Bleeplabs Nebulophone

[Mark Hammer]

Someone generously sent me one of these as a retirement present.  What a sweet gesture.  I am both touched and excited (boy, THAT doesn't sound right!).

The unit is an ATmega328-based synth (essentially an Arduino) with a whole whack of capabilities hidden under its 3 knobs, 3 switches, and PCB stylus micro-keyboard.  But what intrigues is that it is capable of being reprogrammed and upgraded by the user.  Take your plain vanilla Arduino Uno, pull the 328 chip, and connect through that Arduino to the Nebulophone's own 328 with your computer.

[EBK]

I am both touched and excited (boy, THAT doesn't sound right!).

You caught that one before duck and therm even had a chance to comment. 

[potul]

Interesting..... I wonder if the code could be used in a regular Arduino.... I will investigate.

I've always wanted to build a simple synth using arduino. I would probably skip the keypad and try to implement a CV / gate control, or even MIDI.

[tommy.genes]

They link to the source code from their website. Here is the Github link...

https://github.com/BleepLabs/Nebulophone

The source code is a *.ino file, so it should run just fine on any Arduino, but you would have to supply and connect the controls yourself. There is a schematic on their website as well.

A bit surprising that it wasn't built on the Arduino "shield" form factor to begin with. Or they could have included pads or a header on their own board design to allow it to be programmed directly with an FTDI Friend or similar. Still, the creator does mention it was his first big Arduino project, and these are the kind of things you learn after you've done a few.

Still probably wouldn't be too hard to modify the board to allow a USB-to-serial (e.g. FTDI) to connect to it for programming the ATmega328P right on the Nebulophone board.

-- T. G. --

[tommy.genes]

Oh, stupid me.

They did break out RX, TX, RST and GND in the top left corner of the board. You would connect these, respectively, to TX, RX, RTS (Ready To Send) and GND on the FTDI friend to program this board.

-- T. G. --