Making music with MIDI is a really fun and accessible way to express your inner electronic synth-self, and if you have a Raspberry Pi lying around, all the better! The SquishBox Kit – 4xUSB MIDI synth/sound module is a portable effects pedal, designed to be used with the world best-selling micro computer to create all kinds of beats and melodies with a wealth of free instruments!
This is the kit version of the Squishbox from the same seller – which you can assemble and solder yourself, with the addition of your own Raspberry Pi, SD card, power supply, and enclosure. Put them together and you’re ready to rock out, MIDI style! The SD card should be loaded with the free FluidSynth and uses soundfonts – a common and and freely available and editable format of all types of synthetic and acoustic sounds. These soundfonts enable you to load and play drums, basses, synths, keyboards and even vocal sounds – by sending MIDI messages to the pedal.
You’ll find 4 USB slots on your Raspberry Pi which can each be used to send MIDI notes to the pedal. The SquishBox kit is sold by Geek Funk Labs who are based in the USA – and offer a nice selection of musical MIDI devices. See the SquishBOx in action here:
Are you really planning to go to that party without wearing a single LED!? Impress your friends with these TO-THE-MOON rocket earrings – the ultimate way to show off your geeky dress sense and set the tone for an intergalactic party to remember.
The four bright-yellow LEDs below the engine live on a brilliantly-designed red solder mask PCB inspired by the popular rocket emoji. The secret behind these flashy LEDs is a beautiful animation engine which cycles between four miniature light shows, performed at the end of your ears! This device is cleverly run using the ATtiny412, one of the smallest microcontrollers, making it convenient for wearables – and powered by 1225 coin cell batteries.
One of the largest components on the earring is actually the push button, which is used to cycle between the four light shows: launch, thrusting, burnout, and coasting. Set your preferred mode depending on how the party is going! You’ll get a battery life of up to 50 hours in launch mode and a stratospheric 150 hours in thrusting mode.
California STEAM are an independent company based in California, USA. They’ve been selling on Tindie for a good while now and are real professionals in the wearable tech sector. To the moon, guys! Why not check out their Tindie storefront for even more awesome electronic earrings and wearables?
Musicians and makers alike often get inspired by turning their sounds into magnificent light shows! The Color Organ Sound Activated Light is a great solution for any household or performance-related illumination needs, and it’s much smarter than many LED strips.
In my experience, the ‘sound mode’ on basic LED strips can appear messy or anticlimactic. However, the Color Organ Sound Activated Light is a stunning piece of hardware that responds to three different frequency bands in your music. Take a look at the below video to see just how responsive these lights are;
This light sequencer comes with a variety of options to control your light show. Ranging from transitions based on the frequency (pitch), to an innovative ‘beat detection’ mode that will sequence the lights according to the tempo of your track by identifying the transients (the loud bits to you and me).
With each bulb responding to different frequency bands, the light shows created are very responsive and strongly represent the music. The red light, focusing on the low frequencies, responds very well to the kick drum. The white light, on the high frequencies, flashes in time with the hi-hats. The yellow light in the middle covers the mid-range frequencies – this includes sounds such as guitars, synths, or vocalists, and will often follow the singer’s vocal pattern.
The color sequencer interprets music using either the built-in microphone or a line-in jack, and can move between its patterns automatically or manually. Please note, that this is a high voltage device, so can control very bright lighting if you need it for a performance!
The seller, mc_kit, is an independent company based out of Haskovo, Bulgaria. They’ve been selling on Tindie for some time, and are well-reviewed by our customers for their wide variety of color organ options.
If you’ve ever edited a video, you’ll understand why this Basic Video Editing Macropad and Jog Wheel might come in handy. With so much scrolling back and forth finding particular places to chop, a hyper-accurate jog wheel set up could save you hours of fiddly finger work!
Powered by the well-loved Seed XIAO controller, this speedy macropad is easy to assemble and use. Designed to be inexpensive and simple to build, this jog-wheel macropad connects directly to your computer and needs no extraneous parts like batteries or LEDs.
This macropad is programmable in CircuitPython and works straight off the bat without the need for specialist software to assign the key bindings – commonly known as ‘keymaps’. Keymaps assign macros to each key, and macros can be programmed to do multiple actions from a single keypress. One good example of this is the ‘paste’ command, usually triggered by hitting ‘Ctrl’ and ‘V’ simultaneously. With a macropad, you could assign this combination to a single key – letting you speed-run your copy and pasting!
