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 →

Raspberry Pi Pico MIDI Pedal Keyboard

Quite a number of years ago, I found an old set of organ pedals and MIDI'd them up by the crude method of wiring the pedal switches onto the connectors for the keys of an old Amstrad MIDI keyboard... It was the technology and expertise I had at the time! I stumbled across them a … Continue reading Raspberry Pi Pico MIDI Pedal Keyboard →

Arduino PWM Output Filter Circuit – Part 2

I've been using my solderless breadboard version of my Arduino PWM Output Filter Circuit quite a lot so thought it might be useful to commit it to protoboard and build it onto a simple shield. Warning! I strongly recommend using old or second hand equipment for your experiments. I am not responsible for any damage to … Continue reading Arduino PWM Output Filter Circuit – Part 2 →

Pico MIDI (H)Arp

Ever since looking at the MIDI Arp, which creates MIDI music based on the network packets travelling over an Ethernet link, I've wanted to do something related with Wi-Fi. This is my first try. https://youtu.be/aKuAEYryp6c Warning! I strongly recommend using old or second hand equipment for your experiments. I am not responsible for any damage … Continue reading Pico MIDI (H)Arp →

Arduino PWM Output Filter Circuit

There have been a number of occasions now where I've added a low-pass filter and voltage divider to my Arduino-based PWM outputs so I thought it was worth pulling that together into a single post to make it easy to refer to elsewhere. This is that post. There is nothing new here, it is just … Continue reading Arduino PWM Output Filter Circuit →