Atari Punk Console PCB Design

The Atari Punk Console is a bit of a "Hello World" build for DIY analog synthesizer fans. I looked up the circuit and read a little about how they work for my 556 Timer Light Theremin project I found on ebay, but the main background can be found in the following: Atari Punk Console on sdiy … Continue reading Atari Punk Console PCB Design →

Arduino PSS-680 Synth Editor- Part 2

Following on from Part 1, this post looks at combining several of my previous projects to allow me to control the synth of a PSS-680 from a set of potentiometers. Part 1 - Goes into the detail of the MIDI implementation for the PSS-680 and how to handle the SysEx messages from an Arduino. https://youtu.be/aRfAQvwq8lc … Continue reading Arduino PSS-680 Synth Editor- Part 2 →

Arduino PSS-680 Synth Editor- Part 1

I'm still exploring the range of Yamaha (and a few others) keyboards from the 80s with interesting synth chips. So far I've looked at the YM2413 and the PSS-170. I also have some YM3812s and a PSS-460. But today I'm looking at the PSS-680 which has a YM3420 in it, with the eventual aim of … Continue reading Arduino PSS-680 Synth Editor- Part 1 →

16 Tone Generator MiniDexed

I've been looking into how it might be possible to get 16 tone generators running on MiniDexed, essentially giving the equivalent of a whole DX7 on each of the 16 MIDI channels. This post looks at some of the options I've looked at: Simply using MIDI THRU to connect two independent MiniDexeds with 8 TG … Continue reading 16 Tone Generator MiniDexed →

RPi Dual MiniDexed PCB – Part 2

Here are the build notes for the RPi Dual MiniDexed PCB Design. https://youtu.be/WnxW_eS3AZY Warning! I strongly recommend using old or second hand equipment for your experiments. I am not responsible for any damage to expensive instruments! These are the key tutorials for the main concepts used in this project: MiniDexed Raspberry Pi IO Board If you are … Continue reading RPi Dual MiniDexed PCB – Part 2 →

RPi Dual MiniDexed PCB Design

I've been experimenting with various options for getting 16 tone generators running with MiniDexed and one of the options is running two MiniDexed setups side by side. I have a fork of MiniDexed that will allow one MiniDexed UI to control the 8 tone generators of a second MiniDexed over MIDI, but I'll come back … Continue reading RPi Dual MiniDexed PCB Design →

Rebuilding my Ability to Build MiniDexed

I do all of my non-Arduino C related development in an Ubuntu Linux virtual machine and managed to trash it recently (don't ask). I have several posts that detail how I got up and running with some of the environments I needed, but didn't have the notes from my first experiments with MiniDexed, so this … Continue reading Rebuilding my Ability to Build MiniDexed →

Arduino OPL Bus Sniffer – Part 2

Having now made myself a Arduino OPL Bus Sniffer I've put it to some use grabbing the voice data from the YM2413 based Yamaha PSS-170 keyboard. https://youtu.be/evERlSJY7zY Warning! I strongly recommend using old or second hand equipment for your experiments. I am not responsible for any damage to expensive instruments! These are the key Arduino tutorials … Continue reading Arduino OPL Bus Sniffer – Part 2 →

Arduino OPL Bus Sniffer

This is a slightly off-track application. I want to be able to probe a YM2413 chip "in situ" - i.e. installed in a keyboard, so I thought it might be interesting to develop an Arduino application that can monitor the data signals and pull out the data being sent to the chip. Warning! I strongly … Continue reading Arduino OPL Bus Sniffer →

MIDI Matrix Patch Bay – Part 3

Having now described the design (and the mistakes) and the build guide (and the workarounds) this post looks at the mechanical side of things that I had completely neglected when designing the PCB! Part 1: Design. Part 2: PCB assembly. Part 3: Mechanical design and assembly. Warning! I strongly recommend using old or second hand … Continue reading MIDI Matrix Patch Bay – Part 3 →