Linus Ã…kesson’s Chipophone is a 8-bit synth built into an old electric organ.
All the original tone-generating parts have been disconnected, and the keys, pedals, knobs and switches rerouted to a microcontroller which transforms them into MIDI signals. Those are then parsed by a second microcontroller, which acts as a synthesizer.
The synthesizer is implemented on an ATmega88, an 8-bit microcontroller with 1 kB of RAM and 8.5 kB of ROM. It receives MIDI data at a jumper-configurable baud rate and produces a 12-bit mono line out signal.
6 thoughts on “The Chipophone: An 8-bit synthesizer”
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Sweeeeeeet. Mind you, the fade-out was a bit grainy, but still an epic piece of 8-bit hardware :D
PS, I knew I recognized this website from somewhere… This is the same guy that made the Craft AVR-based VGA graphics/music thing: http://www.linusakesson.net/scene/craft/index.php
Crowning Moment Of Awesome (even though Linus isn’t a fictional character.)
See this for an explanation of my apparent non-sequitur:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SugarWiki/CrowningMomentOfAwesome
And yes, I’m certain it qualifies as CrowningMusicOfAwesome as well.
Dude, your project is awesome, but your demonstration KICKS ASS! Using feet and hands to perform old classics in such complete way was HIGHLY impressive. I wish I had that baby chipophone to play a little as well! congratulations!