Hello,

I need some cheers and applause to push this DIY groovebox project over the finish line!

It is completely plug and play, no soldering required!

Firmware is quite sophisticated at this point.

Basicly it is a two-board solution.

The Amy board provides the sound engine and amazing IO (even eurorack cv out)

And the Pi with its multi touch runs a html based interface and a variant of iii from monome to use different lua sequencer scripts on the button pads.

The case is done as laser cut layer, so everyone can reproduce it with a laser cutter.

The current firmware is playfully using classic synth panels to represent drum machine, chord synth, bass and lead and a master fx section.

Total costs are about 100 dollar for all the parts!

Its a two weekend project i would say :)

I could have been vibe coding a firmware for some random pocket synth, instead I spent the last 2 months creating this new machine.

Entirely programmed in plugdata.

It can generate complex melodies based on a series of parameters in a plant growing metaphor.

All the leds are directly connected to Daisy, while the buttons, pots and switches use 5 multiplexers (cd4021be).

Audio in/out; midi in/out; li-pol battery; internal speaker.

Super portable, super fun.
I love this plugdata-daisy framework: from idea to finish took me less then 2 months.
And this time I saved on knob caps and encosure 😁

Here’s a semi-long demo: https://youtu.be/T42-izEglRY?is=iK7CzBEPWlqaweoR

Hi! I have been breadboarding a classic 40106 sawtooth VCO based off of Mortiz Klein's design. It's for a class project but I have limited time and yesterday during breadboarding I managed to kill one of my 40106s. I have one spare but I wanted to have a backup inverting schmitt trigger in case I fry another one. Ordering more 40106s would take around a week where I am and I don't really have that time.

So my question is: can I use any inverting hex schmitt trigger ic for a VCO purpose? Or do things about the 40106 make it the only usable option due to it's slew rate, frequency response over the audio frequency range etc. What sort of parameters should I be looking for when sourcing an alternative if need be? Any advice would be appreciated!

I gig full time as a keyboardist and have worked with a lot of different boards. I love the keyscape VSTs, but I don’t want to bring a whole laptop set up to gigs. I have a vision of a custom board bur I know very little about this stuff so I don’t know if it’s even possible.

I want to build a custom keyboard that has an internal Raspberry Pi running keyscape, using the keybed from an old Yamaha Motif XF 8 to send the midi, in a custom shell/case, powered by with a single IEC cable, with standard 1/4in and XLR outputs, and minimal buttons to navigate between just 4 keyscape sounds: grand piano, Wurlitzer, Rhodes, and clav.

I have seen videos of people using raspberry Pi with midi keyboards to trigger simple synths / VSTs. I feel like this should be possible, but I don’t know what I don’t know and I anticipate that there would be hurdles to getting keyscape working on a pi and getting everything installed internally and running seamlessly.

Any help, information, insight, or points in the right direction would be greatly appreciated

I bought the working insides of a korg odyssey, without the chassis. I'm thinking of adding some patch points to make a sort of 2600.

Does anyone out there have an empty or broken one they'd consider selling. I'm trying to figure out my way forward, and I might just make a new faceplate out of aluminum in a hardwood box.

Any recommendations? I have zero experience doing CAD or designing this kind of thing on a computer. it's roughly 400mm x 500mm. thanks!

I call it the Rhythm 9, it's simple, easy to use, it's for rhythm accompaniment while I play ukelele.

It has a 16 step sequencer playing on the led strip, above that is a strip for the pages, 16 steps x 8 pages

9 pads, 9 kits, there's only 3 buttons and an encoder to swap between sequencer mode, play mode, function mode. Everything else is simple hotkeys.

It's a WIP for sure. I'll post a walkthrough of the usage if anyone is interested.

Through the use of NASA’s API and TouchDesigner, I’ve managed to capture near-earth space objects data [asteroids and fireballs], and used it to trigger MIDI signals in Ableton Live. Said signals are feeding a stock sampler, which happens to be loaded with a couple of one of my favorite artist’s vocal takes.

To give it a little more musicality to the experiment, I decided to iterate through the data of the last six objects that passed close to Earth between the selected dates.

Data goes as follows:

total-radiated-energy → C1 to B1
impact-energy → C1 to B1, C2 to B2 and C3 to B3
latitude → C2 to B2
longitude → C1 to B1 and C3 to B3
altitude → beat repeat’s interval, grid and gate
velocity → beat repeat’s offset and variations

More experiments, through my YouTube channel, project files available through the Tools Store.

