Homemade Polyphonic Synthesizer!

[@audioartisan]

I saw this on Reddit when you first shared. This is the best looking and sounding DYI combo I have ever seen and heard so far. Excellent work!

[@waporwave5066]

a homemade synth, and a wonderful player to go along with it.

[@LeoDaV714]

Love the grittiness! Sounds awesome!

[@prarobinson]

This is so incredible! What a magnificent instrument. Layout looks super playable, too. Many deep bows.

[@AlbertNystrom]

Thanks! Glad you like it!

[@danpedersen55]

Looks stunning 👍

[@EricBalcon]

That's a great project, 6 voice polyphony is not too bad. Well done.

[@gravecode]

I'm truly believe for every expensive good, there's somebody when they saw the price said "Fck it, I'll make my own"

[@Galova]

Believe me, you've made a GREAT job, no matter how simple it may appear to you. My respect.

[@_EightySix]

Like a hobo Oberheim. 😂 Some of those patches sound great.

[@CR-sj7xd]

Wow dude made his own Prologue!

[@radboi4194]

In love with all your incredibly impressive work! Would kill for a parts list to make something even half as majestic as this if you'd even recall it still or have one anywhere!

[@shivkarthik803]

This looks and sounds stunning!!

[@mohamedbelafdal6362]

The king is back, with schematics this time

[@habbi1974]

woah! this looks great. I recently built an analog monosynth (and have uploaded some short demos), a second analog one with full bells and whistles is on its way, and this poly looks like my first challenge at digital. thanks for the inspiration!!!!!!!!!

[@Dani-El.]

Sounds incredible. Good job!

[@paulsavio6846]

Great work, love that third sound you made.

[@princequestly2218]

This thing is awesome and sounds absolutely amazing. Spectacular work.

[@vitobiliti]

Highly impressive- Amazing skills sir.

[@cmosorchestra]

Sounds awesome..Great Job!

[@alexanderkovack9752]

Wow bravo ! You should do a video series to build one Im ready to Patreon you!

[@j.andrew358]

This is seriously impressive!

[@AlbertNystrom]

Thank you very much!

[@elusivegroove]

Fantastic, nice tone and the harmonics are on point.

[@MacXpert74]

What an amazing build! I also like the sound a lot. Very smooth and warm.

[@f.vercetti]

Amazing work!! Really unique pure analog sounds!

[@AlbertNystrom]

Thanks! It's 100% digital though! 😉

[@lucytaylor8010]

I love it! Looks like a Dave smith

[@AlbertNystrom]

Thank you! That's definetly one of the main inspirations for the design of this synth, so I guess I succeeded pretty well with that! ;)

[@infpaaron]

This is ... just wow!!! AMAZING!!! :D

[@AlbertNystrom]

Thanks! Very happy that you liked it!

[@JeremyCook]

Pretty rad! Nice work.

[@cmplns]

Thank you! I'll try to make my first digital synth with this!

[@danielmelnikov2011]

Phew! What a beautiful labor of love it must have been! Super versatile sounding. Saw this on r/synthdiy :)

[@AlbertNystrom]

Thank you very much! Yes, there are quite a few hours behind this build! ;)

[@NeonFuxAlot]

Nice 1 , thanks for sharing , please share info about the front panel construction

[@AlbertNystrom]

It's very simple. It's just some plywood that's painted black, carefully hand-drilled holes, and hand drawn text with a white premanent marker. :)

[@NeonFuxAlot]

@@AlbertNystrom nice workmanship

[@truBador2]

You made that? You did a good thing.

[@4mb127]

Very nice work.

[@martinslunecko274]

Perfect work.

[@AlbertNystrom]

Thank you! I'm pretty pleased with the result!

[@MarvellousDraven]

Genius 🎉

[@KD-cobain]

sounds and looks amazing for $120, definitely want to build something similar

[@lovehalfblack9420]

Pulsating pad was dope

[@pmsrodrigues]

Another excellent piece of work. Perhaps for a newer revision, portamento in monophonic mode?

[@AlbertNystrom]

Yeah, there are many features that i'd like to add, portamento is one of them. Perhaps in the future. 😉

[@mikepuga4377]

Fabulous build!!! Man this is awesome

[@AlbertNystrom]

Thanks!

[@mymodularjourney]

Fantastic!

[@TheDungeonDive]

Sounds nice!

[@FUTURSample]

Sound great ! Congrats 👏

[@tripleraven]

wish i can buy it. the LFO sounds really nice

[@enochroot9438]

fantastic work, you are very talented

[@wsc112782]

This sounds awesome. You can also use the bandlimited waveforms in your VCO section, they sound noticeably more musical than the 'regular' waveforms. Not sure if the 3.5 has enough grunt to use them though.

