DIY Synthesizers Explained: How to build your own synth // Summer of Synths

[@mr_floydst]

Thanks for having me and doing all the extra work, Bo! :-)

[@shix13]

Floyd is like having a personal synth buddy to help you out. I used his headless M8 video to make sure I wanted one. Love all his videos even if it's not a box I'm going to get.

[@workethicrecords5901]

I started my journey with synth DIY in 2015. It got me to go back to school and get a computer engineering degree, and now I've been working a pretty cool EE job for the past 3 years. The hobby opened up my eyes to a workd of possibilities, and it's so awesome that more of these projects keep coming out for people to maybe have the same experience.

[@mr_floydst]

wow! this is so cool and inspiring! I've heard such stories while researching my channel content, and it always puts a big smile on my face.

[@someonewhobitthedust9124]

Inspiring

[@scaryfontofficial]

Floyd's videos are the reason I bought my Yamaha reface DX. I love that little synth, and I love his channel. And the Bob Eats channel, too.

[@samanthajanesmith9591]

Me too! Its a great little synth.

[@matthelmLife]

Thank you soooo much for this @BoBeats for this! Its great to see you bringing in guests like this with something that you are unfamiliar with and having us all learn something new together!

[@AndreaCichecki]

Thank you so much for this introduction into DIY synths! I'm really getting inspired by it and want to try this out! 💫💫

[@samanthajanesmith9591]

Great to see Floyd on your channel. He does some really cool things. When can we expect the first "Bosynth" ?

[@dreamstaticsounds]

Yay! Two of my favorite KZbinrs!

[@brumd]

An unexpected video, but great! :) Investing time (and a bit of money) in DIY electronics always pays off, wether it's digital or analog. Of course, digital synths is just one thing, but there is so much more: MIDI controllers, utilities like MIDI splitters/mergers. When you use Eurorack, there are so many things you can do with a $2 Arduino Nano at a fraction of the cost of commercial modules: clock dividers/multipliers, sequencers, complex logic modules etc etc. And make them do exactly what you need or want. Once you have a few skills under your sleeve: soldering, the art of acquiring electronic parts, you open a new world of creativity.

[@HSBallina]

Great video, guys 😊 Fair bit of warning though, regarding the synth diy rabbit hole. It goes deep, and if you’re predisposed, like me, to tinker with stuffs you might never emerge from that hole again 😅 I haven’t really played any music for quite some time now 😢

[@Usul]

I was happy to see Floyd call out the headless M8. It is an incredibly powerful setup at an amazingly low cost, especially with the latest firmware release (4.0). It is simple enough almost anyone should be able to get it working. There is a large community on Discord if you get stuck.

[@H45N]

I went down the rabbit hole of DIY standalone synths and it is amazing! Started out with the Electrotechnique TSynth. Based on the Teensy controller it gives you a really good hands on experience of creating sounds from oscillators to FX. It took me a while to get it working, and it still regularly fails and needs mending. The second project was the Tubeohm Jeannie, also based on a Teensy this one is really rock solid and truly amazing! One of my best sounding pieces of equipment! So yes, DIY can be rewarding.. And because you build it yourself nobody ever wants to buy it from you, so they are instant keepers in your setup.. 😅

[@lummsmusik3219]

Yeah! The Tubeohm Jeannie polyphonic Synthesizer sounds amazing and still gets more features with every new firmware.

[@marcuscarneiro]

Hey, I built a M8 Tracker Headless with a Teensy 4.1 and it's so powerful. Do you know any FX processor built with a Teensy 4.1?

[@H45N]

@@marcuscarneiro The Jeannie uses an FV1 chip for FX. It produces very nice reverb and other FX for the synth. There is no external input though, so you cannot process external sounds. There are many DIY project that use the FV1, it’s a great chip. Check FX AID for example. The Teensy itself can run any kind of software, FX included. It does introduce latency from the processing which is not ideal.

[@wgdmodular1252]

Amazing! So happy to see a big synth channel talk about DIY. Would love to see another special focussing on the huge eurorack DIY scene

[@ooocarneiro]

Nice! I love both channels! Great collab to watch!

[@reverend11-dmeow89]

Electro-Smith Daisy brings a huge step forward into this arena.

[@mr_floydst]

It does! (it's in this video alongside the PicoADK, which tries similar things focussing on other details)

[@FSFclub]

Really awesome video, collecting all this info together. Time to get some confidence and give it a try.

[@The_artist_called_The_Engineer]

I’m intrigued. Might be time to go shipping (again!! Bought a micro freak last weak awesome synth)

[@EchoKraft]

This was very cool Bo !!!!

[@channelite]

Cool video, I love DIY synths! I’ve been wanting to go to the next step and use a microprocessor. I’ve been making DIY analog eurorack.

[@chipyliyp]

Glad to see someone I’m familiar with already, waiting for the Tulip to arrive that Floyd mentioned recently

[@alanredversangel]

I highly recommend Minidexed. I use it as a piece of outboard gear. Pi zero 2 with an audio shim on it. Set to USB gadget mode so only one cable for power and midi required and one cable for audio. Put on the stock dx7 and synprez banks of voices so you don't have to go through thousands of sounds. I don't even bother with the screen and rotary control, you can cc and program change most settings in a daw.

