The Electric Druid range of chips now includes four noise generators, so the table below summarises the differences between them to help you select the best chip for your application. White Noise Outputs Pink Noise Outputs Digital Control? MN5837 replacement? NOISE1B 1 0 No Yes NOISE 2 1 1 No No PENTANOISE 5 0 […]
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It’s been around ten years since I developed the original Druid NOISE 1B chip to produce good quality white noise. Finally it gets an update, and the new NOISE2 chip can produce pink noise as well as white noise, so there’s no need for external “pinking” filters. Here’s what it sounds like, white noise and pink […]
The FilterFX project uses the Druid STOMPLFO to control a 12dB/oct state variable filter. A state variable filter (SVF) is chosen because this filter design offers highpass, bandpass, and lowpass outputs which gives us the greatest range of different effects. The LFO offers eight waveforms, including two random waveforms (one does those crazy sample-and-hold effects […]
Replacing the LM3914/LM3915/LM3916 with a PIC Most designs you see for audio level LED bargraph displays use the LM3914/LM3915/LM3916 series chips that are no longer made. However, the chips are simple, so we can replace them with a PIC and build a nice LED bargraph driver on a single chip. So why do you need this thing? […]
For this post, I’d like to take you through the process of designing a pedal, from initial idea to completed PCB and pedal. Everyone has their own way of doing this, so I thought it might be interesting for people to see the way that I work on something like this. Pedal (or Synth) design […]
The Digitech DOD PDS-1550 was a member of the 1980’s Digitech “Dual pedal” range. It’s a pretty weird thing, and that’s partly why I’d like to take a closer look at it here. During my analysis of this pedal, I’ve discovered its dirty secret. Let’s get one thing out of the way early on though […]
Or how to get a vintage 1980’s drum machine sound without selling your kidneys! There was a discussion on the SynthDIY mailing list recently about how the early digital drum machines like the LinnDrum or the Oberheim DMX used to change the pitch of drum sounds by simply changing the sample rate. They literally just […]
Here’s something slightly different! Is it an LFO? Is it an envelope generator? Well, it’s a bit of both. It produces a one-off event like an envelope generator, but it has a selection of waves more like an LFO. It works by producing a single “ping” when triggered. A ping is like a mini-envelope. The […]
We’ve discovered a bug in the recently-released TAPLFO 3 code (how embarrassing!). The problem only affects the tap tempo feature of the TAPLFO3. Other chips like the VCLFO or STOMPLFO aren’t affected. We’ve fixed the code, and while we were working on it, we also improved the switch debouncing routine to be more tolerant of bouncy […]
In the last six months, we’ve been very busy here in the Druid workshop, developing and testing new versions of our PIC-based chips. This work is now complete, so I’d like to introduce the new chips. Why bother? What was wrong with the old ones? Ok, there wasn’t anything much wrong with the old ones, […]