[HN Gopher] Show HN: I built a synth for my daughter
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Show HN: I built a synth for my daughter
Author : random_moonwalk
Score : 852 points
Date : 2025-11-12 14:12 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (bitsnpieces.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (bitsnpieces.dev)
| skrebbel wrote:
| wow
| greasegum wrote:
| This is an inspiring project! I would love to see more stuff like
| this and updates if you decide to evolve the project further.
| random_moonwalk wrote:
| Thanks so much! Please drop your email here and I'll keep you
| updated with any next steps: https://tally.so/r/Y55dXv
| lovegrenoble wrote:
| Absolutely, Kickstarter is a good idea
| eat_your_potato wrote:
| Reminds me of the concept of the Data DUO, very inspiring
| 0xdada wrote:
| Wow! Looks great and very inspiring. Great idea to make separate
| components that can be connected - something like a drum machine,
| sequencer, maybe even a chord synthesizer? It can be constrained
| such that you are always diatonic, you could have a mode knob
| too.
|
| Jamming with other people can be a life changing experience, and
| to do that as a child would be a great privilege to have.
| random_moonwalk wrote:
| Yes exactly, it would be great to be able to sync the clocks so
| they all 'just work' together. And maybe also a module that
| gives all the other synth parameters for the more advanced user
| too. I say it's for my daughter, but I actually would love this
| too.
| andoando wrote:
| Im not sure youre aware of this but look up modular
| synthesizers. This is how electronic music was made starting in
| the 60s/70s
| nimrody wrote:
| It's beautiful and the demo video shows how someone with music
| background can make even such a limited tool sound so amazing.
| dmd wrote:
| Very cool. Reminds me of things like the Blipbox myTRACKS and the
| CHOMPI.
| fiatpandas wrote:
| Regarding case material for productizing, you could consider a
| combination of plywood and bent sheet metal, eg like a Moog. Also
| check out dato.mu for a few examples of kid proof synth
| enclosures.
| Thorrez wrote:
| Would bent sheet metal have any sharp corners or edges? For
| kids it's probably best to avoid those.
| bluGill wrote:
| That depends on how much effort your spend on finish work.
| Files and sandpaper works wonders, but that take time. Or you
| can fold the edges over so that the sharp edges are on the
| inside (cars do this). The plywood is likely to cover all
| those sharp edges - plywood is easier to shape than sheet
| metal so this is a common cheat that can look good if done
| right.
| fiatpandas wrote:
| You can debur it as part of the manufacturing process, and
| then when it gets powder coating it smooths out even more.
| But you can just embed the sheet metal edges in a groove on a
| wooden side.
| dude250711 wrote:
| Another good option for a child:
| https://www.eltamusic.com/solar-42
|
| On a serious note: https://www.ericasynths.lv/shop/standalone-
| instruments-1/bul...
| tanepiper wrote:
| I'm a 44 year old man and _I would love this_ - for years I 've
| tried to dabble with music with much lack of success - but this
| looks really fun to play with. Great job.
| bluGill wrote:
| The problem with music is you can't dabble. You need to
| dedicate half an hour per day for a few weeks before you reach
| the point where you are not terrible. You need years of
| dedicated practice before you can call yourself good. Finding
| that time is hard. Still making your own music is run and so I
| encourage you to press through.
| exitb wrote:
| Not trying to get good is a liberating step. I never was and
| never will be good at music, but it's still fun to play loud
| punk-ish tunes on a guitar, or twiddle the knobs on a
| faux-303, none of which requires years of your life.
| 0xMalotru wrote:
| Go grab a Teenage Engineering Pocket Operator, it's definitely
| worth a try ! I personally recommend the PO-33 (KO!), it is fun
| and easy to play with :)
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| The POs are fun to play with, but from experience I would
| much rather recommend getting a used mk1 Novation Circuit.
| For $150 - $200 you have a four track drum machine plus two
| tracks of a great synth engine, with a built in mixer and
| simple effects, midi in if you want to use a keyboard, and
| the thing is still compact and battery powered.
| fainpul wrote:
| There are also free software synths and DAWs available.
| GarageBand is the obvious one if you use macOS. I had lots of
| fun with that and with NanoStudio on iPad. I also own a Pocket
| Operator, which is fun and very mobile, but a bit pricey.
| turbotim wrote:
| I've been messing around making a small web based project that
| does something similar if you're interested in trying a dabble:
| https://shantylab.com
| haldean wrote:
| If you want a synth you can buy that has a similar playing
| style, you could check out the Modern Sounds Pluto:
| https://www.modernsounds.co/pluto (the original run is sold out
| but you can find them on ebay/reverb)
|
| It's two of these 4-note step sequencers with some fun timing
| randomness. Similar to the OP's synth it uses knobs to set
| pitches but the knobs are picking notes from a specific key so
| they always sound good together. It's a lot of fun to play and
| doesn't require any musical knowledge!
| BjornW wrote:
| What an awesome project. It looks fabulous!
|
| Reminds me of the Dato Duo I have.
|
| The "Dato Duo" is also a synth aimed at kids. It allows 2 kids to
| play together. it is made by a Dutch company called Dato
| (https://dato.mu). Their latest musical invention the "Dato Drum"
| had a successful Kickstarter and is shipping now. This drum
| machine allows even more kids to play together.
|
| PS: As the owner of a Dato Duo I can share you a little secret:
| it's also fun for adults :)
| perelin wrote:
| Love my Datos (also own the drum now)! My kids are jamming with
| them regularly. Only issue: my youngest LOVES the "Crush"
| button and just holds it the whole time. Not easy for noise
| sensitive parents :)
| Waterluvian wrote:
| If I have zero experience designing PCBs but wanted to do a
| similarly (non)-complex one, how much of a tall order would that
| be? In my completely made-up mental model, I'm guessing I just
| take the parts I've already breadboarded, look them up in some
| sidebar, and drag and drop them around, snapping to nice clean
| spacing, and then connect all the various pins together and have
| it automatically organize things? We're not going for perfect
| here. Just "Baby's first PCB" that at least _works_.
|
| And then when I have one designed, how much would it cost to get
| made and sent to me if I was okay if it took a month?
|
| But most importantly: how do I build personal confidence that I'm
| not shipping a potato off to be printed? Is there a community I
| could ask for a review from?
| jmb99 wrote:
| If the board is small (10x10cm or less) it will be almost
| completely free, like single-digit dollars, through somewhere
| like JLPCB. So I'd say don't worry too much about that, just
| jump in and try!
|
| As for actually designing, it's a little more complicated than
| that but not by much. I did my first pcbs with KiCAD ~5 years
| ago by pretty much just guessing and googling where things
| were. Completely feasible if you have 0 background experience.
| random_moonwalk wrote:
| Hi, your mental model is essentially correct, though it took me
| a good few evenings over a couple of weeks to get the workflow
| down in fusion 360. The electronics retailer will usually have
| the footprint and 3d model available on the component page. You
| can then import it, define which pins you want connected to
| each other in the footprint and in the PCB editor you can drag
| the routes (wires) to connect them.
|
| Printing is way cheaper than I initially thought it would be -
| I paid PS35 or so, including delivery and 5 of them arrived in
| 5 days. You can get cheaper delivery though. Also most of that
| cost is shipping and the setup fee - the marginal cost for each
| additional PCB print in the order is on the order of low single
| digit dollars.
|
| Tbh my circuit was fairly simple so I just took a bit of a
| chance (and some extra care wiring things up). I think there's
| a subreddit where people give feedback though I haven't
| submitted anything.
| bluGill wrote:
| Depends on complexity. The article gives a price, for 5 PCBs
| which isn't unreasonable. However this was a simple PCB that
| used a lot more physical space than it would need to (for this
| application most of the space was needed because of the
| physical space the buttons/sliders needed so it was needed so
| this isn't a criticism). If you want to make a small PCB much
| more work is needed. This was a few analog sliders and buttons
| - no high speed digital data, if you are designing a computer
| (even Apple II level complexity) it is a lot harder. If you are
| designing a radio there are a lot of complexity. If you want to
| get this FCC (whatever your local government is) certified
| there is a lot more complexity.
|
| This project is something that should be easy for someone with
| basic CAD experience. However many projects require a lot more
| complexity, so don't think that because most people could
| figure this PCB out in a day make you think anyone can do more
| complex PCBs, things get complex fast.
| TheJoeMan wrote:
| As a hobbyist, I have had a good experience using EasyEDA [0].
| It's free to use, with the caveat that you are pretty locked in
| to their PCB ordering service from China. However, pricing is
| crazy good, like <$50 total for 5 PCB's (although there will be
| tariffs).
|
| Regarding your mental model, it's more like a 2-step process.
| First, you draw the netlist, which is the electrical circuit
| diagram. It's this stage you ensure there are no short-
| circuits, etc. Then in the second stage, you drag-drop the
| components to the physical layout you want. The software then
| has an auto-router that references the netlist and
| automatically generates the first pass of PCB traces. You can
| tweak them if you wish. The EDA software also has a rules
| engine that checks for correct trace spacing, vias, etc.
|
| For a "baby's first PCB", I bet you have more skills than you
| realize and I would encourage you to just give it a shot. Also,
| if you make a small mistake, you can manually "bodge" the board
| by cutting wrong traces with an exacto knife and/or soldering
| wires to the pads.
|
| Everything else just comes from experience! If you're staying
| in the sub-kHz (audio) range, you probably won't need the crazy
| high-frequency tricks/trace capacitance/trace-length-matching
| concerns.
|
| [0] https://easyeda.com/
| meatmanek wrote:
| Does EasyEDA not allow you to download gerber files anymore?
| Gerbers are universal and you'd be able to send them to any
| fab you wanted. Obviously EasyEDA being sponsored by JLC
| means they make it easy to order through JLC.
| TheJoeMan wrote:
| On second look, I may have mixed up that the lock-in was
| with ExpressPCB, another software I've used previously.
| EasyEDA does appear to still have Gerber export.
| drivers99 wrote:
| jmb99 already said the part about cost/price. I just made a PCB
| for someone's Halloween costume and it was only the 4th PCB I
| ever made. (So far I've used PCBWay for all 4 but since I'm in
| the US I also ended up doing a rush order from US-based Osh
| Park because I was panicking about how long the shipping was
| taking. Tariff situation has made shipping from China to the US
| more complicated. I found out DKRed, which is part of DigiKey,
| also makes PCBs in the US.)
|
| For designing it I'd check out a kicad 9 tutorial playlist. You
| don't need to know everything but it helps to know the right
| things, like how to run the design rules checker to make sure
| your PCB layout conforms to your schematic. There are a bunch
| to choose from but this one seems good:
| https://youtu.be/4YSZwcUSgJo
|
| I haven't done this but you can also try submitting your PCB
| design to /r/PrintedCircuitBoard subreddit for review, and they
| can also answer questions there.
| meatmanek wrote:
| +1 to /r/PrintedCircuitBoard. It's exactly the community GP
| is looking for.
| tmerr wrote:
| For another data point: last week I ordered my first PCBs from
| JLCBCB. 2 fully assembled (parts already soldered) and 3 bare.
| $40 for the boards themselves, $40 for shipping, and $20 for US
| Tariffs, for total $100. Should take a week to arrive,
| shipping's cheaper if your willing to wait a month.
|
| Re help: I asked for some help on libera ##electronics. I think
| there are larger communities on reddit that would also take a
| pass over designs.
|
| My impression is that for straightforward circuits (not very
| high frequency or high power) you can get away with almost
| anything as far as layout goes. You punch in some generous
| setting for spacing of traces etc in the CAD software and it
| does some basic validation. (Are all the parts connected, not
| too close?).
|
| I used KiCAD. It works well, though for assembly EasyEDA is
| probably lower friction. I had to dig around to find the right
| footprints for certain parts.
| brudgers wrote:
| Curious if there are meaningful differences between JLBPCB
| and PCBway.
| solfox wrote:
| Looks amazing! Reminds me of a funny reddit thread about a man
| who built a fiber optic star ceiling for his daughter. The top
| comment was "First child?". :)
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/8g8pce/fiberoptic_star...
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| And then the things you do to redeem your guilt for the second
| child is a whole interesting area.
| random_moonwalk wrote:
| That's what the drum machine module is for.
| sroussey wrote:
| And then they give up by the fourth. Guess which one I was,
| lol.
| Bengalilol wrote:
| Hi Brajeshwar (back to the old flashcoders days). Children
| grow up and in the end you get the full orchestra ^^
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Don't assume: Could be an only child, or the spouse is stay-at-
| home, or the author has family wealth and doesn't need a full
| time job.
| prodigycorp wrote:
| could also be the first child ;)
| random_moonwalk wrote:
| Can confirm, they're my first child
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| or literally none of those options
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I do get your sentiment, but you could have picked some
| better examples:
|
| > Could be an only child
|
| In which case, odds are that they're also the first child ;)
|
| > or the spouse is stay-at-home
|
| Which is a full-time job in itself
|
| > or the author has family wealth and doesn't need a full
| time job.
|
| which is far far less likely than the assumption you're
| rebuttelling
| fny wrote:
| Great work! This brings back memories of futzing with knobs on a
| boombox as a kid.
|
| For your sake, I hope you built a heaphone jack.
| random_moonwalk wrote:
| Thank you! Unfortunately I decided to save that feature for v2!
| gus_massa wrote:
| Strong sugestion for v2: Add a hidden knob to regulate the
| max volume. Kids love to raise it to the max.
|
| (In a tablet, I had to secretly add some transparent tape
| between the speaker and the plastic cover case.)
| gulan28 wrote:
| This is awesome. I had vibecoded something similar called
| https://chippytune.com for myself. Still working on wav support
| though
| habosa wrote:
| This is fantastic, as a hardware synth lover and a dad you're
| making me pretty jealous.
| ronbenton wrote:
| Wow looks professional
| fainpul wrote:
| > A 3D-printed enclosure is fine for a prototype, but a real
| product likely needs injection-molded parts, which require
| expensive tooling.
|
| For kid-friendly toys, yes. But for older users not necessarily:
|
| https://teenage.engineering/products/po
| speedgoose wrote:
| I have two of those. They are great additions to my drawers.
|
| One has a silicon case and is nicer to use though.
| NoSalt wrote:
| You say "they are great additions to my drawers". Is that
| because they suck, or is it that you don't have the time to
| enjoy them? (which I totally understand) I have seen these
| before and didn't know if they were worth the money. What is
| your opinion on them?
| brudgers wrote:
| On one hand, $100 will buy a lot of hamburger. On the other
| hand, it's relatively low for a musical instrument and
| pretty easy to justify when if you suffer from gas.
|
| I am only speaking for myself, but I have a drawer of small
| musical electronics that I use occasionally. I bought them
| because I was curious.. I keep them because they are
| musical and not worth selling.
| speedgoose wrote:
| I have the PO-12 (drum machine), and the PO-33 (sampler).
| They are somewhat limited but that can a good creativity
| booster.
|
| I don't use them often because I'm not a great musician. I
| think they were worth the money, for sure.
| elric wrote:
| Wood is also pretty child friendly.
|
| But neither injection molding nor carpentry will protect a
| synth from a child dunking it in a puddle of water.
| analog31 wrote:
| That's what backing up the design is for. ;-)
| smj-edison wrote:
| Isn't there some kind of water proofing spray you can put on
| the circuits? I guess you'd still need some way to protect
| the batteries, but I think it is doable.
| NoSalt wrote:
| How are these, are they worth the money? I have seen these
| before, but thought they might be crappy "jokes". However, if
| they are decent, I would love to play around with them.
| mlyle wrote:
| They -are- decent modular chunks. They have a bit of opinion
| pushing you in certain directions as far as sound goes.
|
| Each one does a pretty limited set of things and combining
| them can be annoying.
|
| But you get a lot for the money you spend on them.
| brudgers wrote:
| _combining them can be annoying_
|
| The strong design opinions about how the Pocket Operators
| interact with other musical gear are a big part of why I
| haven't had high enthusiasm for using the small PO's when
| I've had small PO's.
|
| For me, Volca's are a similar ecosystem but to a lesser
| extent...maybe because the Monotrons sit lower in Korg's
| product portfolio while the PO's are rock bottom of TE's
| product line.
| franky47 wrote:
| I gave my kids (5 and 2) two Volcas (Beats & Keys) to
| play with. The Keys is a bit too advanced (too easy to
| get no sound at all, or something that sounds horrible),
| but the Beats is a wonderful machine for kids, as it's
| virtually impossible to make it sound bad. Also great to
| teach them rhythm.
| mock-possum wrote:
| It's pretty capable hardware, but in my personal opinion the
| UI sucks. It falls into the category of "why did you make
| this hard on purpose" and I resent it.
| joemi wrote:
| Yeah, I agree. The size and price are attractive and they
| are pretty capable, but the UI is a bit more complex than
| ideal. It either needs better labeling of functions/combos
| (which is hard to do with the size) or more buttons/knobs
| to reduce the number of combos. On that note, the cases do
| a bit to aid with the labeling, but they also increase the
| price by more than one might expect. With better UI, they
| could have been truly amazing.
| levicole wrote:
| I have a friend that writes lots of music on the PO-33. They
| are fun, definitely toyish, but you can get good results:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBo8Rd7HxdU <- a friend that
| creates a lot of music on small "affordable" pieces of gear.
| brudgers wrote:
| [context: I have eBay'd a couple of Pocket Operators because
| I was curious and the price was low enough I knew I could at
| least break even reselling on Reverb even after fees and
| shipping...This is how I rationalize my gas.]
|
| Maybe buy one and if it is not for you be ok reselling it at
| a loss...framing it as renting an instrument helps me.
|
| The Pocket Operators are musical and inexpensive for musical
| instruments.
|
| Like any musical instrument practice hours are how you get
| amazing results and whether the instrument gels with you is
| the biggest influence of whether you put in the hours.
|
| For me, the Pocket Operators haven't gelled...I just don't
| enjoy them enough to put in the time. But other people find
| them great and I can see why (not-for-me != bad).
| sleepybrett wrote:
| The pocket operators have kind of 'grown up' and now they
| are doing a larger format thingie that is kinda like a
| pocket operator: https://teenage.engineering/products/ep
|
| I especially like the bardcore one:
| https://teenage.engineering/products/ep-1320
| brudgers wrote:
| Yes there are now pocket operators that don't fit in a
| pocket...for clarity, that's not what I was talking about
| but the practice thing still applies.
| ikamm wrote:
| They're definitely very capable but limited machines, I
| enjoyed mine a lot until the potentiometers started thinking
| there was a change in the degrees even when I wasn't moving
| them
| dimatura wrote:
| "worth the money" is hard to say, especially for devices like
| these where the value is not really so much on the plain
| features as much as a more subjective factors like the design
| and the UI. I would say that purely based on features -
| probably not, especially with post-covid pricing. There are
| more powerful iphone or android apps for much less.
| Behringer, and to some degree Korg and Roland offer lower-end
| devices for not much more that ultimately might be more
| useful and usable. But, I do own a couple of these little
| guys and they're fun. I wouldn't call them "jokes", but
| calling them "toys" - in the good and bad sense - would
| probably not be a stretch, even if you can get some nice
| sounds out of them. I used to keep a couple on my desk and
| just jam a little with them as a distraction.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Makes me wonder what the difference, in definition, is between a
| sequencer and a synthesizer? Is this really a synthesizer, or is
| it really a sequencer?
|
| Yes, I'm splitting hairs about semantics.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| The answer to your question is "yes".
|
| It is a synthesiser _AND_ it is a step sequencer.
| dave_sid wrote:
| Both
| butlike wrote:
| A sequencer is always in steps. A synthesizer has a signal
| generator and can modulate a single step. This toy is both a
| synthesizer and a sequencer, but since you cannot toggle the 4
| steps off, it will always be a sequencer in addition to the
| synthesizer
| oidar wrote:
| The linked project is both. A synth makes sounds, and a
| sequencer controls the sound over time usually with note on/off
| data. This sequencer has 4 steps before looping back to the
| beginning. To simplify, think of a sequencer as the music box
| drum and the synth as the tines in a music box.
| strogonoff wrote:
| A synthesizer is generally a higher-level ready-to-use product
| _containing_ any number of oscillators, sequencers, and other
| circuits and bells and whistles under the hood. A device with
| an oscillator and a sequencer qualifies as a basic synth.
|
| At a lower levels you find modules like sequencer, oscillator,
| etc. They are generally not used by themselves: you plug a
| sequencer into an oscillator to make use of it, just like a
| standalone oscillator by itself simply makes a continuous noise
| that gets old quickly. A synth does that connection for you and
| exposes the controls.
|
| (To make things even more fun, the lines between lower-level
| audio modules are often blurred. For example, the difference
| between a sequencer and an oscillator can be best summed up as:
| the former is commonly _designed for_ unipolar control rate
| signal change where you can specify exact level per step, while
| the latter is _designed for_ bipolar audio rate signal change
| between two predetermined extremes--however, as the "designed
| for" hints, you could configure some sequencers to output a
| bipolar signal changing so fast it is audible, just like you
| could run a square wave oscillator so slowly that it becomes a
| 2-step sequencer.)
| phplovesong wrote:
| As a father to a daughter this warms my heart. Well done daddy!
| Points to you!
| NickC25 wrote:
| that's great! may your daughter make great use of it!
|
| love the fact that your step sequencer even has a display to tell
| you what note you are adjusting to and from. i've always found
| that tuning synths and sequencers both analog and digital can be
| a pain because you can forget the note (or you don't have a good
| set of ears or perfect pitch) even if the result sounds good.
| binary132 wrote:
| Totally rad! Makes me think about what kind of simple programming
| could be possible with a minimal HCI like this.
| tapland wrote:
| This is great. I'm going to start making something like this, but
| with some cut apple wood knobs, for my birds.
| bitwize wrote:
| The other day I came across a post on Facebook that was just some
| guy grousing that the new Teenage Engineering gadget looked like
| "a baby's activity center". And now we've come full circle: a
| baby's activity center that's actually not far off from Teenage
| Engineering kit.
| afandian wrote:
| Amazing the things we do for our little ones. I built a toddler-
| friendly keyboard for my son. He's still playing some form of
| piano 6 years later, no longer with his fists or feet.
|
| https://blog.afandian.com/2019/09/ux-for-toddlers/
| newtwilly wrote:
| Beautifully done!
| danvoell wrote:
| This is awesome. Just awesome. Love that it looks like a baby toy
| and packs enough punch to get a kid about 20 years up the line of
| music understanding.
| cjonas wrote:
| I've been learning CAD, 3d printing, PCB design and brushing up
| on my embedded programming... all with the goal of being able to
| build toys for/with my son. It's incredible how accessible it is
| in todays world, made possible by these advancements:
|
| - incredibly powerful and cheap microprocessors (esp-32) - Fast,
| high precision desktop 3d printers - Affordable small batch PCB
| manufacturing - LLM's to advise on circuit design and help with
| embedded programming
|
| Would you have any interest selling a non-comm license to the
| PCB, f3d files and source code? My 1.5yo son would absolutely
| love this!
| mcrider wrote:
| Same, I recently got into Arduino so i could build a toy idea I
| had for my kid (a sort of "keepy-uppy" paddle game). I've
| always avoided Arduino projects because I don't like to code in
| my spare time (its my day job) and also learning how to wire
| things seemed daunting -- LLMs solved both of those problems
| for me (Claude's wiring tutorials are awesome and the code is
| simple enough that it can one-shot it).
|
| I also bought a Bambu A1 3D Printer and it is unexpectedly way
| more fun and useful than I thought it would be. I designed the
| toy in TinkerCAD and it printed out beautifully (I also have
| been printing out lots of other toys and yes, useful things for
| around the house and for other projects).
|
| Next steps are learning Fusion 360 and figuring out PCBs --
| That also seemed daunting to me but its nice to see other
| amateur hobbyists are seemingly picking it up with not much
| difficulty.
| JoeDaDude wrote:
| Cool! Reminds of the Music From Outer Space synth in which the
| designer makes the claim that it "can actually get a child away
| from a television" and includes a video to prove it.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6M_KrZByz4
|
| MFOS Weird Sound Generator
|
| https://musicfromouterspace.com/index.php?CATPARTNO=WSG001&P...
| thenthenthen wrote:
| Looks so nice! The sam is a midi synth chip right? Super cool.
| How/where did you get the knobs?
| random_moonwalk wrote:
| Thanks! Yes it's a little digital synth that receives MIDI.
|
| I used Chroma Cap knobs:
| https://store.djtechtools.com/products/chroma-caps-knobs-and...
| thenthenthen wrote:
| Aah kool, i had one in a arduino format board, was great to
| cycle through all the instruments randomly + some
| sequence/chords. Instant Aphex Twin
| oldestofsports wrote:
| This is very impressive, it looks great!
| BigTTYGothGF wrote:
| The traditional approach is you give noisemaking toys to your
| niblings, not your own children.
| random_moonwalk wrote:
| This sounds like a lesson I'm going to be learning the hard way
| brudgers wrote:
| Good parenting is doing things the hard way.
|
| So why not go all in with a full set of acoustic drums?
| bluGill wrote:
| Do you have $800? I'm trying to get my daughter a full set
| of acoustic drums (though odds are her brother will use
| them more even though he plays clarinet and she does
| percussion). I've seen full sets for as little as $30 - but
| it doesn't take much checking to realize they are not worth
| it even at that price. Good sets quickly cost more, but
| $800 is a good starting point for a set that isn't
| unusable.
| brudgers wrote:
| Keeping in mind that you can't buy a new Stradivarius...
|
| Maybe try Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, etc. because
| drum sets take up space quality drum sets and other large
| instruments are often priced where moving the gear is
| part of the payment.
| warrenmiller wrote:
| is it feasible to built one with a PCB? just straight to the UNO
| like your initial prototype - did that work ok?
| NoSalt wrote:
| This is absolutely FANTASTIC, and I am humbled by your mad
| skillz!
|
| My son and I are also fascinated by the sweet, sweet synth sound,
| but as I have no discernible talent, we went this route:
|
| https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Nts1Mk2--korg-nutekt...
|
| Which, unfortunately, has a HUGE learning curve in terms of
| operation.
