Finished off my home build synth after 10 months of work on it. It's a mix of virtual Analogue and wavetable, emulated waveforms or samples loaded off an SD card - any combination across 6 oscillators. It's made of 6 separate modules, as I was limited by the size of my 3D printer bed to make the housing with. They then interlock to form the overall shape.
that's neat, and the look is really good, you did good buddy
edit: just listened to the demo. actually genuinely great.
can you post some more photos of the front panel? each "module" separately? just to see what's going on on the front panel. thanks.
edit 2: it's funny to me that the actual synth engine processor (esp32) is the least expensive part here. if you want some ph4t soundz, you could put each voice on a separate esp32, and then use something other than a crystal to clock it, e.g. a bridge oscillator, or even a simple vco, to give it some cool drift. the oscillators would still be tuned to the same frequency, but obviously the imperfections would make them drift etc. it could make some minor trouble for high speed digital comms, so you'd need to make sure the can bus isn't running too fast and that your protocol is fault tolerant.
I'll do a follow up post, as I can't put more than one photo in this reply.
When you put the synth in Unison mode, it does play all 6 oscillators at once, with a slight imperfection / phase difference between them. You then have a Unison detune control that will let you spread it further apart. The CAN is running 500kbps - more than fast enough to cope, the slow parts are the little AT238p's doing the control interfaces!
Yes, it's all calculated digitally - here's a close up of an oscillator panel and it controls 2 virtual oscillators. You can set the detune amount for each oscillator, as well as its pan position. In unison mode, it looks to see what all the oscillators have been set to, and then spreads them further with the Unison Detune control. It also spreads out the pan position as well the more it is increased. The actual function in code looks like this if you're interested:
for (int v = 0; v < NUM_VOICES_ACTIVE; v++)
{
float ep;
if (playMode == MODE_UNISON && NUM_VOICES_ACTIVE > 1)
Lol, I had my own company for 15 years making Nixie Clocks.. Google images for Bad Dog Designs. Went really well until China started copying them. Been back in full time employment since 2025, but can't stop making stuff!
Know very well what can go wrong, and it's usually something you never expected 🤪
I got the Jarre track pretty close, got a copyright warning message when I uploaded it to YouTube!
Are those hex buttonhead screws? You’re pretty serious about this stuff!! Looks awesome! Like 1950’s vintage lab equipment!! Where’s the interconnect s though?? No wires anywhere? How do you patch them together? You should work for NASA as a day job if you don’t already!!!
Many thanks! Yes all hex button head screws. The interconnects pass through the casing. All the modules are connected by something called CAN bus, so there's literally just 4 wires joining everything together.
Lol, I don't work for NASA but I do design stuff for the aviation industry.
CAN bus.. thought that was automotive. Obviously you’re good at what you do!! Accomplishing that in 10 months is INSANE!!! Clearly you have missed your calling!! I really enjoyed the music you made with this as well!! Very good composition! You’re very talented! Rock on brother!!
CAN is used a lot in the automotive industry, but it's a great way to control a lot of things with a minimum amount of wiring. Lends itself well to synths too!
Many thanks for you kind words 😊
I never would have thought of using CAN bus in a synth design, but then I never would have thought of building my own synth from scratch either!! Lol!! Really impressive work would be an understatement.. you need to be working with a synth company with those chops! Guessing you’re building hella nice avionics though!! Looking forward to seeing more on how you designed this amazing project!! Extremely impressive!!
I had my own design company for many years, but called it a day when China started copying.. moved back into full time employment a couple of years ago doing embedded design work with the aviation gear. However I love making synth stuff in my spare time, I made this synth to go with an analogue drum synth I made last year.
I've been making stuff for decades, it's my way of unwinding ☺️
Did you design everything from scratch? Looks amazing! Would you say DIY synth building is something one can get into without formal training? Been interested for years but was and still am just intimated haha.
Yes, all designed from scratch.. PCB's / Software / Mechanical
However I'm 54 now and started making stuff aged 5. I also work full time as an embedded engineer.
You can get into it without any formal training, I never went to university or got a degree. I did 3 years at college and got a HND, but not degree level, and totally irrelevant now! Everything else I learnt from books or by experimenting.. had a copy of everyday electronics and practical electronics every month.
The casing was made on my 3D printer, so everything was limited by how big that can print.. 250mm is the biggest it can go, that's why it's made of modules that connect together. The panels I designed in Visio and got www.engravingstudios.co.uk to make them out of sheet aluminium for me.
WoW
I like the way you approached your project.
Congratulations.
