Blog Posts

Laserr has made a collection of homemade electronic instruments that draw inspiration from musical traditions around the world.

Drawing inspiration from traditional musical instruments from around the world, Laserr (forum user) has made a collection of homemade electronic instruments using the Teensy 2.0 and Teensy ++.

The first set of reworked world instruments includes a bulbul tarang (also known as an Indian or Panjabi banjo), a guzheng (a stringed instrument from China that dates back over 2500 years), a didgeridoo (an aboriginal Australian wind instrument), an erhu (an ancient two stringed instrument from China) and a hurdy gurdy (a drone folk instrument popular in Medieval Europe).

Each of the five instruments makes creative use of capacitive touch to trigger and modulate sounds designed in Native Instruments’ Kontact 5 software.  As well as recreating the sounds of each of the five instruments, Laserr has come up with ways for players to add in texture to their  performances with controls for effects including tremelo, vibrato, tone and rhythm.

Another nice touch on some of the instruments is the option to include accompanying sounds, such as wind chimes with the guzheng or piano with the erhu. It’s also lovely to see some of the quirks of these instruments recreated in the electronic versions, for example the charming inclusion of a hand crank on the hurdy gurdy.

You can find more information on this impressive collection of experimental electronic instruments by watching Laserr’s YouTube video above, and you can also read the original forum post. Laserr has also created a second collection of DIY electronic musical instruments which you can check out by watching the video below or on their YouTube channel.

Monta Elkins at Fox Guard made a festive holiday ornament to hang on the tree.

Using the digital to analog converter (DAC) pins on a Teensy 3.5 Monta was able to display a drawing of a holiday tree on a Tektronix T32A oscilliscope.  He went old school in the design process and first drew the design on graph paper to plot the coordinates for the design.  Then wrote some code to  draw lines between the coordinates to create the tree.

Okay, maybe it’s a *little* heavy to hang on a tree, but it is festive!

Ben Forta has made a festive, animated Chanukah light display featuring a menorah and dreidel game.

The two displays total over 4,500 NeoPixel LEDs.  Both displays are built on aluminum frames covered with chicken wire to allow wind to pass through (survived 60 MPH winds).  Each display is controlled by a Teensy 3.2 paired with an OCTO Shield.  All fo the electronics, power feeds, and data connections are housed in a pair of waterproof boxes.

Happy Chanukah!

 

Chip Audette and the folks at Tympan has developed a fully open source hearing aid development platform.

Hearing aid technology has been closed technology with access only available to those working in the industry and Chip set out to change that.  What began as an experimental project has now become Tympan, an open source hearing aid development platform.

The Tympan platform uses a Teensy 3.6 and the Digital Signal Processing (DSP) capabilities of the Teensy Audio Library to implement dynamic range compression – amplifying quieter sounds while not making louder sounds any louder.  Chip has a great explanation of the need for dynamic range compression in this blog post.  He follows it up with details on how he implemented it in this blog post.

The Tympan units are affordable devices that allows users to program and customize their own hardware to best suit their hearing needs without having to go to a technician each time an adjustment is needed.

The Tympan hearing aids are OSHWA Certified.  Code, schematics and KiCad files are available on GitHub.

Wyatt Olsen built an incredible electronic drum set that that is fully portable and customizable.

Looking to get back to playing drums, Wyatt decided to create Dum Master, an electronic drum set.  The first rev was functional but had a few problems such as difficulty in getting accurate velocity sensing and the need for a separate computer to play the sounds.  Notable improvements with Rev 2 of the project include using peak detection hardware and using a Teensy with an Audio Shield for playback.

Additional details can be found on the Drum Master website.

Code for the project has been published on GitHub.

Delta Space Systems has developed a flight computer for launching rockets into high altitudes.

The Omega flight computer features 2 pyro channels, 2 servo outputs for thrust vector control, data logging, altitude measurements, and a gyroscope.  This latest version of their flight computer upgrades from using a Teensy 3.2 to a Teensy 3.5.  The increased processing power allows for additional data logging to make more accurate TVC (Thrust Vector Control) movements.  They were also able to eliminate the SD socket and flash chip from the design which contributed to a significant weight reduction.

UHF made TSynth, an awesome sounding four note polyphonic synthesizer.

Inspired by the Teensy-Synth series by Notes & Volts, UHF set out to make his own synthesizer using a Teensy 3.6, Audio Shield, and the Audio Library.

 

This synth is packed with features including four voice polyphony with two oscillators per voice.  Check out the forum post for a full list of features on this incredible project.

 

Mohit Bhoite made Bubble Punk, a nifty little sculpture to measure temperature and humidity.

Along with a Teensy-LC, the sculpture uses an Adafruit SHT32-D sensor breakout board, a vintage HP5052 7415 7 segment display, and a WS2812B LED to light it up.

 

FRDM4236 (Trainder4EDU) has created an expansion board for Teensy 4.0, similar to Dean’s, but providing all the extra signals & features in a Teensy 3.6-list form factor.

The Trainer4Edu website has detailed information on the board as well as build instructions for you to build your own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dean Blackketter created an add-on board which makes Teensy 4.0’s bottom-side pads available as a second row of normal pins!

It attaches underneath with castellated holes to solder to Teensy 4.0’s bottom-side pads.

If you’ve wanted a way to plug Teensy 4.0 into a sturdy through-hole socket and have access to all the signals, this looks like a really nice way to gain easy access to those bottom-side pads.

Dean shared this PCB on OSH Park and the Kicad files on Github.  Much more detail is available on Dean’s forum post and conversation which follows.