| rcarmo wrote:
| This is great. I did a similar thing when my kids were young
| (revived an old, dead Kawai synth with a Raspberry Pi and sound
| fonts), but doing it with semi-discrete circuits seems a lot more
| fun.
| broast wrote:
| So cool, I think all kids would love this
| bbhi wrote:
| Looks like a fun project. I can highly recommend Teensy Audio
| Library for audio projects:
| https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_libs_Audio.html
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| Mozzi (for Arduino) is also great!
|
| https://sensorium.github.io/Mozzi/
| simgt wrote:
| As someone who has never 3d printed anything, I'm surprised by
| how clean the case looks as opposed to what we usually see. Why
| is it so smooth?
| TheSilva wrote:
| Sanding and polishing, likely.
| bvm wrote:
| Nah, it just came out like that (i printed it :D)
|
| We experimented with ironing, but you can't see it in those
| views. The A1 is a pretty good printer OOTB. There were a few
| iterations on the case design though to optimise the edges.
| gpm wrote:
| The surfaces you're seeing in the pictures are almost all the
| "bottom" surface that was printed directly on the build plate.
| It basically just picks up the texture of the build plate and
| is otherwise smooth. That's actually a fairly bumpy build plate
| they printed it on (which lots of people like for aesthetic
| reasons).
|
| That said modern 3D printers are good at producing pretty nice
| parts these days, especially if you print with small layer
| heights. You might be underestimating the possible quality of
| 3d printed objects.
| sgallant wrote:
| My kids would love this.
| woolion wrote:
| Were you aware of the Dato Duo (https://dato.mu/)? It's very cool
| for kids, except for the fairly steep price point.
|
| The advantage is that it's limited, so it greatly reduces the
| wall of difficulty to manage to get some 'nice-sounding' music
| (mostly the restriction to the pentatonic scale). However, kids
| still manage to find the most horrible-sounding settings, and
| insist on keeping them as is...
| helsontaveras18 wrote:
| Wow, what an amazing demo for such a simple synth. Great work! If
| you ever start a Kickstarter, I'd be happy to donate. If it
| inspires some kid out there to get into music production, it's a
| win for me :)
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Would love something like this for my daughter, but with a max
| volume option she can't tamper with LOL
| RobertWesner wrote:
| I can't put into words how awesome this is. Perfect demo.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Kinda funny but my adult son has taken an interest in guitars and
| keyboard and that has me working on MIDI routers with AVR-8 and
| building an ESP32 based synth module.
| yzydserd wrote:
| I was too fascinated by the different thumb nail lengths to
| concentrate much on the video.
| random_moonwalk wrote:
| I trained as a classical guitarist, so I maintain some longer
| nails on my right hand :)
| rock_artist wrote:
| What I love about this is how physical it is. So yeah, there's
| some board running DSP. but the design is amazing. It really
| relates to some recent posts also in HN about many objects
| loosing their physical UX. from an age of having buttons and
| tactical interfaces, everything became more touch based / app
| based which indeed cut price and allows easier updating. but also
| lacks some romance which is exactly what this device shows.
| brudgers wrote:
| Reminded me of a BlipBlox...
|
| https://blipblox.com
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| Agreed. That's half the reason that no matter how accurate a
| virtual synthesizer can be (like the Mac App Moog Model D),
| there's just no substitute for being able to physically fiddle
| the knobs and dials.
| mttch wrote:
| This is great, i'd kickstart it, my 5 year old would love it.
| Krisso wrote:
| Dad of the year <3
| tmilard wrote:
| I'm not a kid. I still want it !
| pragma_x wrote:
| Same. It's a solid four-note ARP that sticks to a fixed set of
| musical keys. You literally can't make bad sounding music with
| this.
|
| A more grown-up version of this would be 16 notes, with
| variable length patterns (4-16?), and a "swing" function. A
| little bit of I/O mux under the hood and I bet this design
| could be expanded in that way. Or maybe you just daisy-chain
| multiple sequencers?
| brudgers wrote:
| This ends at Eurorack.
| pragma_x wrote:
| It _all_ ends at eurorack. Especially my bank account.
| chaosprint wrote:
| Great finish. I was busy designing and soldering the prototype
| synthesizer during the summer, but I had to put it on hold
| because my baby was born in September.
|
| I had the same problem back then: injection molding is quite
| expensive to start. But you could consider a more creative
| approach: using a PCB directly as the panel, such as a TE's
| Pocket Operator. Korg also has this solution for some educational
| products. Alternatively, you could use 3D printing; there are
| many inexpensive services in China. CNC doesn't have the mold-
| making issue, but it's more expensive and doesn't seem suitable
| for children.
|
| Another interesting point: after my child was born, I didn't have
| much time for my sound work. But recently, I was surprised to
| find that I spend most of my time playing white noise on Glicol
| (http://glicol.org/) and it works great for my kid.
|
| ``` o: noise 42 >> lpf ~mod 1 >> mul ~mod3
|
| ~mod: sin ~mod2 >> mul 200 >> add 1000
|
| ~mod2: sin 0.1 >> mul 0.04 >> add 0.1
|
| ~mod3: sin 0.04 >> mul 0.3 >> add 0.8 ```
|
| Good luck with kickstarter!
| Joeboy wrote:
| It's not kid friendly, but in case anybody's interested I just
| wrote up how I made a simple "hardware" synth by bodging together
| a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 and I2S audio module, total cost around
| PS10 on Amazon UK.
