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The Arduino OctoSynth

The Arduino OctoSynth
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  • SAM_3820.JPG
  • SAM_3829.JPG
What is the OctoSynth you may ask? The octosynth is a polyphonic synthesizer that is able to produce eight Pulse Width Modulated tones that form together a musical scale. In English terms, it is a 8 key electronic organ that can play more than one tone at once but only one scale.

Special thanks to Joe Marshall who wrote the very useful code.

As suggested in the title, it runs on Arduino.

So before we get started, let's see what is sounds like. Shall, we?


And and explanation would be nice.



 
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Step 1Parts of The OctoSynth.

Parts of The OctoSynth.
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You will need:
An Arduino
12 Male headers (2 together and another six together. Also, another 4 together(Optional))
8 Unifomly LONG Wires ( By long I don't mean 3 meters but it means a decent 10 inches or maybe, 20 crentimeters.)
A Certain Amount of Copper Tape (Get a roll to be safe)
Enclosure (I used styrofoam as a base but if you want an enclosure, which is totally fine, you can use one. The length will depend on the wideness of you choose.)
Power Jack and Battery
Speaker
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21 comments
Feb 25, 2012. 4:08 AMmocm says:
any chance of midi out?
Feb 25, 2012. 8:55 AMmocm says:
Hi, thanks for the replay...
i just sing up on the Instructables site and i mess with the comments :
Feb 25, 2012. 3:58 PMmocm says:
if you have sum time check my funny sound modules...
www.mocm.gr
thanks...
Feb 17, 2012. 12:38 PMjo_mo says:
Really great work. I made one and it sounds sweet.
Feb 11, 2012. 7:03 AMlukev2 says:
why eight? because u wanted an octave?
Feb 13, 2012. 2:42 PMlukev2 says:
cool........
Feb 11, 2012. 3:38 PMAndyGadget says:
Just a technical point :- You're not actually using that as a capacitive sensor, which is a non-contact form of sensing.  You are affecting the arduino input by a combination of changed resistance and hum pickup.
To convert it to proper capacitive sensing, put a thin sheet of non-conductive film over the row of keys.  You may need to enter a calibration value into the code to set the switching threshold.
Feb 12, 2012. 2:18 AMAndyGadget says:
The Nerdkits video you linked is showing an extreme example of capacitive sensing.  It is much more commonly used over a range of a couple of millimetres to detect finger touches so the front panel of e.g. a number entry pad can be flat and the sensing element (copper pad) is on the back side of the panel.
 
One other thing - You say below that you did not write this code.  I know the author's name is at the top of it, but you should really give him credit in the Instructable  It's very bad form not to do so.
Feb 12, 2012. 12:04 PMAndyGadget says:
(Comments behaving strangely so I can't reply to your comment #;¬)

Yep, that's great.  I'm more a Picaxe kind of guy, but looking at the Arduino code it appears capable of a lot more.  Do you have any plans to extend its capabilities?

I'm currently designing a sort of Stylophone on Steroids with the Picaxe.  Hope to be putting together an Instructable in the not too distant future.)
Feb 11, 2012. 4:01 AMdeqwer says:
how can the copper tape detect the touch of the finger ?
Feb 10, 2012. 3:40 PMChrysN says:
That''s awesome, great job!

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Author:blinkyblinky
If you want me to build something...I'm open to ideas. I like to hack with electronics, mix with chemicals and play with ideas. My motto? "If you want something to be done in this world, you must do i...
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