Easy Arduino Nano based synths

DIY STUFF
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It makes much more sense to use a Nano rather than a bare AVR chip. As well as giving you USB and easier programming and debugging it gives you a proper crystal instead of that ceramic resonator so the tuning will be more stable. Ditching the tiny tin leaves you with space for larger more easily sourced components. It should be easy enough to adapt this for stripboard too as it’s a rather minimal circuit.

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Here’s code for a Mozzi based synth, no hardware shown but it’s audio out on pin D9, 7 pots connected to A0 and A2 through A7, and MIDI IN on the RX pin. (Or it can fake pots and MIDI inputs in software.)

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I will try out the Mozzi code on my shiny new teensy someday but I’m too busy with the analog designs and work right now. The Nano and Uno glitch storm designs were good for gifts though.

Oh, and if you add one pot, you can run the GinkoSynthese grains code on the SAME HARDWARE. You may have to reassign the buttons and LEDs but it works fine. It can now be a scratchy drum kit. I set the button to trigger it instead of the analog input so that it is self contained. Well, it can be both analog input and button.

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Thanks. I’m in the same boat. I decided to finish my first synth voice before starting an arduino project. Just need to get this VCA and noise source sorted. and sequencer. and fx… and…

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This same hardware can be used for the grains sketches from ginkosynthese. The hard part for me was converting sound files to simple ascii samples that can be copied into the sketch. I wrote a dirt simple python program that works well and is easy to modify. I have only tested it on windows but it’s python so it should run on anything. Especially Macs because the OS comes with Python.

Python 3 program “PCM8_2_TXT.py”

The input is an audio file: PCM, 8 bit, unsigned, raw. Instructions are included to use Audacity to convert other formats to this format. The output is a comma separated text file with 32 decimal values per line.
Using this python program and modifying the ginkosynthese drum kit sketch, it now plays a BRAAAM. I have a real BRAAAM button and this makes me happy. Let me know if this is interesting or useful for you.

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