[@robmadgwick3364]

That was really interesting Bo - thanks to Floyd for the expertise.

[@DawlessHouseMusic]

Cool! I want to see more of these! Big Floyd follower.

[@dessiplaer]

Great video! It's good to see you on KZbin again (at least I haven't seen any videos in my notifications Also, good to see the hair growing out. 😏

[@lapage138]

I spent hundreds of hours building Legos when I was a kid, but when it comes to synthesizers I just want to plug in and have it go straight away! 😊 But I understand that it can be satisfying to say to yourself 'not only did I compose this piece of music, but I also put together the instrument itself' 🤩

[@reverend11-dmeow89]

Set-up a patch on paper that includes a module that does not have anyone building it already.

[@lummsmusik3219]

@@lapage138 For me building music gear is the perfect alternative for building and playing Lego in my childhood. I can build a musical device and play with it. Also I can repair and modify it. Perfect!

[@Tiger.Arcade]

Very inspiring, thanks! ✌️

[@indigosnow_]

Super inspiring content. Floyd's channel is amazing also

[@jasonlescalleet5611]

That sounds good! I admit I was expecting it to sound tinny or distorted or something, like a cobbled together experiment should sound in my mind. But instead, it just sounds like any other digital synth. I’ve done a bit of tinkering with DIY computers (I have multiple Raspberry Pis) but for the moment I will probably stick to using an iPad as my instrument of choice, but it’s great to see how good an option DIY synths can be.

[@docjoesweeney]

Last year I explored options for building a 96 pot infinite rotory midi controller with full 16 channels. I wanted 15-20mm sized knobs and halo leds to show current cc (7 and 14bit) values for each. Nothing like that exists on the market. Pricing it out the total came to over $1000 using multiple teensy boards. Tne big cost was the knobs! So a very tempting project alas, my soldering skills are not great, so I shelved it until I retire. But these synths may be a good starting point for this the larger dream midi controller project.

[@alanharrison6555]

thanks guys - this knowledge is a brilliant share - really appreciate it - ya got me motivated

[@UltraTroninator]

Designing & building my own synth was a personal milestone. It's not been easy but it's certainly been rewarding. Getting to make the design decisions and it's definitely got some quirks. Making it user friendly is a challenge, and I'm more likely to focus on circuit design or coding versus user documentation. Maybe you guys will get to my stuff in a future video :)

[@arthurcrime]

This was great, thank you guys, I may try one of these.

[@tomalaerts8839]

I actually received my first diy synth kit today: Elmyra v2 - the ambient machine. It is quite a bit less expensive to diy.

[@zentriceggofficial]

I was an advanced assembly language programmer back in the 80s.. just forcing myself back into it now via Arduino. It's a strange world though because some of the microcontrollers that were released specifically for music synth development seem to have been abandoned... Daisy seed... Teensy... When you look for videos on KZbin, you realise it hasn't really flourished... It's still alive but barely. I just bought a Teensy 4.1 and added an audio shield. There have been some amazing synths based on these microcontrollers.. I built a FreaQ FM in December. My daisypod is running a midi synth with audio in FX processing. A very nice little synth that doubles as stereo FX processor. It's not hard to understand why this subject isn't more widely known or understood. Documentation is very rudimentary. Almost no guides on KZbin for mossi library or teensy audio programming. No one has produced a step by step KZbin video on developing a synth with mossi or teensy. Some videos exist showing plans and finished code, but how many detailed video guides are there?

[@pinkmouse4863]

Have you just talked yourself into a job? ;-)

[@zentriceggofficial]

@@pinkmouse4863 Looks like it! :) TFT touch screens and more arduino and teensy units have been purchased. :)

[@nsiivola]

How do you figure Daisy and Teensy as abandoned?!

[@zentriceggofficial]

@@nsiivola Daisy isn't exactly flourishing is it. I know there are some good projects but when you compare it to more mainstream Arduino or STM, pretty stagnant. Likewise when you look at Teensy.

[@lummsmusik3219]

I think the question about what the microcontrollers really does in these devices, needs more explanation. The computing power has big influence on what sound, voices fx is possible. But thanks for this great video! Hopefully more DIY projects will grow. My recommendation at the moment: Tubeohm Jeannie and Synthux.

[@nathan_hades]

I learned how to solder musical instruments from the German channel "Götz Müller-Dürholt". So far I have built two MIDI controllers, a synthesizer, two samplers and a step sequencer. Well, apart from the two controllers, nothing is really finished yet, but tinkering is always part of it.

[@mr_floydst]

As the saying goes, "the journey is the reward!" :-)

[@russellzauner]

Nice! Support RISCV platforms/chips in the future!

[@mr_floydst]

As soon as the development tools suited for hobby enthusiasts are there, we'll see interesting projects emerge!

[@foxyr4bbit]

one of my patches is on the minidexed factory presets! apparently. it's 001:091 "Magical Harp" i want to build one!