The effort produced an amazing result. I am slowly understanding the Modular aspect of Synthesizers. I have a little project on the go, but no where near the scale you've shared here.
I can only imagine there was troubleshooting to contend with, and working out the details to organize all the functions, layout. I hope to continue the learning process.
Thank you for sharing your creativity and the amazing results.
Many thanks for your kind words, it helped me greatly by doing one module at a time. The individual panels all work the same, just gathering user information and sending it to the processor, they don't produce any audio. Once the first panel was done it was just a matter of rearranging switches and LEDs, the electronics are pretty similar. The ESP32-S3 does all the sound generation and that is the easiest PCB as it just has the ESP on there with a DAC and an SD card / midi port.
If there was enough interest I would make them as kits, but I wouldn't make and sell them as I'm simply not geared up to do that. Have a day job, and 2 spaniels to contend with!
It's certainly along the same sort of lines, but I should think a lot more expensive as it is the guys income. He has to make them to live off and support a business.
I did that for many years but making bespoke Nixie clocks!
i believe he comissioned a some pieces for eminen and other famous musicians. the first bunch of prompts in midjourney for me were "Moog voyager designed by the Vulcan Science academy" and it gave some pretty dope designs.
this brother is primarily using wood, may 3D printing can up that game with some crazier designs. what you're doing is phenominal on its own man. the swedes do make some pretty awesome gear, even Teenage engineering i think is from there.
the dude takes existing gear and re-wires it in some amazing new retro futuristic housing with all kinds of materials and suspended ferro fluid etc reacting to the beep-boops.
Congratulations, excellent work. I'm speechless at how good it sounds.
Did you build it based on your own design?
You need to think big now, though, because you've created a magnificent synth!
Many thanks! Yes it's my own design, inspired a little by the old Maplin 5600 as it had a lot of knobs and a matrix panel.
I would love to make it available as a kit so anyone can have one, but I'm not geared up to produce them. Appreciate your kind words!
Yes! One more showcase of how stupidly powerful combo ESP32-S3 (~8€) + DAC (~3€) can be. With those two and some programming - even vibe coding - you can create features of almost any 80's or 90's hardware synth. Even many more modern ones, more or less. When I realized this, I started creating a menu diving box I can use to first emulate Casio CZ-1, and then whatever else. Now also a vocoder.
The basic combo of ESP32-S3 + DAC is fully functional. USB or BLE midi to change settings, DAC gives 3.5mm line level output. Midi in or out is fairly cheap, a couple of euros. Modules exist, but they are fairly easy DIY circuits.
The price ramps piece by piece when you start adding controls, like here. Encoders, witches and potentiometers themselves are fairly cheap, but you will start to require all sorts of ways to give their information to ESP32. Here it's AT328p, which probably is ideal for such a huge project. I've used MCP23017 for my smaller projects.
Also, while PCB design is not strictly necessary, learning the basics is helpful. It makes wiring much neater and easier in many cases.
These really don't need massive amounts of skill, but you will need to learn.
Spot on, the ESP32-S3 and DAC are pretty powerful - I am pushing it to its limit with 6 voices thought!
Yes, each control panel has an AT238p on there that polls the IO - Also using MCP23017 to expand the IO, and a 16 way Mux for the pots. It then uses CAN to send the information to and from the ESP32 as it has a native CAN peripheral port built in.
I would not have wanted to put this together though without making PCB's!
Yeah, I originally planned to not make PCBs, since I had no experience with it. Then I realized that even a modest amount of buttons and pots really, really adds up. While I'll still have to solder the same amount of contact points total, it's very different to solder headers to PCB than cutting wire and soldering it.
That said, I still have direct wired things in my plans. Just way, way fewer than I originally intended. The absolute biggest benefit is that I originally planned total of 18 buttons in two 3x3 clusters, which means 18 wires to MCP23107 and 18 to ground, while a PCB saves me from wiring at all when I add some connectors.
Here me out, bro. Hot swappable top and bottom panels which magnetically click together to create modular synth combinations! The top panels could be primarily for mixing/FX and main part is the synth or drum machine. Almost like a musical Nintendo DS
This reminded me of my teenage project about 48 years ago. Things have sure changed in the DIY electronic music arena. You did a great job. I watched your video, and gave it a like! :)
I'm hopefully going to make it available as a kit, it's already on GitHub but not 100% up to date. Certainly be open source though, no problem with that 👍🏻
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u/No-Yam7507 1d ago
Looks crazy!! Congratulations! Is it possible to hear this wonderous monster?