[@anthonyesparza3411]

Amazing stuff!

[@AlbertNystrom]

Thanks so much!

[@latemann3902]

shit I would buy it man ! sound amazing

[@superserge]

OMG!! That's great stuff!!!

[@tombrews]

You know what would be amazing is if you could round robin through the 5 presets from an ext click track or automate through cv . Sounds great!

[@abominablemusic]

yep, I'd buy this if this was in the shops...😎

[@bearheadwood]

Delightful!

[@GerenM63]

Man, that sounds really fat and juicy! Really nice! Great job!

[@MaxVersace]

This has been my favorite synth I've seen since the moment you uploaded this video. It has exactly the things I want and what I am looking for. And it looks sooooo good!! Do you think that I, as a beginner, can recreate this myself? I can solder, but I have zero teensy/coding experience. So I'll have to rely completely on the code that you shared.

[@RalphWLundvall]

Split keyboard would be an advantage. Some textured high notes go well with normal low notes and vice versa.

[@chrisw1462]

If that tape-effect 'wow' isn't on purpose, it's probably your power supply. The voltage either isn't stable or the circuit is drawing a tiny bit more than the supply can handle, pulling the voltage down. A nice large capacitor across the main power rail should help, but you may want to look into a better regulator. If it _is_ on purpose, awesome work! (Well, it's pretty awesome even if it's not!)

[@rosscostuart3409]

Nobody asked you

[@clemenshartung6961]

wait, this is a teensy VA? Sounds beautiful!

[@printingnature]

very nice

[@themarcvelazquez]

Damn this is awesome

[@kansastintcompany]

Excellent

[@mrfurkangul]

THIS IS JUST FANTASTIC! well done for building this amazing synth. i've been trying to understand and get around the idea of making and owning a synth of mine. forgive me if i ask too much but is it possible to share which components did you use ? except teensy 3.5. thank you so much.

[@Soundtrackloops]

Love it!

[@DeanDeCarli]

Awesome, thanks for sharing! What is it that you are playing in the outro, a song or just some noodling that sounds familiar?

[@AlbertNystrom]

Thanks! Yes, thats just some improvisation I made in the moment.

[@jj74qformerlyjailbreak3]

This is cool. Now I know what to use the spare MS20 for. Need a teensy, because this is by far thee best Diy Polysynth I’ve oscillated to, that ringing must be what Hunter Byeden hears every time he hits that Pipe. Have a good day.

[@ZipSnipe]

and with delay and reverb, good job !!!! On the schematic I don't see where you have the pitch wheel included

[@AlbertNystrom]

I honestly sort of forgot exactly how I did it. But it's just a potentiometer whose value gets read by an analog input and then converted to act as a pitch bend if that makes sense!

[@sendarium]

Pull yourself together and finally make a damn guide for assembling this incredible synthesizer. People want to know how to replicate this work of art !!!

[@carlossulca9102]

thanks for sharing it, great job , one question, can the code work on a teensy 4.1?

[@AlbertNystrom]

Thank you! Yeah most of it, but you would have to modify some of the code to work with the I/O of the teensy 4.1. For example teensy 4.1 does not have a analog input 27, so the lines mentioning analog 27 would have to be modified the same goes for some other stuff to. And the 3.5 has 27 analog inputs vs the 18 of the 4.1. So you would need a few more multiplexers to make it work. Hope that gives some insight.

[@Bulutbakar]

​@@AlbertNystrom can i do this on teensy 4.0

[@joristerpstra3411]

Hey! I love this some much and i want to build something similar. I was wondering if you had more pics of the internals or maybe just some tips for me to start?

[@aaronstclair2423]

Dope

[@jongdonglu]

How can i get started making diy synths? i got a few basic op amps, resisters, diodes, capacitors, a speaker and even some trimmed pots as well as the ones with knobs.. any resources for getting started maybe a simple quick build with basic parts? also im totally loving what you have made. should record some sample packs!

[@troycharbonneau8643]

Wow looks amazing and sounds even better! Just wondering, is the electronics limited to 49 keys? Or is that because it’s what you scrounged? I’d love to make something like this, got several 61 keybeds laying around.

[@AlbertNystrom]

Thank you! There's no limit to The ammount of keys. I just wanted a some what big, yet compact keybed and ended up finding an old 49-key midi keyboard for $10!

[@matszh]

@@AlbertNystromot bad finding a full sized 49 keybed with aftertouch for 10$. Really a good job on this synth. Did you program it from scratch or developed an existing sketch? Is the mono-mode in unison?

