Meet the PGB-1, the open sourced synth developed by Fabien Chouteau from Wee Noise Makers. Chouteau acknowledged the restrictions of present entry-level synthesizers and created a tool that opens a gateway to the world of music manufacturing and audio synths. The Wee Noise Makers PGB-1 is a compact, hackable, all-in-one synthesizer that stands out for its energy, measurement, and customizability. It’s the good software for digital musicians and {hardware} hackers to experiment with and discover.
Don’t let the PGB1-‘s small measurement idiot you. This pocket-sized (100 by 66 by 15 millimeter) music maker packs a punch. PGB1’s open supply method allows digital musicians throughout all ranges to customise its capabilities, permitting them to discover crafting musical items.
The PGB-1 synth options embrace drums, bass, lead, samples, reverb, bitcrusher, overdrive, and extra. Its superior sequencer affords a variety of choices, similar to conditional steps, repeats/ratcheting, sample chaining, chord sequencing, and dwell sequencing results, supplying you with the liberty to create really distinctive compositions.
PGB-1 in-hand (📷: Wee Noise Makers, Crowd Provide)
The PGB-1 consists of three PCBs. A motherboard incorporates the bodily interface components, such because the 30 keyboard buttons, 24 RGB LEDs, and a 128 by 64 pixel OLED display screen.
One other PCB is a Raspberry Pi RP2040-based single-board audio processor known as the Noise Nugget. The RP2040 microcontroller is a dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller with about 260 kilobytes of RAM. Noise Nugget provides an exterior 16 megabit flash chip and a Cirrus Logic WM8960 (or equal — since Circuit Logic discontinued the unique) audio chip.
The third PCB is the entrance panel. This board has no bodily parts. It does function a capacitive contact slider. You should use the KiCad design file Wee Noise Makers gives to create a customized faceplate with no matter paintings you want!
You possibly can play your musical creations utilizing the built-in headphone driver or a 1-watt stereo (class-D) amplifier. PGB-1 has a number of enter and output components obtainable.
- USB Sort-C (energy and knowledge)
- 3.5 mm headphone/headset
- 3.5 mm audio Line-in
- 3.5 mm MIDI Enter (TRS type-A)
- 3.5 mm MIDI Output (TRS type-A)
- Inner microphone
Wee Noise Makers targets musicians, software program builders, and {hardware} hobbyists by making the PGB-1 open supply and simply hackable. For instance, many of the parts can be found off-the-shelf. The notable exceptions are the case and PCBs, that are simply obtained with a number of automated means. On the software program aspect, PGB-1 helps programming with CircuitPython, C++, and Ada.
The PGB-1 open supply synthesizer is accessible to musicians, software program builders, and {hardware} hobbyists by pre-order by way of Crowd Provide. The marketing campaign has already reached its funding purpose, and costs begin at $249 with worldwide delivery (and battery) included! Wee Noise Makers plans to ship PGB-1s by January thirty first, 2025, for backers inserting orders now.
