Work on my 4-bit Arduino synthesiser is progressing pretty well, and I'm starting to get quite pleased with how authentically "chippy" it's sounding.  However, at the same time I'm getting increasingly unsatisfied with how much I suck at actually composing good music for it.  It's a lot trickier than it sounds from just listening to chiptunes (go figure).  I particularly have no idea how to make decent sounding leads, which is a big problem.  I had a very busy week so couldn't put much together for WB6.  One thing I'm really pleased with about the synth are the drum patches I've managed to put together, so here's a short piece with me demonstrating some drumming.  The whole thing ends with a totally awesome sounding glitchy explosion, which is a genuine glitch.  This piece was composed using HarmonySEQ, an open source MIDI sequencer for Linux, and when I press "pause" in HarmonySEQ, the Arduino just goes completely nuts.  I don't know if it's a bug in HarmonySEQ, in my synthesiser (most likely) or an interaction of bugs in both, but frankly I think it sounds really cool and I hope I can figure out how to deliberately replicate it further down the road.

Next week I might try using a MIDI tracker, which will probably make it easier to produce something closer to a traditional chiptune track.  If it looks like it's not going to happen in time I might try another ambient piece like my WB5 contribution.

Tags: arduino, diysynth, drums, experimental, week 6 2012, View by:Luke Maurits