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Turn a Raspberry Pi into a powerful sound synthesizer with stereo speakers, encoder inputs, and a synchronized pixel display. The Raspberry Pi makes a fine sound synthesizer when running programs such as Pure Data. This project adds speakers, a couple of rotary encoders, and a pixel array to turn a Raspberry Pi into a portable ‘synthbox’. You can connect MIDI controllers to change the sounds and create looped patterns.
The synthbox contains two computers. A Raspberry Pi runs the Pure Data sound output program. A Raspberry Pi Pico runs a CircuitPython program which drives the pixel panel and receives input from two rotary encoders. The Raspberry Pi and the Pico communicate over a serial connection. The Raspberry Pi sends commands to the Pico to control what appears on the screen. The Pico sends messages to the Raspberry Pi when the user interacts with the two rotary encoders.
Check out the project in HackSpace Magazine Issue 58 pp. 80-85.
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