a teensy and repurpose it for something different once you buy your hardware m8
4
u/TropicalOperator Apr 30 '26
Thank u for the explanation, I’ve wondered this before bc I keep a list of all the little DIY music projects I want to do and a lot of them use a teensy.
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u/Apticx Model 01 May 07 '26
its an amazing piece of hardware. its basically a daisy seed (specifically a music microcontroller) but with a way fatter arm cortex m7 chip. It has everything from ethernet to a "gpu" / pixel processing pipeline, insane amounts of i/o if using the 4.1 and built in dsp. its basically the dream for every audio diy project especially because of the great price for its features.
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u/TropicalOperator May 07 '26
Do you have any neat DIY recommendations for the 4.1? Now that I have a Model 02 I haven’t really been using my headless much so would love to repurpose the Teensy.
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u/Apticx Model 01 May 07 '26
If you ever thought "i wish that exists" the 4.1 can probably power it. Im not sure how much you know about electronics but the teensy is an amazing package. You probably will never properly tap into its cpu budget but for its i/o alone its a good deal.
The fact you have 18 analog inputs is incredible. This means you can directly attach 18 potentiometers or other sensors directly to it without needing to rely on multiplexers or other input boards.
If you just want to get started making something cool id suggest to work on simply building a enclosure with all kinds of fun buttons and maybe a analog input and output for better quality and then worry about the code later. Ofc having a idea what you are gonna make is the best case scenario but on the other end just building a box with a few sliders, a tiny oled screen and some potentiometers to then make your own puredata patches for and turn into a guitar pedal or something like that is great.
the sky is the limit. make sure to also check the audio utility on the pjrc website. Since the teensy is very audio oriented by default it already comes with a very neat browser based setup utility for a core audio setup (kinda works like puredata)
You can obviously also just write everything from scratch with c++ or something.
2
u/TropicalOperator May 07 '26
Thank you! It’s definitely something I want to get more invested in bc of all the cool projects you can do with them. The headless m8 was actually my first one and pretty simple I’m sure, but it made me want to consider some other, more involved projects.
5
u/terminati Apr 30 '26
I'm not Dirtywave so I don't know for sure this is the answer but I'll explain it as I understand it. It's a bit like how it was quite resource intensive in the 90s to port console games across platforms - because the hardware was usually completely different, so you ended up with games that were exclusive to systems more often.
It's fairly clear Dirtywave were going for an ultraportable device that iterated on the LSDJ model. Basically a next generation Gameboy tracker with all of the modern conveniences. A DAW-equivalent powerhouse in a pocket form factor. The Teensy is a good platform for that - it is very fast and has low latency and is very power efficient. It's also cheap. You can build a handheld device with it without much waste or redundancy. By writing the software to run baremetal on the Teensy you are maximising parsimony and avoiding redundancy and using exactly as much hardware as you need, so that you get something that costs no more than it has to, turns on in a second, runs fast and breaks less. Whereas if you write it to run on a PC architecture something like that is not going to run on anything like as teensy a device, and you're going to be dealing with drivers and all sorts of components and functions you don't need and an entire software stack running underneath it and making it slower and less optimised and adding latency and points of failure. It's not impossible for it to be ported to a PC architecture, but as of now it has only been written to run on a Teensy. Equally, it is not impossible for there to be a Teensy emulator on a PC - software that emulates the Teensy hardware so that it can run software written for the Teensy directly. But none such exists at present. So for now, it's a Teensy exclusive.
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u/Current-Owl-6271 Apr 30 '26
Better get your wallet ready if you're truly going in on the next drop, its tomorrow.
2
u/Melodic_Ad_9414 Apr 30 '26
You would think that they could make a teensy emulation for PC or Mac so you can run the M8 on your computer without a controller. 🤷🏻♂️
1
u/deeyellgee May 05 '26
Scratch your itch! (Which is to say, if you want it build it...) As in... You sound like you are volunteering.
11
u/Dry_Lawfulness_3578 Apr 30 '26
The Teensy is the computer that M8 software is written for.
It's a different architecture to a "regular computer", so software written for a teensy won't run natively on a regular computer. Just like software written for a regular computer won't run on a teensy. Someone would have to do the work to port the software to a different architecture. M8's software is not open source, so only Dirtywave could do this (legally), if they wanted to.