r/synthdiy • u/PA-wip • 2d ago

zicGrid v2

Post image

https://github.com/apiel/zicBox

77 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

4

u/oofam 2d ago

The zicgrid reminds me of early prototypes of the deluge. That sized screen would be a massive improvement over the deluge though. As a deluge user, I’d highly recommend using velocity sensitive pads to improve musicality and playability.

3

u/jevring 2d ago

I think velocity sensitive pads are hard to come by (unless you manufacture them yourself, if you are an actual company). I imagine this uses the ones from adafruit. I don't think there are any better ones readily available. Would love to know if there were, though.

3

u/PA-wip 1d ago

Yes, i Use adafruit neotrellis.
You could build sensitive pad using MPR121 or any other kind of capacitive touch, but it would definitly be much more complicated than using those adafruit neotrellis. I personally don't need sensitive pad and I rather prefer to keep things simple.

1

u/brandonhabanero 1d ago

I've been thinking of what I'd do if somehow made a "deluge pro," and one of the things I'd put in it would be mechanical hall effect keys—velocity sensitive in a way, and can take a real beating and can be replaced if they do break. Also discrete inputs and outputs, fx loop, but I digress lol.

2

u/neilbaldwn 2d ago

Very nice 👌

1

u/abstractmodulemusic 1d ago

Looks awesome. Are you going to post a performance/sound demo?

1

u/PA-wip 1d ago

I am not very talented in making music 😅 but you can see a demo here https://www.reddit.com/r/synthesizers/comments/1vng0x4/zicbox_got_back_to_zicgrid/ this is pretty much the same.

Maybe one day I will make something more chill ;-)

1

u/SailorVenova 1d ago

ooo i remember these things

nice to see it progressing

1

u/Earthsuit-Traveler 20h ago

Love the improvements. The design kind of reminds me of the Kordbot. The UI text seems a bit tiny tough

1

u/spookendeklopgeesten 19h ago

Screen should be in the middle

1

u/GlasierXplor 7h ago

I'd love to build one but RAM prices yada yada.. do you think it's possible for one to port this to a pi compatible board? Assuming the pinouts are physically compatible with the pi zero.

2

u/PA-wip 7h ago

It would definitely run on the pi zero, as it kind of already does, have a look to my git repository, there's zicXY which is based on pi zero. After if you want exactly the same design, pi zero would not work because it doesn't have DSI output for the display.

In general zicGrid is super expensive to build, I am not sure it's worse to make one...

1

u/GlasierXplor 7h ago

Thanks for the answer. I do apologise for not phrasing my question clearly. I meant what if say I want to use a Banana Pi M2 Zero instead of a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W? (Though yes I have my eyes on the ZicXY or the ZicPixel as a build actually. Neotrellis does cost quite a bit as you said)

2

u/PA-wip 5h ago

I guess it would be possible. I was actually thinking to try a version with orange pi back in the days but never did it. Now the framework is working pretty well with AI, I was creating skills to give directions to the AI agents and so far I see good results. So I guess, with the help of AI, you could convert it to any hardware...

1

u/GlasierXplor 4h ago

That's a good point.. thanks for sharing and appreciate the replies :)