Pico MIDI “Pack” PCB Build Guide

Here are the build notes for my Pico MIDI “Pack” PCB Design. Warning! I strongly recommend using old or second hand equipment for your experiments. I am not responsible for any damage to expensive instruments! Bill of Materials PCB link (GitHub link below) 1x H11L1 optoisolator. 1x 1N914 or 1N4148 signal diode. 1x each of 10Ω, … Continue reading Pico MIDI “Pack” PCB Build Guide →

Pico MIDI “Pack” PCB Design

This is a PCB version of my Raspberry Pi Pico MIDI “pack” Interface - something I've been meaning to do for ages! Here is the Pico MIDI “Pack” PCB Build Guide. Warning! I strongly recommend using old or second hand equipment for your experiments. I am not responsible for any damage to expensive instruments! If you … Continue reading Pico MIDI “Pack” PCB Design →

Selecting Microcontrollers for Music

I was browsing some of the newer ATtiny chips the other day and started to make a note of some of their properties and it made me realise I actually have quite a few different microcontrollers at my disposal and many more I could be having a look at. But having committed to not attempting … Continue reading Selecting Microcontrollers for Music →

PICO2/AFPOC

February saw another momentous step in the ambitious John Cage Organ Art Project at Halberstadt when the playing chord changed for the first time in two years. The resultant chord will now continue to play for another two years before the next change. The project is a performance of John Cage's ORGAN2/ASLSP, generally known by … Continue reading PICO2/AFPOC →

Raspberry Pi Pico Synth_Dexed? – Part 6

One last thing I definitely wanted for my PicoDexed was the option for PWM output. This post is by way of a short coda detailing how to do PWM on a Raspberry Pi Pico. Part 1 where I work out how to build Synth_Dexed using the Pico SDK and get some sounds coming out. Part … Continue reading Raspberry Pi Pico Synth_Dexed? – Part 6 →

Raspberry Pi Pico Synth_Dexed? – Part 5

Ok, ignore my last comment about Part 4 being my last post on this topic. I thought I ought to pull together all the hardware notes on how to build one as I haven't really written that down anywhere. So this shows the connections required between the Pico, I2S DAC and MIDI IN. Part 1 … Continue reading Raspberry Pi Pico Synth_Dexed? – Part 5 →

Raspberry Pi Pico Synth_Dexed? – Part 4

I was going to leave things at Part 3 blog-wise, and just get on with filling in the gaps in code now, but I've come back to add a few more notes. But this is likely to be the final part now. Recall so far, I have: Part 1 where I work out how to … Continue reading Raspberry Pi Pico Synth_Dexed? – Part 4 →

Raspberry Pi Pico Synth_Dexed? – Part 3

The story so far... In Part 1 I work out how to build Synth_Dexed using the Pico SDK and get some sounds coming out. In Part 2 I take a detailed look at the performance with a diversion into the workings of the pico_audio library and floating point maths on the pico, on the way. … Continue reading Raspberry Pi Pico Synth_Dexed? – Part 3 →

Raspberry Pi Pico Synth_Dexed? – Part 2

Now that the initial elation at getting a reasonable sounding, er, sound from my Raspberry Pi Pico Synth_Dexed has worn off, I've been seeing what I can do about the performance. TL;DR: this is all analysis and measurements, working out and attempting to understand how it all currently works. I haven't fixed anything or improved it yet. I'm … Continue reading Raspberry Pi Pico Synth_Dexed? – Part 2 →

Raspberry Pi Pico Synth_Dexed?

For a while I've wanted to get Synth_Dexed up and running on a Raspberry Pi Pico. This is the library written by Holger Wirtz for use with the Teensy microcontroller, and the core synth engine used for MiniDexed. This is how I got everything up and running although it is too early to know if this … Continue reading Raspberry Pi Pico Synth_Dexed? →