Tindie

For those music makers who like the lo-fi sound, inspired by MPCs and Akai Samplers of the 1990s – bit crushing and, to give it it’s formal name; bit reduction is highly desirable! Well now you can create your very own bit crusher effect, with this Complete DIY Bit Crusher Kit! You’ll find it’s loaded with options, and is simple enough to make given some prior soldering experience.

Bit reduction takes our modern high fidelity audio formats and adds vintage harmonics and audio artifacts which we might recall from the early days of technology – think 8 bit computing and sound synthesis from retro video games. Inside the kit, you’ll find all you need to make a complete bit crusher yourself, with three purchase options depending on what you’d like to source yourself. Choose to buy the PCB and pre-programmed chip alone, buy the kit with all the electronics components included, or get the full kit with sockets, knobs, and colourful arcade button!

This effect makes the sound more crunchy, angular and digital – just what you need to maximise the lof fi flavour of any instrument.

The Complete DIY Bit Crusher Kit is sold by midierror who is based on the Southern shorelines of England. Check out his store for more audio and MIDI goodies! See what youtube music tech aficionado DIVKID had to say about the effect here:

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If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, cooler weather is here. In some locations seeing outdoor flowers is largely something that has left and will return in a few months. Whether you need something to brighten up your day, or if you live in a continuously green and colorful outdoor environment, the Flower everblooming flower from Jiří Praus looks like a wonderful addition to your living space.

The Flower is triggered via a circuit sculpture leaf that acts as a capacitive touch sensor. When brushed, the flower’s six petals open via a stepper motor and linkage system, revealing it’s luminescent inner section, powered by seven individually-addressable LEDs.

The device is handmade in the Czech Republic, and features an app for control and parameter modification, as well as a USB-C interface for programming tasks. Inside, an ESP32 is used to control the leaf’s touch functionality, and provides WiFi and Bluetooth connection options. The Flower is open source, and extendable via I2C sensors, so a wide range of enhancements and modifications should be possible.

If this flower looks familiar, we featured an early version of it in 2019 that used a bent metallic frame for the petals instead of the more diffuse design seen today. As reported there, Praus wasn’t sure if he’d be making these mechanical flowers available for purchase, but you never know how a project will develop!

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Let your musical creativity flow with this genre-defying drum synthesiser! This fantastic device rides the boundaries between a sequencer, a synthesiser, and a drum machine – doing awesome generative stuff for your music! If you need some new and intriguing sound textures, the ARCANE Generative FM Drum Synth is just the instrument for you.

Featuring six potentiometers and three high-quality buttons, ARCANE is controlled by the ever-useful Arduino Nano, and can be delivered either fully assembled or as a fun DIY kit. Find your groove by modulating the sounds using the on-board controls –  flipping through generative sequences and transforming them into something new! The inbuilt glitch musicality knob is essential for choosing the kind of sounds you want this instrument to deliver – is it a drum, or a synth?ARCANE is based on the iconic Yamaha YM2413 FM chip – originally used to create the arcade machine sounds that audiophiles obsess over these days! It even has CV (control voltage) compatible clock in and clock out jacks, meaning you can combine this with any other modular gear! Check out the video below to hear some of the incredible sounds this thing can make.

Spherical Sound Society are an independent electronics company based out of Torrevieja, Spain. A popular store here on Tindie since 2019, they are known for their wide variety of excellent modular synth gear.

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The Commodore 64 holds a special place in many a computer enthusiast’s heart. That being said, the floppy disks used to load programs and files onto this computer can be less-than convenient, not to mention hard to find. If you’d like to step into the 21^st century with your storage, while still using retro C64 hardware, then endresz_eu may have just the solution with the SD2IEC floppy emulator.

The device allows you to store your 1s and 0s on a microSD card, which is plugged into a reader on the device. The SD2IEC then interfaces with the C64’s serial port as a virtual floppy drive, providing a quasi SD-to-floppy bridge. Power can be provided externally via a Micro USB port, or you can simply plug it into the Commodore’s cassette port for juice.

The virtual drive address is set to 8, but you can change it to 9, 10, or 11 via a pair of DIP switches. While an SD card up to 32GB can be used, since C64 programs are so small, a 1 GB disk should give you nearly all the storage you could ever want. Most games will run on this system, but according to its creator no Commodore floppy emulator is 100% perfect, so you might want to keep those floppys around as well!

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It’s December, meaning a variety of decorations can be put up to celebrate the holiday season. Christmas trees are perhaps the most prominent of such decorations, but cutting down a large healthy plant presents some practical obstacles. Some may also see it as wasteful, as they’ll be discarded in a month or so. For a reusable festive light show that won’t break your back (or budget) to set up, and doesn’t require refilling a bowl of water, check out this WiFi-Enabled Addressable LED Christmas Tree Kit from Moritz Wirger.

The tree uses an array of 14 APA106-F5 addressable LEDs for lighting, along with a Wemos D1 mini WiFi module for control. This setup makes it WiFi capable from the get-go, presenting a wide range of coordinated lighting possibilities. Another excellent feature of this lighting kit is it’s 3D design, featuring two concentric PCB lighting support circles, along with a third level of one LED on the top.