[@syntheticcheetah]

Hello there Albert. I am making a PCB in Kicad based upon your schematics, to make it easy for anyone to put one of these together. I had a question. Was bclk on the Teensy connected directly to the bclk on the UDA1334, and was the MUX on the teensy, connected directly to the MUX on the CD4051? I will send you over the gerbers once I get the board into a state it can be manufactured.

[@MoyDomDurDom]

Hello, did you succeed? I also want to make a board in kicad, but I don't understand this circuit.

[@syntheticcheetah]

@@MoyDomDurDom I did make a board, Yes. It is somewhat sloppy but functional.

[@TheInart]

Wow I need one also

[@legosteveb]

Great job! Just wondering how you printed the white on the black face plate? It looks great!

[@FenixSongMusic]

Amazing! Was 6 voice chosen due to matching the limits of the teensy 3.5 processor?

[@AlbertNystrom]

Yes, 6 voices was kind of the limit before things started to glitch out. And I also choose 6 voices for coding reasons. For every voice I basically had to duplicate all the code, so more voices would be kind of tedious, although I'm sure there are way smarter ways to do this.

[@timwalther]

@@AlbertNystrom yes for sure! In C++ you can put all of the code for a single voice in a class, then you instantiate as much instances of that as you want. Not sure how you programmed this. Is it using the teensy audio library / editor?

[@fisherwebdev]

I wonder if Teensy 4.x would glitch less.

[@craigyjp]

I upgraded my build to a T3.6 for better operation, the problem with the T4.1 is less available I/O pins than the T3.5 & 6

[@tdrelectronics766]

Hi just found this on youtube one question where do you get the keyboards from I cant find the keyboards anywhere on the internet

[@AlbertNystrom]

It's simply an old Midi-keyboard that I bought for $10 and took apart!

[@tdrelectronics766]

@@AlbertNystrom Ok thanks

[@giovannimanilardi480]

Hi, nice work, I would like to make it but I can't find the teensy 3.5, is it possible to replace it with the 4.1 version?. What kind of keyboard did you use. Thanks

[@AlbertNystrom]

@@giovannimanilardi480 thanks! You could use a 4.1 but you would need to reprogram a few things to make it work! The keyboard is an old midi-keyboard that I took apart!

[@giovannimanilardi480]

@@AlbertNystrom thank you so much, i subscribed to your channel, you do very interesting things and above all you share them. thanks again.

[@chironbramberger]

Amazing! Love it! Are the filters done in Teensy code or are they dedicated analog circuits?

[@AlbertNystrom]

Everything is done in code, completely digital!

[@jpCharm1]

This is amazing. Where did you source the components?

[@AlbertNystrom]

Thank you! The electronics was mostly bought from TME and Mouser, the keybed was salvaged from an old midi keyboard, and The wood was bought from my local woodworking shop!

[@amazeus1980]

Well done really… ❤

[@kingcrimson_2112]

hey great work..!! would this also potentially work with the teensy4.0 microprocessor? the 3.5 is deprecated. How much effort do you think is to port your code for the 4.0

[@mastermachetier5594]

Curious what you used for the keybed and how you built that

[@c_r_i_S]

I think he bought a cheap midi keyboard and used the keybed from there

[@AlbertNystrom]

It's an old M-audio keystation 49e that I bought for $10!

[@caberfeigh1]

Im sure youve heard this a thousand times BUT would you consider selling a kit???

[@AlbertNystrom]

I have considered it, but if I were to do it I would probably have to do a lot of changes to make it more compact and reliable etc. :)

[@ithaca2076]

has to be one of my favorites so far! but where did you get the keyboard from? i cant find any online to order from

[@AlbertNystrom]

I simply bout an old casio midi keyboard second hand for ~$10. I then removed everything except the keybed and connected it to the Teensy via midi!

[@intender3046]

Are you using MIDI Din, or Midi USB. I looked at your schematic and it looks like MIDI Din. I have been planning on doing something like this with a teensy, but I don't have a 3.5 on hand (only 4.1 and 4.0) and havent' been able to find a keyboard to use for the build yet. I have been looking for a sacrificial keyboard but the only old midi keyboards I can find locally that aren't $100+ used are a few old m audio oxygen 49's and a novation launchkey which are both usb midi. I don't have anything on hand that I am willing to tear apart and the local used market is pretty much non existent.

[@AlbertNystrom]

Yes, it's midi Din. To build it with a 4.1 you would have to modify some stuff in the schematic and a bit in the code, but it would mostly work. I got really lucky and bought a keyboard for $10, that have 5-pin midi. I'm sure that usb midi should work, but im not so familiar with usb, so i went with Din instead.

