Category Archive: arduino

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Progress report – 10/20/2008

  By glacial23 | 10/20/2008 - 11:36 am | arduino, electronics, General, New Stuff, synthesizers Leave a comment
  • Scratched an itch, and made the Arduino Sequencer act as a drum machine.
  • Modified the Sound Lab ever so slightly – added a power cable to allow it to run off of the same bipolar power supply I also use for the ADV-BASS.
  • Did a little more recording for the super-secret project. Still a long way to go, but will probably be done before the end of the year. But hey, now it has two channels of drums at the same time!
  • Started my next major DIY endeavour – the Thomas Henry SN-Voice. It’s going to become the first module in the DIY cabinet I’m going to build. So far all I’ve done is solder in the IC sockets, and tore apart my TH Classic Snare+ (which never worked right for me, anyway) to get the SN76477 and its socket for the SN-Voice. Stay tuned.
  • Finally ordered a good soldering iron (if it’s good enough for fluxmonkey, it’s good enough for me), as well as some other soldering gear and a couple of vero/stripboards (
    gristleizer, here I come!)
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Arduino Sequencer v1.7 Released!

  By glacial23 | 10/18/2008 - 4:26 pm | arduino, electronics, Software, synthesizers 1 Comment

Ok, Drum Mode has been tested, and seems to work correctly, so it’s time to unleash the latest version of the code to the world!

The only hardware change from v1.6 is to add a SPDT (or DPDT, and ignore one pole) on-off switch, with one leg going to 5V, one going to ground, and the center leg going to pin 4 (you can use something else, but you’ll need to change the code…)

Download the code here: sequencer_1_7.pde

and watch a demo video here:

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Coming soon – Arduino Sequencer 1.7?

  By glacial23 | 10/14/2008 - 12:05 am | arduino, electronics, synthesizers Leave a comment

Since I had a need for a primitive drum trigger sequencer (for the thing), I decided to hack it into the Arduino Sequencer as a new mode – Drum mode. When in drum mode, the “CV” and Gate outputs become Drum1 and Drum2. Voice selection in the sequencer is handled by note value (0-1023) – 0 is no output, 1-512 is Drum1, 513-1022 is Drum2, and 1023 is both voices (values are subject to change in the future).

I’ve made the hardware addition (as well as some of the soldering for the eventual start/stop button), and have a rough version of the code written, but haven’t actually tested it yet. Once it’s tested and working properly, I’ll have a proper release post, but figured I’d let people in on the fact it’s coming.

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to the ADV-BASS/SoundLab Snare combinations I’ll be programming ;-)

Of course, the ADV-BASS isn’t quite working right. It works well enough for a basic kick, but I couldn’t get it to do all the nutty Syndrum sweeps that I had it doing back in 1998/1999. Will require more investigation.

Summer of Synth-DIY: Week 16

  By glacial23 | 9/8/2008 - 12:10 pm | arduino, electronics, synthesizers Leave a comment

Sound Lab: Mostly done (after a 4-5 hour marathon on it last night). Here’s a rough looking demo:

Arduino Sequencer: I talked about that Thursday. I showed it off at Playshop on Saturday to rave reviews (i.e. “you should try to sell those”). I suppose I could try, but there really isn’t that much to it – a generic PCB, the CD4051, a 220 ohm resistor and then the pots and connectors. Any interest in a kit?

SN-Voice: PCB has been received, and I think almost all parts are on hand or en route(I think the tempco is the only outstanding part). Still unsure of how to enclose it – Standalone? In some kind of modular-style rack? Something in-between with a simple VCF and LFOs attached?

Other yet-to-be determined projects: Things are being determined. More information soon.

Playshop involved playing with the 556. It wasn’t an APC, but more of a plain “beeper” thing with fixed frequencies. Y’know, I prefer the 4093 to the 556. You get twice as many oscillators out of it.

And I think with the two big successes this week, this is the last “Summer of Synth-DIY” post for the year. New ones will just be “SynthDIY update” or maybe something specific to the project.

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Arduino Sequencer 1.6, with pseudo-analog goodness.

  By glacial23 | 9/4/2008 - 11:43 am | arduino, electronics, Software, synthesizers 4 Comments

Made a somewhat big change last night. We’ll call it 1.6, since 1.0 was the “Notacon Edition”, and 1.5 was the stable version of that which was finished a few weeks ago.

New Features:

  • Note “0″ is now a rest.
  • “CV” (ok, PWM masquerading as 0-5V CV) and Gate outputs. S-Trigger (for my MG-1) coming soon.
  • Added 9V battery clip, so it can run on batteries. Yay! Should add a real power switch for that, though.

Construction – I need to update the schematic to reflect reality, but the original “plan” schematic is here.

Differences between that schematic and reality:

  • The A,B, and C inputs on the CD4051 connect to pins 6,7 and 8 on the Arduino
  • Arduino pin 9 goes to the tip of a 1/4″ jack (CV)
  • Arduino pin 5 goes to the tip of a 1/4″ jack (Gate)
  • For S-Trig, follow the “V-Trig to S-Trig” instructions here. I’ll be adding an additional jack for this, probably tonight. (hey, then I can have a duet of MG-1 and my soon-to-be-finished Sound Lab)
  • None of the LED/Start/Stop/Clock stuff is implemented yet. The more of that which gets done, the closer we are to being “2.0″. Stay tuned.

Source Code:

I’ll have to whip up a demonstration video or something like that. I tried it with my somewhat wonky MG-1 last night (yeah, even though it triggers weird with gate rather than S-Trig, it still mostly worked) – it was like instant Jack Dangers.