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 →

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 →

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 →