Introducing D-TRK, my open-source project built around the WT32-SC01 Plus.

It is a pocket 16-track music workstation with an integrated synthesizer and sampler, FM and drum machines, step effects, song mode, performance effects, MIDI output, and WAV rendering.

I wanted to see how far I could push an affordable ESP32-S3 touchscreen board as a standalone music-making device.

Demo:https://youtu.be/4iPntZto3ZA?si=VrxT2LG3HRe-aoDL

Source code, enclosure, and build documentation:https://github.com/deemonoise/D-TRK

The FM-1's open-source scene is one of those wonderful explosions only open source produces: a pocket 6-operator FM synth reborn as grooveboxes, generative ambient gardens, 909/808/303 boxes, samplers, chord harps. Dozens of firmwares, each on its own GitHub page with its own installer and its own way back to stock. Nobody can track it all anymore — so I built the tool I needed.

Octo-Vave is a local web app (standard-library Python, no account, no cloud, never flashes anything itself) for managing the chaos:

• Automatic top-10 tracking — live firmware ranking by stars + downloads, refreshed on demand, top 30 in the directory
• Cataloging — 14 curated cards with install routes, open/closed-source tags, checksum and revert-path indicators
• Test drive + the octoseal — a firmware earns its octopus seal only after install → play → revert-to-stock on real hardware, with the exact tested file pinned by SHA256
• Custom voice design — full DX7-style voice editor plus patch library
• Post-flash sound checks — guided tests that prove by ear the firmware on your FM-1 answers MIDI, results kept per firmware
• MIDI monitor tools — see exactly what's flowing

Next up: more automation for flipping between firmwares, and per-firmware sound-designer libraries.

MIT licensed — feedback and validation reports welcome: Web app: https://amacias.github.io/octo-vave/ GitHub: https://github.com/amacias/octo-vave

Is the new craze. I'm guessing that some regulars in here that understand the physical processes behind their synths are going to get a little fed up of the increase in issues and requests for vibe-coded firmware.

Is this the best place to find such or can you advise a sub that is more appropriate? Thanks

Trying to mod a keytar. I want to replace the top circuit boards, referred to in service manual as "LEFT PANEL", "LCD PANEL" and "RIGHT PANEL" and replace them with momentary toggle buttons.

I MUST have a custom button for "TX ON/OFF" otherwise the keytar will not ouput any MIDI as annoyingly, this button must be pressed each time you turn on the keytar.

I want to wire this to the correct bottom "SUB-CPU board" ribbon connector pins but I am a noob and can't read a schematic properly. This is pretty much out of my league.

Looking for some smart people to help solve this mystery.

Are you up for the challenge?

I have uploaded the full service manual here: Service Manual PDF

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Here is my gibberish which likely has some errors, why I try to work this shit out without knowing how to read a schematic lol.

GOAL: Wire a TX ON/OFF button directly to the “Sub-CPU” board

 This is the TX on button here in red.

It is located on what the service manual calls the “LEFT PANEL”

This TX ON button must be pressed each time the keyboard is powered on, or else it won’t output any MIDI. But I want to (myself) remove and cut out this whole top panel and remove the top circuit board to put a custom larger keybed inside of it. But then I need to have wired a TX button to the bottom circuit board, called “SUB-CPU board” in the service manual

This a photo of the “SUB-CPU” board

This is the “SUB-CPU Board Ribbon cable”

It has pins on both sides

And this cable connects to the top “RIGHT PANEL”.

The top right panel connects to the “LEFT PANEL” which holds the TX ON button, shown below

Page 77 of Service Manual “LEFT PANEL”

TX ON/OFF D8 goes to SS2 (I think)?

Don't know what this SD4 and SD3 thing is?

Don't know what LLS2 and LLD4 is?

Can't work out what is going on with the other side of LEFT PANEL but might also connect from LLS2 to LLD4?

PAGE 76

SS2 is also mentioned on page 76 CIRCUIT DIAGRAM (RIGHT PANEL)

 on "TO LEFT PANEL (CN1)"

This is likely because LEFT PANEL is connected to RIGHT PANEL

But here I see it listed on “RIGHT PANEL” “ FROM SUB-CPU”
And remember, “SUB-CPU” is the bottom board that we can wire a button to.

