Open-Source Mini-Groovebox
Wee noise makers…
Somewhat along the same lines as ‘time tosser’ for us Brits. Perhaps we should offer a name vetting service.
4 Likes
Funding campaign is now live. €250. Not bad. Has synths and sampling. Again, not bad (though I can’t seem to find the sampling rate anywhere - demo sounds a bit noisy).
I’m interested to see where this trend of small microprocessor based music devices is going to go.
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I’m backing it 
Seems fun to try at least.
this looks great. open source too, very nice. might have to trun me sponds their way 
im interested by this too! i like the idea of a pocket organelle
Looks to be a great value for the money! More controls and a much better display than a Woovebox, at the same price point.
Their comparison chart, though, just reminded me how awesome the Dirtywave M8 I preordered is going to be once I get it in my hands.
so this synth, is it 16 tracks and 800usd about?
@less_wexners Do you mean the PGB-1? Or are you in the wrong thread?
The PGB-1 is $249, and 8 mono tracks. This is info you could have found by just clicking the link.
Open source … but written in Ada, which is … unusual.
I don’t write code, so I don’t know what this means, but the matrix synth article states " And it’s also a hackable and customizable device, with CircuitPython, C\C++, and Ada support for programming your own synthesizers, video games, or any audio based projects."
But that doesn’t clarify what is written in what languages.
Ada is a fairly obscure language.
Open source means the source is available so you can modify or add features, but this is only possible if you actually know the language.
CircuitPython, C and C++ are commonly known but Ada, the language this is written in, is not.
I took a quick look at the source code (which I can barely understand because I’m not familiar with Ada) and it seems like at least a lot of the fundamentals of the system are written in Ada.
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Thanks!
Ada has been having a bit of a resurgence lately, though. It’s currently #16 on the PyPL index of programming language popularity. And it’s a reasonable choice for the job, being designed for real-time systems with multiple simultaneous processes.
This isn’t the first open-source audio device I’ve seen recently that was coded largely in Ada, either. I’m trying to remember what the other one was, will update here if I can recall it. Anyway, I imagine there are some particular advantages to using Ada for audio device programming that are causing it to be chosen for these projects.
I’d be curious to see some documentation on how users can integrate their own code, apart from completely rewriting the firmware. The CrowdSupply page does include a short video showing it running a game written in CircuitPython, so that at least confirms you’re not stuck with Ada only.
2 Likes
Sequencer demo
This is quite of a small beast, and at that price point. MIDI out, stereo audio in & out, mic, a touch strip (?), internal battery chargeable via USB-C, sample transfer, song mode, step conditions, randomization…
1 Like