Multi - MIDI controller/router, sound generator

💡multi is designed by pangrus' electro acoustic lab in Italy, and it's available on Tindie. If you like the project, welcome to order one for yourself on Tindie. Please do note the following description comes originally on pangrus' electro acoustic lab's Tindie page.

multi is a multifunction device whose primary use is that of the midi controller, of very small size. Unlike the latest generation commercial controllers, it has a USB port and two DIN connectors.

It is completely programmable, therefore allows functions that cannot be obtained in a computer-free setup.

multi also has the possibility of being used as a sound generator because it is equipped with a 10-bit DAC converter. It's perfect to explore digital synthesis techniques.

multi hosts a Seeed Studio Seeeduino XIAO with a powerful ATSAMD21G18A-MU microcontroller, 6 pots, 2 pushbuttons, 2 Midi DIN connectors, and a 1/8' audio connector. The MIDI input is opto-isolated to avoid grounding loops, as required by official specifications.

Bend multi to your needs

You can program your multi as you need, using the Arduino IDE.

For example, you can assign multiple MIDI control changes to a single knob and send them to different MIDI channels.

It allows any kind of MIDI filtering and routing operation and it may also functions as a bi-directional USB to DIN converter.

You can program multi as a simple sequencer, algorithmic arpeggiator, aleatoric patch generator or anything else you can think of.

Software

The software is open source and is available in a github repository.

There are already several usable software and the list is constantly expanding:

• drone it's a six oscillators drone machine.
• synth_sequencer three oscillators monophonic synth with embedded sequencer. It receives MIDI clock and note messages.
• bytebeat player allows to play algorithmic music with no instruments and no real oscillators but a math expression that creates an audio output waveform as a function of time, processed 8000 times per second. The expression has six parameters accessible through the multi knobs.
• midi converter is a USB to 5 DIN bi-directional MIDI converter.
• midi metronome takes the MIDI clock from the 5 DIN midi connector and generates a metronome click on the audio output, to allow acoustic musicians to synchronize their performance to an electronic setup.
• hardware test if you have choosen the DIY kit you may want to use this software to test your build.
• cc scrambler generates random synthesizer patch by spitting out random MIDI CC values (preset fucker).
• fourier a drone generator with 18 oscillators and 18 lfos.
• blink the ubiquitous blink sketch.

Sound generation

multi can produce sounds using the Mozzi sonification library written by Tim Barrass or accessing directly to the DAC output.

Here's video showing multi used as a synth with sequencer: