Defender

Defender is my current project, and as such, is a work in progress, so please, don't ask for schematics, code or if you can buy it.

The synth is broken down into three parts,

  1. The Voice Card, which holds the filter, oscillators, EGs and LFOs
  2. Controller Card, which handles midi, voice assignment and patch storage
  3. Front Panel card, which handles the rotary encoders, pitch wheels, etc, etc

Because of the way I have structured this, it will be possible to have any number of voices from 1 to 15 just by adding more voice cards.
Also I've decided to make this totally surface mount, this allows me to fit a lot of stuff in a very small space.

Progress

For up to the minute information and an RSS feed for Defender, use the Defender catagory in my blog.

03/2008 - I'm back on the case! a new front panel design is up in the gallery. Less lexible than before but more user friendly.

08/2007 - Finally, after two weeks of effort, I've managed to route the front panel PCB. All I need now is to save a little money to buy one the cost is around £150 for the one off.

07/2007 - I've decided to break down the modules a little further. The front panel will now be it's own entity and will have a serial interface to talk to the main CPU.
This has many advantages. Not only can I leave the front panel handling to another CPU and leave the main one free for voice and midi, but I can also re-use the front panel in the future, for example with my Chameleon.

02/2007 - The voice card firmware was modified to include a 3rd oscillator and PWM, I also fixed one or two 'niggly' bugs whilst I was in there.
The 'knobby' front panel has gone. As I'm still adding features I want a panel I can use and work with until a stable set of parameters have been reached.

06/2006 - The voice card hardware is complete and the software is pretty much done, all the features are fully implimented, but I have one or two bugs.
The Controller card software is probably about 60% complete. The 'knobs' all control what they're supposed to, and most of the switches work. Currently there's no patch storage and a couple of small bugs. The next thing I aim to do is to get the patch storage/recall working.