Greetings from a long-time knob-twiddler and first-time poster!
I’ve just released version 0.1 of the MIDIval Renaissance. It’s still a prototype at this point, but I thought I’d share anyway. The firmware, written in Rust using the Embassy framework, is free and open source, and I’ve provided enough information about the hardware that you could build your own if you’re so inclined.
The effect of version 0.1 is to decouple the physical keyboard from the synth’s sound-generating hardware. While I love hearing my Micromoog, I do not love playing my Micromoog—keyboard technology has come a long way in 50 years! This release enables an external controller to select/trigger notes, generate loudness and filter envelopes, and play with portamento. I couldn’t help myself and implemented some stuff not in the original unit, too: configurable note priority and a chord cleanup feature.
I know there are products on the market that do this kind of thing already, but this project has been a huge learning experience for me, and that was at least half the point: when I started it, I was new to Rust, embedded programming, and electronics. The other major appeal is making it work exactly how I want it to work rather than being limited by someone else’s choices.
I’m looking to add BPM/clock awareness and arpeggiation next. After that, my roadmap gets much more fuzzy. If there are features you wish your MIDI-to-CV adapter had, I’m curious to hear about them. If you’ve done something like this before, I’d love to hear about that, too.
Cheers!