DIY 4 voice arduino nano string synth (modified Jan Östman's Solina)

[Music] [Music] hey check this out I built myself a handy little lav mic using one of these little metal things so now I can do a Power pose I Am Lord of all Beasts of the land and fishes in the see I know everything and talk like I'm doing a TED Talk hey guys welcome to a new video wow but enough about my microphone this video is not about the microphone it's about this wow holy this is Arduino Nano based midic controllable string synthesizer with a simple analog low pass filter and it has four notes of polyany so that's pretty cool the Arduino code is based on Yan earthman's soina string machine code and some of you probably know the code cuz it's a very popular DIY project on the internet and there's a five pin midi in modification for the code I think it's by a dude called Miracle Dave if I remember correctly and then I did two little modifications to the code as well I added a clock rate that basically just controls the pitch of the synth and then an LFO rate for the modulation and I also tried to make a pitch control separate from the clock rate but I couldn't get that working and I asked uh friend of mine for some help but I accidentally sent him the original code without the midia input so maybe that's the reason why I couldn't get his code working either but yeah here's the schematic for the Arduino and the midi part of the syn [Music] and the output of the Arduino goes to an analog low pass filter it's right there look at it the filter is a simple analog low pass filter by Le and I guess here's the schematic it's a very simple but effective design with very basic parts I will link Lep's website in the description you can find the original schematic there and there's a couple of different versions for example there's a high pass version I think I did not film the building process for this cuz at first I thought this was going to be more of like a prototype and I just didn't have the energy but there's nothing special about it it's just just a wooden box from some random pieces of wood and an aluminum panel and I built the electronics on I built the electronics on these prototyping pcbs I've ordered from jlc PCB well there it is um I think this turned out very very nice especially for how simple it is and it's very usable and handy in like musical things cuz it does have the four notes of polyany so you can play chords and and yeah I think that's about it let's go check it out power in Medi in and audio out let's go here it is and like I said the pitch knob is not working and then there's also a tone switch that does nothing cuz the original idea was not to build a filter for this and the tone switch was supposed to be a simple RC filter but we don't need that now CU we have a filter the synth is now in its most basic setup so basically [Music] just four saw waves and you can play them [Music] polyphonically and it goes really low and really high but the high notes get kind of [Music] weird when the envelope is at 12 the envelope is just a gate and the pany works just like you would expect it to so [Music] and when we turn it clockwise it introduces Decay or release [Music] actually and counter clockwise it does the same thing but also adds a slower attack and still has the release and what the envelope also does is it affects the polyany or how how it behaves so when I have a little bit of Decay and I play a chord it plays all the notes as long as I hold just one key but I can still play or like change the highest note so if I play a chord like this I can still I can still play higher notes while holding you know the lowest note and once you get used to it I really enjoy how the polyphony works because you can you know play a chord and hold a cord with just one hand and then you know mess around with the S wow the output of the Arduino always goes through the simple analog low pass [Music] filter I really like the filter I I think it's sounds very good for how simple it [Music] is you could probably add a pot to control the input gain of the filter cuz when playing when playing [Music] chords there's a little bit of overdrive but I don't know I I actually like it the one problem I do have with the filter is that when we increase the [Music] resonance we start to hear a little bit of bleed through [Music] so even when the filter is closed the dry signal bleeds through the [Music] circuit and I don't know what to do about it cuz I don't know anything about Electronics but if anybody has any ideas then let me know in the comments [Music] okay and now we will leave the filter open and go through the other other things there is a modulation [Applause] [Music] part that creates this sort of you know chusy hitch modulation Vibe once we we go past the maybe [Music] 12:00 then the modulation gets kind of crazy and we also have a control for the rate of the [Music] modulation I should mess around with the code some more cuz the like the whole usable range of the LFO is probably in the first quarter of the [Music] pot but it does work and that's a w in my [Music] books cool and when we turn down the modulation the syn kind of kind of locks to a new wave shape cuz I guess it's like a certain point in the you know the modulation cycle or [Music] something so you get kind of different waveforms if you quickly turn on the modulation and turn it [Music] [Music] and then if we turn the synth off and back on we get back to our you know saw and then we we have the Ensemble [Music] control and it's this sort of phaser without with but the Ensemble control also kind of makes the sound distort a bit especially when playing a bit higher like that but when used more moderately it's you know there's no problems and we can also use the Distortion in a good way once we get to fun weirdness with the clock rate yes so that's the Ensemble and you know together with the modulation we can create this very so you know string machine type sounds what the original code is meant for and another thing with the filter is that when it's fully open and you increase the resonance you can kind of boost the highs of the signal and and the filter also um overdrives a bit [Music] less [Music] the clock right control was added to uh change the pitch of the synth but as it reduces the clock right of the whole thing then it also makes things a bit weird reducing the clock rate kind of makes the sound a bit you know glitchy but I love the weird lofi [Music] vibe and also for some reason the pitch of the syn is different depending on how many notes you play so if I play one note and next not [Music] it's a different pitch so that's kind of weird but you can also use that to kind of fake a pitch envelope if you play the chords like one note at a time [Music] and the range of the clock goes from your regular pitch all the way down to weird noises and with the clock right down you can get actually surprisingly surprisingly beefy [Music] sounds and also when the clock rate is down I love how weird the high notes [Applause] [Music] sound [Music] oh and also when the clock rate is turned even a little bit down if your mid keyboard has after touch the after touch makes the the S kind of just it glitches the whole thing pitch bending also makes a weird makes a weird popping sound so if you combine that with the aftertouch Dropout thing you can get a nice sort of Loi glitchy thing going [Music] wow that's the synth now I'll play some more sounds and thank you for watching the video and I will see you in the next one peace Bye by I'm also sorry if my makeshift table makes the video uncomfortable to watch [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah

Channel: LAURI’S DIY CHANNEL TV

Views: 6,746

Keywords: made by lauri, diy, music, maker, instruments, woodworking, lauri, synth, synth diy, diy synth, arduino, arduino nano, strings, string machine, string synth, string, analog, digital, hybrid synth, hybrid, diy music, arduino synth, midi, midi controlled, midi synth, midi diy, 5 pin midi, synthesizer, diy synthesizer, pads, electronic music, electronic, electronics, schematic, code

Id: EMHvJAOwWMI

Length: 22min 37sec (1357 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 08 2024