Vintage Rotary Phone MIDI Controller

I've wanted to do something musical with a vintage rotary telephone for a while now, so when I happened to come across one in a charity shop, I jumped at the chance to have a go! Be warned: there are many "vintage styled" modern phones with a pile of modern electronics inside. This is not … Continue reading Vintage Rotary Phone MIDI Controller →

Toy Keyboard Tone Piano – Part 5

In this part of my series on adding an Arduino to a toy keyboard, I've taken a second keyboard and actually embedded the Nano inside it to make it a complete DIY Oskitone Scout, powered by USB. This is using the version of the hardware and code described in part 2 - i.e. without the … Continue reading Toy Keyboard Tone Piano – Part 5 →

Toy Keyboard Tone Piano – Part 4

I'm continuing my series of posts seeing what I can do with a toy keyboard. This post looks at some possible uses of the additional IO pins I freed up in part 3. Part 1 provides all the details for adding an Arduino to the original toy keyboard. Part 2 demonstrates the toy keyboard running … Continue reading Toy Keyboard Tone Piano – Part 4 →

Toy Keyboard Tone Piano – Part 3

This post looks in a little more detail at the keyboard matrix decoding for the toy keyboard to see what is possible with less IO pins. Part 1 provides all the details for adding an Arduino to the original toy keyboard. Part 2 demonstrates the toy keyboard running the Oskitone "Scout" firmware. Warning! I strongly … Continue reading Toy Keyboard Tone Piano – Part 3 →

Toy Keyboard Tone Piano – Part 2

Having now plugged an Arduino into my Toy Keyboard, it is time to start experimenting. The first thing I really wanted to do, was build an Oskitone Scout, but not having a 3D printer or the funds to purchase one, I thought I'd have a go at getting the code to run on my toy … Continue reading Toy Keyboard Tone Piano – Part 2 →

Toy Keyboard Tone Piano

I have a few old toy keyboards kicking around that I've wanted to put an Arduino in, so I finally pulled one apart and had a go. I was "live tweeting" it as I went in this Twitter thread, but thought I'd gather everything so far together into a single post. Further posts in this … Continue reading Toy Keyboard Tone Piano →

The Lo-Fi Orchestra Explainer

I've had a few queries asking what some of the different sections of the Lo-Fi Orchestra are and whilst there is a bit of explanation in the post Introducing the Arduino Lo-Fi Orchestra! it doesn't really break down the projects in an easy to see way. And the orchestra as grown a little since then … Continue reading The Lo-Fi Orchestra Explainer →

Arduino RF24 MIDI Interface – Part 2

Having got the basics of "wireless MIDI" working with my nRF24L01 radios, I wanted to take advantage of the inherent "broadcast" nature of radio and see if I could transmit to a number of receivers at the same time. It turned out to be quite a bit more involved than I was expecting! But I … Continue reading Arduino RF24 MIDI Interface – Part 2 →

Raspberry Pi Pico Multi MIDI Router – Part 2

One thing I've wanted to do since building my Raspberry Pi Pico Multi MIDI Router is build a board a bit like ones DeftAudio produces for the Teensy. This posts describes a DIY version of a 4+2 IN, 4+2 OUT MIDI board for the Raspberry Pi Pico. Warning! I strongly recommend using old or second hand … Continue reading Raspberry Pi Pico Multi MIDI Router – Part 2 →

Arduino RF24 MIDI Interface

One thing I've wanted to try is wireless MIDI. I know you can get MIDI over Bluetooth (there are some rather neat commercial "wireless 5-pin MIDI" adaptors you can buy) and I believe people have used MIDI over Wi-Fi by using ipMIDI ("MIDI over Internet Protocol"). But I've had some cheap nrf24L01 radios for a … Continue reading Arduino RF24 MIDI Interface →