[@MizzardNet7Net7]

Sorry but the shcema is not complete! Where are the musical keyboard connections? Where are all the potentiometers and connections? What does the 4051 connect? There is nothing written, no indication :( Please help me!

[@ChillingPxl]

Hey man. I am trying to make a midi keyboard from scratch as a part in a larger project. I have no clue what I’m doing. Do you have any info? I figured I l could take an old keybed and wire two buttons under each key to a micro controller for velocity, but then that would be 176 pins. Is there something I’m missing?

[@golgeka007]

Hey where did you buy your keyboard for synth? Can't find smth except a Fatar ones..

[@AlbertNystrom]

It's simply an old Casio midi keyboard repurposed!

[@jeromehess9956]

You did a great job. Is there a "how to" or build log posted anywhete? I've been working for quite a while and not come close to a fraction of your capacity....

[@AlbertNystrom]

Thanks! Unfortunately not, only the github link in the description. Check out the nuts and volts teensy synth on youtube, it's what got me started in digital synthesis!

[@eliahdude1411]

what did you use to program the synth?

[@AlbertNystrom]

It's a Teensy 3.5 that controls most of the things, programmed using the Arduino IDE.

[@eliahdude1411]

so you didint use the teensy audio library?

[@AlbertNystrom]

@@eliahdude1411 yeah, I did use the Teensy audio library, but it is a library. So you still have to use something like the Arduino ide to program the code.

[@eliahdude1411]

@@AlbertNystrom Ok makes sense, also if you dont mind me asking, what switch did you use for your preset knob? i was wondering if i could use a switch like that on a synthesizer i am building with 6 waveforms to select the waveforms

[@AlbertNystrom]

@@eliahdude1411 I think it was one of these: www.tme.eu/se/details/sr2511615k9s/vridstromstallare/ninigi/

[@redlantern91754]

I have a question on your preset section. Is it 5 push buttons, and the selector is a potentiometer? or is that a rotary switch?

[@redlantern91754]

Preset Pin(A24) jumpers to Save1 for example, and that loads Preset #1?

[@redlantern91754]

On your on-off-on switches, for example A Shape, is middle pin on the toggle switch GND or 5V? I am guessing GND. Then toggle pin goes to PIN2, and the other toggle pin goes to PIN3 on the teensy.

[@AlbertNystrom]

The preset selector is a 6-way rotary switch, acting like a voltage divider. So you rotate it to load presets. Then there are 5 push buttons to save presets. When you push a button it saves the current sound to that location.

[@B1SCOOP]

Is it fully analog? Sounds like 70s synth though.

[@chuckvicious]

no its a microcontoller programmed with VA sounds and abilities

[@chrismurray4252]

Sell a build Guide!

[@fisherwebdev]

I see on GitHub some of the code is automatically generated. What tool did you use to generate this code?

[@neodimium]

I think the hardest part was to find that 3 way switch (ON-ON-ON).

[@AlbertNystrom]

It doesn't have to be on-on-on, I'm actually using on-off-on switches. As long as it has 3 different states, it will work!

[@neodimium]

@@AlbertNystrom Ah, I see. Your circuit uses OFF state for one of those shapes. I guess square one? Long time ago I was doing something similar... It turned out, designing schematic is different than assembling. Turned out that 2P3T is (almost) unobtainium! So I had to settle for rotary switch.

[@craigyjp]

In the center off position nothing is connected to the outer pins so they are pulled to ground. The center pin is +3.3v so when the switched is toggled up it pulls that line high and when down the other line high.

[@23mcvicker]

How would one even go about starting to build something like this?

[@Mystiskmusli]

Are you using some kind of library or is it all from scratch scratch?

[@craigyjp]

It uses the Teensy Audio library

[@sauermusicDE]

Needs an analog chorus IMHO...but apart from that: AWESOME! 🙂

[@AlbertNystrom]

Yeah! Some chorus would definetly be nice!

[@FenixSongMusic]

True. I use my Tc Electronics June60 v2 for this... just add it to everything! :) Instant Junofication.

[@jogandocombololo8862]

This is an analog synth?

[@AlbertNystrom]

No, this a digital synth. It's based on a Microcontroller called Teensy!

[@iancain6647]

Is it analog?

[@TeddyLeppard]

Why don't you sell these? Make it worth your while.

[@jobbe-wijnen]

I Love The Synth but I'm not going to build It because you're schematic is SO Basic that I Just Can't Figure It Out, sorry. Could help a lot If you also draw how all pins are connected to the pots.