Synth updates
Things have been getting a little better of late and I’ve got some of my mojo back, some.
Firstly, I’ve been working with Isla Instruments on their Caladan synth, specifically the OPL3 card for it, this uses a bunch of new old stock YMF262 4 op FM chips and a multimode VCF and VCA. Originally it was 4 voices and has now been expanded to 6 voices.
It’s almost done but I have a couple of features I want to add to the firmware yet.
I have also been working on a voice card of my own design, I’m calling it the Quadrowave (until I can think of a better name), it’ll be very similar to the original Monowave, but with SSI2144 VCFs rather than discrete ladders. It will still sound awesome. Here’s a render whilst I wait for PCBs to arrive.
So do keep an eye on the Isla Instruments youtube channel and webpage!
I’ve also been working on Delta, I decided to upload a video where I talk about the current incarnation and what’s going on to YouTube.
I’ve shown this to a couple of people and I’ve been asked to change a few things, so I’m working on the next iteration. This will have dual VCFs and 4 oscillators per voice.
Here is a picture of the new dual VCF being tested;
It sounds great and is super flexible, but I won’t reveal too much yet. Anyway, aside from one mod wire and a couple of resistor value changes it works a treat. So the next stage is work on the poly version, so I’ve designed a simple 4 voice PCB with the bare essentials to get me up and running.
We have power, a couple of development boards for the microprocessor and FPGA, MIDI in/out, Audio out and some test points.
The new VCF boards are a lot more complex, so where as I needed 4 DACs per voice previously, I now need 10 DACs per voice, so I have a lot of rework to do with the FPGA code, a lot. It’s a bit daunting in all honesty, but equally I’m looking forward to the challenge.
I’ve also been working on a keyboard scanner PCB which works with the Fatar poly after-touch beds, the 5 octave one. That’s mostly working, a new board revision is needed but that’s being ordered in the next couple of weeks.
So that’s about it for now.