|
| The hardware's very cheap and easy. The "default" synthesis is
| pretty simple but also pretty hackable (in Rust) if you want to
| customize it.
|
| https://github.com/Joeboy/oxynth/
| afandian wrote:
| Thanks for sharing!
|
| I did some similar playing around with an ESP32 and I2S a few
| years ago (lockdowns were an odd time). Where I seem to
| remember getting stuck was how to get the phase to line up, so
| that each sample looped at a zero-crossing point (which is
| different for each frequency).
|
| For the lazy, what did you do?
|
| https://gitlab.com/afandian/melodicornamuse/-/blob/main/melo...
| Joeboy wrote:
| I don't really understand your issue sorry, but my thing
| basically just writes the audio output to a buffer, and the
| DMA and PIO "automatically" send that to the I2S output.
| There's also some messing about with ping ponging between two
| DMA buffers to avoid gaps between each buffer write audio. I
| guess things might be quite different on the ESP32.
|
| Edit: Ok I glanced at your code, if I read it right it seems
| like you're writing sin waves into buffers at "init" time
| then copying the appropriate buffer at "run" time. Which is
| not what I'd do, but then I'm used to more luxurious devices.
| Maybe try using a fast sin approximation rather than the
| precomputed buffer table?
|
| https://bmtechjournal.wordpress.com/2020/05/27/super-fast-
| qu... might be helpful there.
| dimatura wrote:
| were you using single cycle waveforms or longer samples? in
| the former case, I guess there's not much to it, you just
| cycle through the waveform (in which case the waveform you
| choose would usually start and end at a zero crossing by
| construction, like sines, triangles, etc - or, if it does
| not, well, that will just create extra harmonics that might
| or not be desirable). For the second case, it's more subtle.
| Most samplers that implement this feature will assume correct
| loop points (usually, but not necessarily at a zero crossing)
| are chosen manually by the user. Some of them implement
| cross-fading at the looping point to make that more
| forgiving, but that may be CPU/RAM intensive for some
| devices. If you're referring to small clicks you may get at
| the start and stop of sample playback, it's fairly common to
| use very short (ms or less) fade-in/fade-out to avoid that.
| There's a lot of books out there, but the main one I've read
| and enjoyed is this one, that happens to be free:
| https://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/book/synthesis/. it's more of a
| textbook than a cookbook.
| dep_b wrote:
| The korg monotribe is magic for kids
| rmnclmnt wrote:
| Your daughter is so lucky! I meaning the physical UX is very
| reminiscent of teenage engineering, looks great! The more I was
| scrolling down the article the more I hoped for an << order >>
| button :)
| random_moonwalk wrote:
| Thanks for all the kind words and feedback. There are some
| comments expressing interest in supporting a Kickstarter etc. If
| you're interested in receiving updates you can leave your email
| here:
|
| https://tally.so/r/Y55dXv
|
| Thanks again - this was a bit of a surprise!
| jbl0ndie wrote:
| Lovely project and a really great idea.
|
| Have you come across soft tooling for injection moulding? It's
| a lower cost, short run approach using much less durable moulds
| from various materials.
| random_moonwalk wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| I didn't know that was a thing - I'm going to look into it.
| MrsPeaches wrote:
| It's a great project!
|
| I've got some experience with small batch production and I've
| written an email. Check your spam!
| random_moonwalk wrote:
| Thanks, I've responded :)
| NobodyNada wrote:
| That is fantastic, I love it!
|
| If I may submit an extremely pedantic music nerd bug report: at
| 46s in the video demo
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qboig3a0YS0&t=46s), the
| display should read Bb instead of A#, as the key of C minor is
| written with flats :)
|
| (The precise rule is that a diatonic scale must use each letter
| name for exactly one note, e.g. you can't have both G and G# in
| the same key, and you can't skip B. This has many important
| properties that make music easier to read and reason about,
| such as allowing written music to specify "all the E's, A's,
| and B's are flat" once at the start of the piece instead of
| having to clutter the page with redundant sharps or flats
| everywhere.)
| nine_k wrote:
| The device is fantastic indeed!
|
| Regarding flats and sharps: one could ignore the Pythagorean
| stuff and go full well-tempered dodecaphonic, thinking purely
| in terms of semitones in the intervals. This toy sort of
| nudges towards this. It would be fun to add 12 small LEDs
| along the faders, and show the number of semitones with them,
| relative to the previous fader's position.
|
| On one hand, the fact that the same sound can be named A# and
| Bb may be puzzling for a kid (they could differ on a violin,
| I suppose); OTOH if the kid later learns formal music
| notation, this becomes helpful, so your comment holds.
| nicr_22 wrote:
| Why stop at 12 semitones? That's so square and limiting,
| man...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/31_equal_temperament
| tietjens wrote:
| This crosses such a rare line of being something that both
| children and adults would love to have around to play with.
| Even though I know you didn't build it to be a product.
| dinobones wrote:
| This is such a good idea!
|
| Kids music toys are often just purely _toys_ tap a button, make a
| sound... But the skill ceiling could be so much higher, offering
| the ability to learn and express themselves more. Awesome work.
| amenghra wrote:
| One of my favorite kids music toy is a mini piano where you
| have to replay one among 5-6 melodies (each melody is 5-10
| notes that you have to memorize by ear -- no lights involved)
| to unlock a little happy sound. This toy managed to keep both,
| dad and kid busy for a while.