[@blakejaeger154]

Also, for anyone seeing this and feeling intimidated by soldering, I PROMISE it is easier than you think. As long as you do a little bit of research into the sizing of the parts for your desired synth, it is fairly easy to estimate difficulty. Avoid 0402 parts and tiny integrated circuits as a beginner, and work your way up to harder stuff.

[@baqcasanke]

Awesome video thanks!❤

[@whogavehimafork]

As a mechanical engineer with some basic knowledge of electrical engineering and experience working with electrical systems, and as someone who is musically inclined but only knows how to play brass instruments, I've been getting interested in synthesizers and started experimenting with DAWs. Sure I could buy a synth, but I feel like I'll understand them better if I build one myself. Plus I can't say no to the fun in the challenge.

[@stephpicher]

This is the kind of video that I need. I'm a little (and by that I mean, a lot) afraid of building. I guess I have that in common with Bo. :)

[@Volcaniced]

What a wonderful colaboration. Proud to know Floyd/Alex personal ... Hey Bo, did you take "thumbs up" too literally?

[@BoBeats]

If you mean the cut, i broke a plate and cut myself :-/

[@Volcaniced]

@@BoBeatsyes. Hope you are well Mate.

[@matrix12x]

great video

[@DesertNinjaX]

Love this Bo! 🎼🎶🎵🖤 Just picked up a Daisy Seed and Seed pod but haven't had a chance to play with it yet.

[@DesertNinjaX]

Also picked up 2x Nunomo Qun MKII's 😁

[@CognosSquare]

Banger of a vid.

[@Stromboli_A_]

Awesome episode.

[@BoBeats]

Glad you enjoyed it! I had fun with it too

[@RetrospektiveAudio]

FYI, the Datanoise PicoADK v2 is coming soon with many new features like sample playback from a fast SD card

[@Schemez-16vhiphopbeatz]

I struggled putting the nts1 together this is way outta my league

[@DavidDeLuge]

Great video. I do like the look of the Zynthian and I might have to take a look at that but I do have a Woovebox on the way too 😜.

[@BoBeats]

Theres no thing as too many synths! 😁

[@DavidDeLuge]

My wife might not agree 😂

[@HSBallina]

@@BoBeatsthe perfect number of synths you own is always synths you do own + 1 😊

[@Distortic]

Last week I managed to get a full emulation of the virus TI synth on a raspberry pi 5, not even making it sweat more than 45 percent if its CPU. This is the next frontier

[@reverend11-dmeow89]

In my infinite wisdom I decided to invest in 64 of those dual axis concentric-shaft rotary encoders for a DIY Matrix Mixer design growing like an alien parsite in my back-brain since my Buchla days forty-plus years ago. Only to discover, "Measure twice, cut a check once." I am going to have to learn FPGA to handle two sets of the 8 by 8 crosspoints worth of data in the matrix all by itself overloading my ESP32 S3 board. Take Care and keep teaching us the real-world issues involved under the skin of these beasts

[@workethicrecords5901]

You should check out the "jumperless" breadboard project on hackaday, if you haven't already. That thing also uses a big cross point matrix, might be good inspiration or a starting off point for your project.

[@docjoesweeney]

Ahhhh...yes. in my dream project I discovered I'd need a lot of multiplexers. Way too many. And thus a lot of custom code.

[@amfimoll9428]

Good one!

[@StarshipCaptainNemo]

Interesting. However, I would love to hear whether there is a DIY synth other than the Korg Nutekt with full controls and how it sounds without any other device connected except for headphones. I am thinking if it is possible to get the AMIGA Paula Soundchip for example into a small DIY synth.

[@ronnetgrazer362]

Microcontroller Units are abbreviated as MCU, not SBC. Single Board Computers like the Raspberry Pi have an actual OS to run software on.

[@vonantesberg]

What about pure analog DIY synths?

[@mr_floydst]

I felt this wasn't well-placed in a video aimed at interested beginners. Analog circuits are worth _several_ videos of their own, as understanding electrical circuits and the flow of current, and why certain arrangements of diodes, capacitors and resistors will cause a current to oscillate isn't easily explained in a few pictures and words (this is university-level stuff). There are some great videos on how to do this out there, but those tend to be long-running series ;-)

[@MarkusGeheim]

I'll wait for the Behringer clone 😎

[@Tripwelleverday]

The labor do the labor it’s the best prototyping synth

[@chriscopeman8820]

Anyone know what CHPR messages are? I think they’re a midi message like a cc message or program change message.

[@noshkispichki]

15 minutes ago is crazy

[@reviewerman9786]

Not Floyd from Andy Griffith Show

[@mr_floydst]

Not quite! He had some awesome glasses, though. ;-)

[@jasonchristian8362]

but. you'll need these $1k Elektron synth to control it. lol.

[@mr_floydst]

I know you're jokular, but just to be sure, any MIDI controller keyboard will do. Most people watching videos like this one should have one somewhere.

[@jasonchristian8362]

@@mr_floydst i am joking. appreciate the video . thank you