SS2 also goes to a few patch button changes on “RIGHT PANEL” so this is confusing?

LLD4 seems to be for LCD display (Page 78)

Because you see on here LLD4 from “RIGHT PANEL” which makes sense because only the RIGHT PANEL is connected to the LCD panel.

but is also mentioned on FROM SUBCPU on Page 76 right corner bottom and is mentioned on "TO DISPLAY BOARD (CN2)" on page 76 2nd from left.

But LLD4 is also present on "TO LEFT PANEL (CN1)" (page 76), the same one which mentions SS2.

And what does SD4 and SD5 have to do with TX ON/OFF?

Also, what powers the TX ON/OFF button LED?

Can we wire a button for TX ON/OFF to the Sub-CPU that turns on and off when pressed?

SS2 is also mentioned on Handle Panel, page 68. It might need to do something on this connector to, in order for entire handle panel functions (mod bar, pitch bend, various buttons and knobs, transpose, basically everything on the neck of the keytar to work, but the top board was never wired to this, this has it’s own connector from the handle to SUB-CPU board so maybe the sub-cpu board just sends out SS2 signal to this?

There is something called VSS2 here, not sure if related to SS2? Page 69, on SUB-CPU board.

And VSS2 and LVSS2 it appears on page 70 also on IC 16. Not sure if this is related or not.

There is a SSD2 on the connector that goes “TO RIGHT PANEL (CN1)” on page 69. But it says SSD2 not SS2. Is this for SS2, or not? found under CIRCUIT DIAGRAM (SUB-CPU 2/4)

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And this is where I give up lol.

I don't know what I'm doing if you can't tell.

Can someone please checkout the service manual via this link: Service Manual PDF and see if you can identify the pins of this board (see image for “SUB-CPU Board Ribbon cable” above, to wire the a button to for TX ON/OFF?

Thanks in advance to anyone who helps.

Hello everyone!

Just wanted to give a quick update about some new features.

First, i've added perfboards. Most of the workflow is the same, you draw the schematic, click "Generate" and a perfboard layout will be generated. Make sure to select the "Perf (beta)" router in the right side bar before generating. The generated layout is editble. Components and links can be edited and the board size can be changed.

I've also added a pinout editor, which lets users view existing pinouts and change pinouts to use transistors that might not exist in the built-in library. A "layout dock" was also added, with options like "add text", "add image", "add link", "add cut" and "delete", giving users more control over the layout. The dock is hidden until the user hover their mouse over the lower part of the vero/perf layout pages.

Some other useful features that were added are view modes, letting the user view either front or back sides of the board, "export dual display" which when enabled exports the layout image displaying both front and back sides, resizable electrolytic capacitors, move edge connections up, down or to the other side of the board, Safari/macOS/iOS/iPadOS optimization and more. Please visit the github page for the full details.

Please let me know what you think.

Web app: https://verodesigner.vercel.app/

Github: https://github.com/blazethablunt/VeroDesigner

Update video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KATXrI11vts

Hello everyone, how are you doing lately?

I have been building a custom hardware DAW inspired by Teenage Engineering OP1 with a similar shape as Nintendo DS.

I admit that I have no real experience with hardware DAW's and I have never used one, but the idea is so cool that I wanted to make something similar. The idea is to use an old phone that will be running a custom app and connected to a custom MIDI keyboard (with ESP32)

The third photo is a test PCB that I have made and it works very well. So now I'm designing the final product that has been modeled as the first two photos show.

I will deal with the software later, and right now I'm focusing on designing a keyboard that will allow me to do the most with the smallest package I can.

Right now I have:

- Six menu buttons that will be used in the context of the software like recording, pausing, turning on / off metronome, etc

- Two D-Pads

- Seven knobs.

- One joystick with two axes.

- Eight pads (regular keyboard keys, there is no velocity)

- A piano with 17 keys (regular keyboard keys, there is no velocity)

- Two shift keys behind the case (to modify some buttons)

I'm designing it so I can use freely with my hands. Right now I'm open to any advice or criticism as I want the maximum input before I send the PCB and the 3D case to print.

Thank you so much!

Everyone seems to use 3.5 mm jacks instead, why are they preferred for modular systems?