First shot of yet unamed cigar box synth layout

bryan — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 04:32:57 +0000

This is a silly first glimpse of what the new cigar box synth may end up being laid out like. All the parts are just sitting on the surface currently. There will be a metal tab 8 key keyboard. It will have 8 rotary controls above each key with push buttons. The controls adjust the pitch of each key to anything you want. The push button locks in the step or arpeggio step. The 4×4 RGB 24-bit key pad will be embedded down into the cigar box with only the buttons barely sticking through. The tops of the buttons will be capped with the same wood as the box. This will allow a nice glow effect around each key and not distract too much from the aesthetic I am trying to go for. The 8×8 LED RGB matrix will be embedded down in the cigar case flush with surface. It will have a fine mesh grill (dunno which metal yet) over it so it does not distract too much but is able to confer the information. Next to the LED matrix is 3 more rotary controls. One controls function and the other two are value adjustments course/fine. The button pad will also be used for entering parameters for the synth. Typically a synth that has a engine like the cigar box synth has, has many controls. The last few parts going into case are in the front is a embedded to surface linear softpot. This can be assigned to many modulation sources. On each side will be a pot that is connected to a lever or will have a knob with a gear and then a second reduction gear that turns the pot. Dunno which style yet. On the back will be power, headphone out, main out, MIDI In/Out.

Synth features:

1. 6 voice oscillators with 6 normal waveforms and then an optional wavetable lookup.

2. Oscillators can modulate each other and can do hard synch, FM, etc.

3. 4 envelope generators.

4. Formant filter

5. Two-pole ladder filter.

6. Multi-stage mixer

7. And more + magic!

The first one will use a simple main processor to handle the mundane tasks but we will be moving to the new Illuminato IXM processors. When this move happens they cigar boxes with the new processor will have a small wireless range using XBEE and will be able to work in parallel with other cigar synths to cross modulate, and do other wild things (I hope). Including if one cigar box is on an old firmware it will flash up on the led matrix a new firmware is available and be able to over the air upgrade itself (I think)

Here is a crappy layout shot:

Step sequencer prototype internals nearly complete!!

bryan — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 05:24:20 +0000

I got the 8 channel 12-bit DAC soldered tonight and a 64 channel analogue input multiplexer done. So I just need to build the digital I/O mux/demux and then hook it all up. Then begin writing software all over again because of internal hardware system change. Will post pics tomorrow. The prototype is being mounted into a RadioShack enclosure. Actually two of them are being build so two of us here at AnalogueBus can work on different sections on the software. Only one of the prototypes will have the TKB/Programmer style manual gate for a track. Neither of them will use the final design of ball bearing matrix buttons and RGB LEDs with light pipes. The control surface is a whole different project due to complexity. We have two other styles of control surface though as backups.

Analogue Bus » step sequencer

First shot of yet unamed cigar box synth layout

Step sequencer prototype internals nearly complete!!