This DIY Kit comes with everything you need to get the jog wheel rotary encoder up and running. Including 3 PCB plates, a monster-sized CNC rotary encoder, a 4 pin connector, Dupont wires, 5 brass stand-offs, screws, and bumpers. This macropad is incredibly powerful and hackable to whatever needs you may have. With the addition of the XIAO controller, keycaps, and Gateron mechanical switches (purchasable directly from the maker as add-ons), it fills a lot of gaps in your keyboard and mouse setup.
BlueMicro is an independent DIY electronics company based out of Saskatoon, Canada. They ship almost anywhere in the world, and sell a variety of Macropads for many uses. Why not check out the wireless version of this jog wheel, the Wireless Video Editing Macropad and Jog Wheel?
If you want to start building your own synths and learning about analog audio, the Awesome Analog Audio Kit is the product for you! Featuring 9 audio-oriented projects developed by a former Graduate Student Instructor, this kit provides an exciting and well-explained introduction to analog audio circuits.
There are 9 documented audio experiments in this kit, ranging from learning how to create square and sine waves all the way to creating an instrument out of a pencil drawing! It not only provides you with detailed, hand-drawn circuit diagrams – but actually explains why these circuits work using extensive circuit analysis. All of this information is contained within a full-colour 30-page booklet, which lets you quickly refer to each experiment.
This kit teaches you the fundamentals of working with an Operational Amplifier, often referred to as an ‘Op-Amp’. The Op-Amp is an endlessly valuable component to synth DIYers and is used to amplify electrical signals. Op-Amps use two input pins and one output pin – they read both input signals and then output the amplified difference between them.
The Awesome Analog Audio Kit comes packaged with all the components you’ll need to create these circuits. The kit is well suited to beginners and experts alike, forming real-world examples of exciting electronics concepts such as;
Educational Circuits are an independent electronics company based in Lafayette, USA. A new seller on Tindie, they develop circuit kits and projects designed to teach engineering concepts to beginners and experts alike. Keep an eye out for more of their products in the future!
If you sell PCBs on Tindie, you’ve perhaps designed a board to be hand built, then eventually set it up as a PCBA for assembly elsewhere when the volume and maturity justifies it. I went through this process myself with one of my products. Admittedly, there was a part where I was applying solder paste for assembly which could have been done in a neater and less wasteful manner.
One solution is to use a solder stencil, which in my experience comes with its own set of challenges – including the need to actually design and make. The second solution is to use a dispensing setup that can help you more accurately dispense globs of solder paste than with a manual syringe. Such a device comes with its own set of challenges, often including the need for compressed air. The e.Dispenser from Dan M does things a little differently by precisely displacing solder paste with a servo-driven linear actuator.
I got my hands on one of these units to try out and I’ve been pretty impressed, but read on to see my thoughts on how the device works!
e.Dispenser Initial Impressions
The system sells for a list price of $149.00 USD, including enough accessories (sans actual solder paste) to get you going. There are also a number of additional options available, including a foot-pedal and on-dispenser device trigger.
The device is made in, and ships from, Mexico. As an American buyer, my first hesitation was that there might be some import duties and/or hassle, however, I’m happy to report that in my case getting it was no trouble whatsoever. It simply showed up at my house in Florida via UPS, 11 days after placing the order. The item was very well packaged in custom-cut foam, which could double as storage apparatus if you’re careful when opening it up.
The device itself was well-made, with a laser-cut housing, and an LCD character display that will be familiar to anyone who has browsed an Arduino projects site for even a few minutes. The reversible USB-C power input was a nice feature, and there’s a 3.5mm jack for accessory connection. Finally, the driving stepper motor is keyed in such a way that it can’t be reversed when plugging it into the controller.
Dispensing Solder Paste
The unit is easy enough to plug in and turn on, and features a menu system driven by two encoders. The left encoder selects the menu option, while the right actually modifies it. When you press the trigger button, settings are saved to the profile you’re working with. When either is pushed in (at any time) the left pushes the piston forward, while the right pulls it back.