| moron4hire wrote:
| For anyone who likes the idea of better music "toys" for their
| kids (i.e. not toys at all, but still easy to use) but doesn't
| have the capacity to build stuff like this, my kids and I love
| the Korg Koassilator:
| https://www.korg.com/us/products/dj/kaossilator2/
|
| You can usually get them on eBay for USD$60 - 70. You do need
| to bring your own speakers, but a pair of cheap PC speakers are
| good enough, and it's a good start on creating a whole synth +
| effects chain.
|
| Speaking of which, there is also the Mini Kaos Pad, which is a
| dynamic effects processor:
| https://www.korg.com/us/products/dj/mini_kaoss_pad2/
|
| This one is a little more difficult to figure out for the kids
| as it is a "modifier" in the chain and they haven't quite
| wrapped their head around that concept yet. But still, it works
| great, has lots of features, and is really inexpensive for such
| a thing.
|
| And finally, they have a number of these mini-synths that are
| in the USD$30 - 50 range that are a ton of fun:
| https://www.korg.com/us/products/dj/monotron_duo/
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| Good lord, you must have an amazing wife/support system to give
| you some peace while you designed this amazing toy.
| fabioq wrote:
| What an incredible idea, I with every nursery to school had some
| of these!
| ty_2k wrote:
| Really cool project, super polished. The panda animation!
| yigalirani wrote:
| build it at scale and make a fortune
| jeremydavid wrote:
| Wow! Very cool. How hard would it be to create a "custom" sound,
| where you use the sliders to adjust the Attack Decay Sustain and
| Release?
| evmaki wrote:
| What a beautiful and charming project. Kudos for taking it all
| the way from zero to one with such a polished design. That's no
| small feat. I've built prototypes for eurorack and even with some
| simplifying constraints it's a lot of work.
|
| Best of luck with your Kickstarter!
| amatecha wrote:
| Ahh, this made me think of "Dato DUO", similar concept (though
| the Dato stuff is a little more complex): https://dato.mu/
| Bengalilol wrote:
| I love the atmosphere, the object and the purpose.
| mft_ wrote:
| Hmm, very cool project and maybe just the inspiration I need.
|
| I bought a Baby Einstein Magic Touch Guitar for a friend's
| daughter a couple of years ago, and while it was okay as a toy,
| it was disappointing as a musical instrument because the chords
| it plays are badly chosen. It's basically impossible to play
| along with most songs.
|
| I've had the back burnered idea to buy another and improve it;
| maybe I will now, following a variation on your approach.
| thomasqbrady wrote:
| This is phenomenal, but my biggest question is (which is probably
| a more of a long-term one that comes from genuine
| curiosity/fascination, not doubt): does she use it/enjoy it? I'm
| so curious to see what happens over time. Does she learn the
| functions of these buttons, years before having words for what
| they're doing? Does she write some music? Does she grow up
| expecting things with knobs to be this interactive/creative? SO
| cool!
| blauditore wrote:
| 3-year-olds actually have quite a vocabulary, so they can
| certainly talk about what the knobs are doing, maybe just not
| as accurately as adults.
|
| Regarding discovering functionality: The author mentions
| Montessori stuff, and the philosophy there is unguided
| discovery, "let them figure out by themselves". Not sure if
| that's how the author is planning to use this too, though.
| nielsbot wrote:
| Reminds me of the work of Love Hulten: https://www.lovehulten.com
|
| He builds beautiful, colorful, retro-futuristic audio-visual art
| pieces Many are synths.
| dimatura wrote:
| There's a fun podcast by Arman Bohn/Distropolis (who himself has
| made some cool small-batch hardware synths) where he interviews
| makers of small hardware synths,
| https://open.spotify.com/show/30USGHPeGQ9ZyWQDyRnfcv might be of
| interest.
| sunray2 wrote:
| Putting aside the beauty of both the synth and its purpose, what
| I'm curious about is the learning process in making this. The
| running theme is that you picked up several new skills 'from
| cold'. That in itself is impressive enough. How did you approach
| learning:
|
| - the necessary basic electronics;
|
| - PCB design;
|
| - 3D CAD;
|
| - your particular iterative process,
|
| among other things? I get the impression you built things
| incrementally, observed what happens and learnt via that feedback
| loop? Maybe others could share their own feedback loops, too.
| random_moonwalk wrote:
| I've been reflecting on this a bit. I found it very useful to
| have a well-defined project and focus the learning time on
| things that are necessary for completing it. Having a
| background in coding was useful because I find you end up
| developing a knack for isolating parts of systems and figuring
| out how to work on small parts that end up fitting together.
|
| I therefore focused initially on simply getting readings from a
| single potentiometer; if I could do that then I felt pretty
| confident I could read from four of them. If I could generate a
| midi message I was pretty confident I could send it to
| something that could read it etc.
|
| When I started on the PCB design I had a simple circuit already
| so it was a case of translating that onto a board.
|
| I didn't get too deep into any of the various parts but I found
| that it gave me a birds-eye view of the whole process and I now
| feel confident in isolating parts of them and 'zooming in' to
| them and refining them, building on the foundation I've
| developed.
| endorphine wrote:
| Where would you suggest someone starts for building something
| like this.
|
| What kind of hardware would you suggest (preferably something
| with Rust!bindings). Is the one used in the original post a good
| starting point?
|
| I've minimal to no experience with embedded.
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