Tweet
So i got put on to this by anodyne recently, made the order and it came last week.. I also ordered the micro-granny (what actually attracted me to the range in the first place..) but more of that another day..
The fra-Angelico is an arduino-style pic-synth.. nice and gritty, think of it as an atari punk synth, except not shite. There is also a mod for it to turn it into an 8-bit drum sequencer, which is nice.. But, i liked the idea of a quite gritty fart-synth to sample for those 'drop' moments in tracks..
This is not as smooth as (say) a nebulophone, or whatever, alot of clicks and hard edges. Not sure how it goes about things, i think it's granular rendition of squarewaves, and modulation of same.. Listen to the audio - some noodling there, and some midifile action too.
You have 4 banks of hard presets, and 4 user banks available. Each bank has different sounds set on different combinations of the 4 big buttons, so not just 4 per bank. In performance operation, tweaking the controls only has effect during the note, when you re-trigger the device the preset is re-loaded.. interesting. So you can mash the end of a long note, only to have it return to normal next time it is triggered.. You could use it as a 'dub siren' i think - so set up some ripping noises and drop them in over your set, the trigger buttons are really sensative too, nice.. Although, one of them gets brushed alot of you are tweaking the SHAPE knob, which can be messy.
The build is easy, although the tutorial differed from the board i was sent slightly - next to the LEARN button a 104 cap is added, and another resistor is required also, not in the tutorial/pictures.. i used a 220ohm, as the rest were all this value.
The basis of the kit/range is an arduino board (the one without pots in the picture attached) that is common to this and the m-granny kit, and the frau-angelico (the drum machine thing), and the idea is you add a custom control surface (etc.) to this base board to make the range of instruments.
So, it's a gritty timebomb of a toy - not as smooth as other arduino synths, but who wants another fuc*ing synth? i have them coming out my ears now, i want something different!! Oh, the midi lag is very very small, so it's totally useable sequenced for sure. I didn't find any timing glitches in the test midifile (tocatta). Noisefloor isn't great, a little processor idle present, so noisegate if you are mixing it maybe? I don't know if this is my fault assuming things on the missing parts causing a power issue, or just the way things are, but, ideal for sampling i think.
Messyness:
My kit was missing the 5v regulator for some reason, luckily i had one..
Also: the tutorial suggests you remove the plastic guide from the SIL headers that join the boards after they are soldered - don't do this - you may lift the pins out! the board contact layer is a little brittle. I lost 2 pins - 1 didn't seem to go anywhere, so i left it out, the other i had to jump with a piece of waste wire.. You can see this messy fuc*up in the other pic i posted here.. Thing is i KNEW it was not going to work well, the plastic was too hard to allow it to be lifted as easily as it was in the tutorial - maybe it's the irish weather??
The fra-Angelico is an arduino-style pic-synth.. nice and gritty, think of it as an atari punk synth, except not shite. There is also a mod for it to turn it into an 8-bit drum sequencer, which is nice.. But, i liked the idea of a quite gritty fart-synth to sample for those 'drop' moments in tracks..
This is not as smooth as (say) a nebulophone, or whatever, alot of clicks and hard edges. Not sure how it goes about things, i think it's granular rendition of squarewaves, and modulation of same.. Listen to the audio - some noodling there, and some midifile action too.
You have 4 banks of hard presets, and 4 user banks available. Each bank has different sounds set on different combinations of the 4 big buttons, so not just 4 per bank. In performance operation, tweaking the controls only has effect during the note, when you re-trigger the device the preset is re-loaded.. interesting. So you can mash the end of a long note, only to have it return to normal next time it is triggered.. You could use it as a 'dub siren' i think - so set up some ripping noises and drop them in over your set, the trigger buttons are really sensative too, nice.. Although, one of them gets brushed alot of you are tweaking the SHAPE knob, which can be messy.
The build is easy, although the tutorial differed from the board i was sent slightly - next to the LEARN button a 104 cap is added, and another resistor is required also, not in the tutorial/pictures.. i used a 220ohm, as the rest were all this value.
The basis of the kit/range is an arduino board (the one without pots in the picture attached) that is common to this and the m-granny kit, and the frau-angelico (the drum machine thing), and the idea is you add a custom control surface (etc.) to this base board to make the range of instruments.
So, it's a gritty timebomb of a toy - not as smooth as other arduino synths, but who wants another fuc*ing synth? i have them coming out my ears now, i want something different!! Oh, the midi lag is very very small, so it's totally useable sequenced for sure. I didn't find any timing glitches in the test midifile (tocatta). Noisefloor isn't great, a little processor idle present, so noisegate if you are mixing it maybe? I don't know if this is my fault assuming things on the missing parts causing a power issue, or just the way things are, but, ideal for sampling i think.
Messyness:
My kit was missing the 5v regulator for some reason, luckily i had one..
Also: the tutorial suggests you remove the plastic guide from the SIL headers that join the boards after they are soldered - don't do this - you may lift the pins out! the board contact layer is a little brittle. I lost 2 pins - 1 didn't seem to go anywhere, so i left it out, the other i had to jump with a piece of waste wire.. You can see this messy fuc*up in the other pic i posted here.. Thing is i KNEW it was not going to work well, the plastic was too hard to allow it to be lifted as easily as it was in the tutorial - maybe it's the irish weather??
Comment