To insert solder paste, a coupler is included that lets you push it out of your old tube into the new tube quite elegantly. From there, the machine’s piston can push it out blob-by-blob. This is where things got a little hairy, due to:
I had no idea of the scale needed to push out a component’s worth of paste
My roughly year-old paste, stored in a hot garage wasn’t doing me any favors.
Quite a bit of excess initially dripped out after dispensing, and didn’t get the right amount on my pads to begin with. I contacted Dan M. about my predicament.
Long story short: I was dispensing way too much paste, and, according to Dan, depending on the type of paste you’re using, tiny air bubbles can cause a sort of internal spring effect. He gave me a few suggestions on things to try, and after a bit of tinkering, it worked much better. Also, it might seem obvious to many readers, but pressing down on the board before triggering the paste seems to work better than triggering it mid-air and attempting to dip paste onto the pads.
Dan’s support was prompt and excellent, offering me input and settings to try. That being said, I should have perused the documentation on his website more carefully, especially the page about dot dispensing to get a better sense of scale. I eventually made several prototype boards using the dispenser, which turned out much better than my syringe-only attempts.
After a bit of adjustment, oozing improved significantly
In my testing, I still get some paste extrusion after finishing a job using the dot dispensing mode. If/when I continue to tweak things (and/or buy new solder paste) I suspect this will improve. This adjustability is an excellent feature of this device, and up to 5 setups can be saved to allow you to work with different paste setups and/or scenarios.
External Trigger
As mentioned earlier, there’s a 3.5mm jack into which you can plug a foot pedal, or a trigger that slips over the dispenser tube. Both worked as designed, and I primarily tested the pedal. It’s also easy enough to start the device via the button on the main controller, though using the foot pedal felt natural and helpful once I started using it.
Vacuum Pickup
In addition to outputting solder paste, this device is also capable of picking up components and small ICs using vacuum. As there’s no air compressor involved, the way it does this is by pushing the piston into position, then pulling back to create a vacuum when triggered. I tested this with a few addressable LEDs, and even the Ooberlights circuit board seen above, and it works well.
The fact that it doesn’t need an air compressor is probably the #1 feature that will draw people to this device. The tradeoff here is that the driving stepper motor is on top of the dispensing syringe, which means that the center of mass is well offset from its geometric center. This wasn’t a problem for the limited assembly work that I’ve done with it so far, and I am thrilled to have this as a part of my workbench for prototyping. At the same time, this would likely be problematic if put into constant use over a full production shift.
A fascinating possibility for this device is that it seems to be just begging for people to use it in an automated manner per its external trigger capability. Dan has a guide to setting it up on a 3D printer here, but who knows what other people will (and have) come up with? Notably, the device can dispense other types of paste, opening up possibilities further.
The Verdict
This dispenser is well built and well supported, and it fills the niche between “what am I doing with this squeezy syringe thing” and full offshore production. There’s also the exciting possibility of repurposing a 3D-printer or other robotics assembly to work with this device. If you fall in the category of avid SMD prototyper, then in my humble opinion, it’s absolutely worthy of consideration!
Disclosure
Dan M provided the product at a discounted rate to me for this review. I’ve tried to be fair, open and honest in my appraisal of it, but if you’d like a second opinion (or forty-second opinions), you can check out the device’s customer reviews.
Playing a guitar or a synth is a great way to unwind, make some noise and rock out – with effects pedals frequently used to expand the sounds you can get out of them! Well, the pi-Stomp Core – HD Multi-FX for Guitar/Bass/Keys is a device capable of multiple simultaneous effects, with a colour LCD screen, a neat interface, and a completely open source design.
This pi-Stomp Core is the second generation of the design, which comes with a massive 350 possible audio effects to utilise and chain together! It comes as a kit with all you need to build a working system, and detailed CAD designs for drilling a standard aluminum enclosures is provided in the product Wiki.
Once the pedal is complete ,you can use the LCD to see an overview of the effects and navigate using the rotary encoder for fast changes of the pedalboard. Change the preset, bypass the effects, enter deep editing and global settings to cater the pedal to your setup!
To use the software, connect your computer via WIFI and use the intuitive drag-n-drop MOD UI webapp to create and edit the many virtual pedalboards online – which allows for up to a dozen simultaneous plugins at any one time.
