Shore Pine Sound Techniques Launches Its Python-Powered Tulip Artistic Pc for Simply $59

Shore Pine Sound Techniques has launched its Tulip Artistic Pc to basic availability, focusing on musicians, writers, programmers, and different creatives searching for a distraction-free surroundings — powered by Python working on an Espressif ESP32 microcontroller.

“It’s a really low-cost and open transportable gadget for making issues, that boots proper right into a Python programming language immediate over a 7″ touchscreen show,” co-creator Brian Whitman, of Shore Pine Sound Techniques, explains. “It is bought an excellent analog (Juno-6, SH-101, and so on) and FM-style (DX7) music synthesis engine inbuilt, constructed from scratch by my pricey pal Dan Ellis and myself, which you can management each oscillator and parameter of in code. It additionally can be utilized to make video games, animations, or simply write. We ship it with a textual content editor, drum machine, Juno-6 patch editor, some instance video games, and a Tulip-only BBS the place you may share messages and packages.”

Whitman unveiled the Tulip a yr in the past, promising a distraction-free surroundings for musicians, writers, and programmers by internet hosting its devoted MicroPython-based software program on an Espressif ESP32 microcontroller — that means there is no alternative to rapidly swap away out of your mission to compensate for some movies or scroll social media.

The finalized Tulip design, which like its prototype predecessors is open {hardware} working open supply software program, is constructed round an Espressif ESP32-S3 microcontroller mounted behind a 7″ full-color 1024×600 touchscreen. There is a jack for stereo audio, MIDI out and in, a Grove-style I2C connector for exterior {hardware}, and a USB port for a keyboard.

Two official expansions carry extra performance to bear: a two-channel digital to analog converter (DAC), of which 4 may be put in “with some mild modification” for eight channels complete; and the Alles, an adapter for wi-fi speaker management expandable as much as 30 channels.

It is clear audio has been a spotlight within the Tulip’s improvement. The on-board synthesizer, AMY, presents assist for as much as 120 oscillators, stereo sound, filters, reverb, refrain, frequency modulation, samples, polyphony, and multi-timbral operation — and all patches and music may be written in pure Python, Shore Pine guarantees. The show, too, is Python-programmable, with assist for consumer interface improvement utilizing the LVGL library.

“I’ve been engaged on Tulip for a few years, over a couple of {hardware} iterations. This all-in-one launch model of Tulip was designed with the assistance of our buddies Makerfabs, who additionally manufacture it,” Whitman explains. “It is my hope that plenty of folks get a Tulip and be a part of us to make Tulip even higher, by contributing apps, or giving us suggestions, or displaying off cool stuff you’ve got made. All the pieces in Tulip is open supply, from the {hardware} design to the apps and firmware and DSP [Digital Signal Processor].”

The Tulip Pc is obtainable to order by means of the official web site now at $59, which Shore Pine says is “the price of components and manufacturing […] with a tiny payment added on to assist future improvement.” Those that’d favor to construct their very own will discover supply code and directions on constructing your individual on GitHub, underneath the permissive MIT license, together with a hardware-agnostic simulator.