Of course, this isn’t the only Christmas tree on Tindie. In 2017 we examined another 3D kit that uses discreet components to flash at a set rate. Either option looks like a lot of educational fun, though the device here will give you a lot more control if needed!

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The Kenbak-1 was the first ever personal computer, released in 1971 and able to complete a variety of complex mathematical equations using binary input. This stunning full-size recreation by Adwater & Stir pays homage to the incredibly rare collectable original with this 50 piece limited run of their Kenbak-1 Replica.

Adwater & Stir have gone above and beyond to ensure this replica is as accurate as possible. In striving to create this precise remake they contacted the manufacturers of the originals outer shell, and were told that the case had been discontinued in the early 80s! The maker was ever hopeful, and asked for a limited run of the cases to be created – but was sadly denied. Thankfully, the manufacturers were more than happy to share the original engineering drawings – which Adwater & Stir took to a local metal shop to have recreated. This hard work and dedication shine through in the final product, a thoughtful recreation of an essential aspect of computing history.Having sold a micro and a nano version of this on Tindie in the past, it’s clear that Adwater & Stir know their stuff. Operated by an ATMEL processor, this more straightforward and modernised circuit runs the same way as the original Kenbak-1. It even has enhancements ranging from a real-time clock to a USB connection, which allows for uploading or downloading code.

Adwater & Stir is an independent electronics company based in Minnesota, USA, and has been selling their recreations on Tindie since 2018.

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The N-Synth Super was unveiled by Google Magenta labs in 2018 – an incredible open source sample playback machine which uses machine learning to crossfade accurately between any four sound sources! While all the schematics and PCB designs are available to make your own, it’s sometimes more appealing to buy a finished unit and that’s what the NSynth Super – Fully assembled is all about!

It comes as a sleek completed unit, with numerous controls to make and create sounds: the four outer knobs select the sound on each corner of the unit with the touch screen X-Y controller being used to sweep between them. It can be played via MIDI – meaning it can be sequenced, automated and controlled using any DAW or external sequencer. This model comes with a Raspberry Pi 3B and a 64GB Memory card inside to store your sounds on. It has USB connectivity too, and features a 3.5mm output socket to send the sounds to headphones, amplifiers and mixers.

This is the first product to be sold by lko who are based in Mosty, Poland. It’s a phenomenal synth which really encapsulates modern technology in one music making device. To have one fully made for you without sourcing parts is very convenient for those who want more time to rock out!

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Here at Tindie, we love the Raspberry Pi – it’s so diverse, portable, and affordable – who’d have thought that we could one day carry a quad core computer in our pocket? Here we have a fully featured housing to access the full potential of the Pi: the CrowPi2 – All in One Raspberry Pi Laptop! It’s designed to be an educational device to help young people learn electronics, programming, and basic computer skills – so let’s take a look!

The CrowPi2 can be equally used as a laptop or as a STEM learning tool – coming with 22 common sensor modules as well as independently developed software to make learning fun for young programmers. It’s a superb tool to learn many programming languages to expand anybody’s skills for the digital future – with accompanying pre-made lessons in Python, Scratch, Minecraft, AI, and small games. They have three options to choose from with a basic kit, advanced kit and deluxe kit – which you’ll see come with a wealth of accessories to inspire and delight users.

The CrowPi2 is sold by Elecrow, who are based in China and offer this along with the original version. It’s an exciting way to get into programming and computing, with a professional all in one solution to learning! There’s a quick video below outlining some of the uses of the CrowPi2:

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Over the next few days, Tindie Sellers are offering discounts on hundreds of items. It’s the perfect moment to order the parts for your next project and save money at the same time.

See all the deals at Tindie.com/Sale

Hundreds are Available Now and more will be added over the weekend and on Cyber Monday.

The sale highlights some of the best maker made devices, breakout boards and shields from our community. You will find unique electronics that you’ll not find on any other sites. And, when you buy on Tindie you’re supporting a community of independent inventors and tinkerers.

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The title alone may be enough to start you hovering your mouse over the buy button, so let’s take a look at the superb touch screen ESP32 Pacman themed Clock (assembly kit)!  This retro inspired timepiece comes in a range of colors, and is wholeheartedly inspired by the iconic dot-munching video game characters: Pacman and Ms Pacman!

The clock was the First prize winner in the 2021 Instructable Sound contest, with WIFI  synchronised timing and a choice of audio alarm track to get you started in the morning! It comes as a simple kit to assemble yourself, with three options, depending on what you need, including all the required components plus an enclosure. You’ll not only have an awesome clock on your bedside, but you’ll be able to watch the game unfold in the background – with options for customising the action, including changing Pacman to Ms Pacman!

They have shared their build instructions here on Instructables, so you can see what’s required.  This excellent Pacman clock is sold by Tech Kiwi Gadgets who are based in New Zealand and have just started selling on Tindie – what a superb start! See the clock in action in it’s full range of colours below:

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