The piStomp Core is made by Tree Fall Sound who have shipped the original mk1 design to over 11 countries worldwide. Proof that you can never have too many effects!
The original Sony Playstation changed gaming forever, bringing it out of the darkened, slightly sweaty bedrooms of gamers and into mainstream consciousness – ushering in new 3D worlds with big-beat soundtracks capable of being housed on super-cool black CDs. The PlayBaby DSUB (RGB|240p|480p) Adapter For PlayStation is a neat device to help rekindle your affection for the console, and its sequel – the Playstation 2, with a D-Subminiature output for 480p gaming, with no other gear required.
This A/V multi output adapter will output video from the console as well as sound from a 3.5mm socket. While it doesn’t do any upscaling or transcoding, it does ensure that your VGA signal brings a sharp quality to your gaming experience, surpassing any unshielded SCART cables you may have. It requires no power, has no buttons and works for both the PS1 (aka the PSX) and the PS2 – but do read the product page for specifics. As always, if you are unsure of anything before purchasing, send the seller a message and they’ll take care of you.
The PlayBaby is sold by Chipnetics Computing who are based in Canada, and seem to be pretty hot on making converters for a host of purposes. Can we also take a moment to admire these gorgeous images, too? Perhaps the best I’ve ever seen on Tindie!
For those that have seen one running, the Vectrex is an absolute delight for the senses – vivid wireframe vectors projected onto a built-in CRT, with almost liquid fluidity and bold vintage sound effects. The PoiTrex: Vectrex to Raspberry Pi Interface is an incredible device which replaces the CPU of the original machine by connecting a Raspberry Pi Zero to its cartridge port – providing a superb alternative to playing games and unique access to programming your own!
The PiTrex replaces the Vectrex CPU with an ARM CPU running at 1GHz and 512MB of RAM; which is an almost infinite update from the original. The seller has created a wiki page covering the details of the module; with schematics, circuit descriptions and updates. It’ll also support some Vectrex emulators meaning you can play a host of vintage games from back in the day, once you have them on your SD card. Games such as Asteroids, Tailgunner, and Battlezoe can all be played with save states to put you back where you left off – a godsend for those unforgiving older games.
PiTrex is an open-source project with code hosted at GitHub – and is available in a customised Vectrex cartridge case, or without. The PiTrex is sold by OmberTech who are based in Australia, and have a wealth of gaming goodies in their store.
When building MIDI instruments, you need to be sure they interact with each other correctly – mixed voltage systems can be a nightmare. The ‘MIDI In-and-Out Module for 3.3v‘ hopes to turn that nightmare into a dream, allowing you to attach MIDI components directly to your 3.3v projects with no hassle!
For instruments to communicate correctly over MIDI they must be speaking the same language, and the language of MIDI is spoken using high or low levels of voltage. When using 3.3v microcontrollers such as the Teensy, attaching standard 5v MIDI inputs or outputs can be complicated.
Most 3.3v systems can only accept voltages of up to 3.3v before malfunctioning, meaning that 5v MIDI inputs can cause serious issues – thankfully these can be overcome by using a level shifter within your circuit. This module acts in a very similar way to a level shifter without the need for any external components – creating a hardwearing and adaptable MIDI interface for your project!
This handy breakout board contains everything you need to quickly add MIDI control. Featuring a 3.3v supply voltage, a MIDI input jack, a MIDI output jack, and an optocoupler to ensure that any 5v signals get stepped down to the correct voltage – this device does just about everything you could need from a 3.3v MIDI breakout board. Arriving fully assembled and tested, you can plug this straight into your project using its 2.0mm spaced pin headers and get making music!
Midimonster is an independent company based out of Hilden, Germany and willing to ship almost worldwide. With 25 years of experience in electronic music and 20 years in electronics development, the maker provides others with the products he couldn’t find when he needed them.
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This handy breakout board contains everything you need to quickly add MIDI control. Featuring a 3.3v supply voltage, a MIDI input jack, a MIDI output jack, and an optocoupler to ensure that any 5v signals get stepped down to the correct voltage – this device does just about everything you could need from a 3.3v MIDI breakout board. Arriving fully assembled and tested, you can plug this straight into your project using its 2.0mm spaced pin headers and get making music!