Thursday 20 August 2020

ATX Progress

I've had a few emails requesting progress of the ATX range and thought I'd provide a summary. There are many parts to making this synthesizer range and it's a lot for just one person to manage! Progress is being made though and I do hope to have this finished this year. 

Hardware

  • Enclosure – 5 prototypes of each synth arriving in a couple of weeks. Then on to manufacturing the production run
  • Side panels – being cut at the moment!
  • Plastic parts – all purchased and ready for assembly
  • Controller PCBs – being manufactured at the moment, should be ready in a couple of weeks
  • Voice card, power and bus PCBs – Voice and bus PCBs are ready to manufacture, but on hold while I fix a problem with the power PCB. The power PCB has been causing me major problems throughout the project and still isn’t quite ready! Once power PCB is fixed, all of these will be ordered together to save on shipping.
  • Filter and Amp PCBs – the Atmultitron-only PCBs are on hold at the moment. Prototypes are finished and tested, but production won’t start until the Atmegatron II is ready.
  • Manual and packaging – haven’t even started yet :(

Software

  • Controller – All elements of the control software is now in place, but there is a lot of testing and features to refine. I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel with this though!
  • Atmegatron engine – All finished. Every parameter needs a final test.
  • Odytron engine – Nearly finished. Parameters need rearranging and final test
  • Strings engine – Nearly finished. Parameters need rearranging and final test
  • Atmegadrum engine – Engine finished, but need to implement sample switching via USB. Parameters need final test.
  • Atcylcotron engine – Not started (may be added after launch)
  • Delayertron engine – Not started (may be added after launch)
  • Duotron engine – Not started (may possibly be removed from spec).
  • Audio Input engine – finished.
  • Piano engine – 1 bug to remove, otherwise finished
  • Bezier engine – basics done, but buggy. Needs further work and testing

Wednesday 22 April 2020

Superbooth Home Edition

I should have been on a flight today to Berlin, to attend my number 1 highlight of the year: Superbooth. Sadly Superbooth couldn't happen this year due to the virus, but in its place is "Superbooth Home Edition" and Soulsby Synths have done a video for it!

In the words of the organisers: "To not let the start of the real Superbooth pass out, there is a virtual show happen tomorrow: The Superbooth20 Home Edition. Starting at 14:00 o´clock / 2 PM (MESZ/CEST/CEDT) simply on our website superbooth.com."

Edit: The video is now available here, in Part 3, near the bottom.

Wednesday 8 April 2020

Couple of Updates

New Oscidrum banks

There are 5 new Oscidrum banks on the downloads page. 4 vintage drum kits and 1 set of Moog Mother-32 sounds courtesy of Steve Munslow.

Online chat with Richard Nicol

I had an informal online chat with Richard Nicol of Pittsburgh Modular yesterday. We chatted about getting into synths, development of the Atmegatron and progress of the ATX synths. I also demo a couple of the new Oscidrum banks.

ATX progress

I discuss quite a bit of this in the video above.

A lot of parts for the Atmegatron II have now arrived. There's still some software to write and parts to order, but it's getting close! There are plans for a virtual Superbooth, now that the real one can't take place. I will be doing an update video for this, so stay tuned for details.