Meet Daisy by Electro-Smith, a new open-source developer board with which you can convert your software codes into pedals, synthesizers, samplers or Eurorack modules.
In today’s music tech world, there are two tracks: hardware and software. If a developer wants to put his code in a piece of hardware like a pedal or Eurorack module, that’s double work. Of course, however, this step is simplified for many with a new platform. It will not be perfect for everyone but for many who would like to design a hardware device but doesn’t have the manpower to realize this.
Daisy from Electro-Smith is an embedded platform for music creation with high-fidelity audio and no soldering. It’s an open-source board and can be mounted in a guitar pedal, Eurorack module or desktop synth. The right hardware that can be used to convert codes into real products is available directly from the young company called Daisy Pod, Patch, Petal and Field.
It features two channels of line-level audio IO onboard, thanks to its high fidelity stereo audio codec (AKM) with up to 24-bt, 192kHz. Adding additional channels of audio is easy using standard digital audio protocols such as TDM, I2S, PDM, and S/PDIF which are broken out to the pin headers.
There is full support for USB MIDI IN and OUT through its onboard micro USB port and the USB pins on the header bank. It also features UART pins for connecting MIDI through 5 pin DIN, or TRS cables. The board is based on an STM32 ARM Cortex-M7 CPU running at 480MHz, 32-bit floating-point and 64MB of SDRAM which is enough for a 10-minute audio buffer. Plus, there is more than 8 MB of flash memory for firmware or permanent storage of audio files.
Full Connectivity
Daisy features full OTG-support as host and device on the built-in micro USB port and so it can become any USB device you want. An audio interface, MIDI controller or sample player, no problem with this board. On top of that, the built-in micro USB can also be used for powering, programming and debugging the Daisy.
Compatible With Many Programming Languages
What is very exciting and what makes it so flexible is that Daisy is not limited to one programming language. You can create code for Daisy in different languages including Arduino, Pure Data, Max/MSP, and C++. So very experimental synthesizers or effects that are only known from Max / DSP can be ported into these hardware devices.
This fun is very affordable for both sides: developer and musician. Daisy is available now on Kickstarter and itself costs only $29 which is super cheap for such a cool developing platform. Petal (pedal) is $299, Patch is $329 and Field for $399 with a Daisy. You can get also the Pod for only $79.
More information here: Electro-Smith
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