The Beat Machines are a family of bespoke percussion synthesisers and sequencers designed and built by Andrew R. Brown and John Ferguson using DIY electronics. They employ low-cost microcontrollers and feature user interfaces with circular designs representing rhythmic cycles. The beat machine has evolved throughout it’s development. The first Beat Machine was a 3-voice instrument […]
The Drone Machine, designed by Professor Andrew Brown, is a versatile 5 voice synthesizer. Performance is via capacitive touch pads with knobs for parameter control. It’s a great portable synth as it’s powered by either battery or USB. The Drone Machine is built on the OnBoard sProject PCB, powered by an ESP32-S3 microcontroller with audio […]
The lo-fi sequencer is an algorithmic sequencer with controls for pitch, timbre, density and generative algorithm settings. Designed to be portable, the sequencer features an inbuilt speaker and is battery operated. The LoFi sequencer is built with an esp32 microcontroller.
The LoFi Granulator is a granular synthesiser that manipulates grains from a recorded sound. The loop-based playback of sampled audio creates textural and spatial effects. It features for knobs and two buttons and combinations of these can be used to control a variety of the parameters. It has an SD card so that you can […]
Lofi Sampler This project is cool little looper/sampler project based around the ISD1820 “voice recorder” IC. It’s dirty and clicky but surprisingly endearing to play with. It is battery powered, built on a breadboard, and enclosed in a laser cut wooden box with buttons, dials and speaker grill on the top face. There are many […]