Pocket synthesizer

[renzenicolai]

Creativity doesn't just express itself through coding. Many people in our community enjoy creating music, having an easy to use pocket synthesizer would make for a really fun device for this group.

Takte the Pocket Operator series of devices from Teenage Engineering: these toy synthesizers consist of a bare PCB with a load of buttons and two variable resistors.

On the software side of things I've already been playing with a Commodore 64 SID chip simulator called CSID. This library is so lightweight that it can easily run multiple times in parallel on the ESP32 in the MCH2022 badge.

I've also been experimenting with stripping down CSID, removing the CPU simulation, leaving just the SID chip simulator. This allows for manually controlling the SID registers. As a test I've been playing with controlling the registers via MIDI on a Linux PC. We could create a music sequencer application for the badge to allow for creating music patterns and we could have people play the SID chip "live" by pressing buttons.

Here is the proof of concept for CSID on badges: https://github.com/renzenicolai/mch2022-app-csid

[Jana-Marie]

I love this idea! Would be happy to explore it more/have it more explored

[renzenicolai]

(Added to design document)