eChucK Standards Document - New Format Hardware Synths

"There’s a new type of music synthesizer on the horizon. It’s simple, elegant, inexpensive, and can take many physical forms. Born out of a desire to make electronic models of software music programs, the e in eChucK is for electronic. The ChucK part refers to my particular favorite music programming language, but that is not important here. What is important is the standard, linked below... [here]

OK, OK, what IS it then? Well, imagine a modular synthesizer with the case and front panels removed. You’ve got a bunch of circuit boards with wires hanging off of them scattered about on a desktop. Now make each board small and simple by reducing it’s design to minimal form. Now the circuit boards are really small and the wires just changed into 22 ga. solid hookup wire. You rearrange the boards onto a panel or in free space, supporting their light weight with the stiff wire, and make your own free-form synth sculpture. Rewire to your heart’s content to make the music that you want. That’s the idea behind eChucK.

To summarize, eChucK is a standard of tiny simplified synth boards wired freely with various miniaturization tricks like thumbwheel pots and micro switches, mini screw terminals for pcb i/o, and plain old wire for hookup."

Full details here: https://reinventor.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/echuck-standards-document/

via Les aka Inventor

See the EChuck label below for some previous posts.

EChucK Miniature Module Synth Update

via Inventor on this electro-music.com thread.

"It's time for a status update. EChucK is now 'Ready' in the sense that a full working system can be constructed from the open source board files located on the web page.

The support components are all in place and there is one enabling module, the dsPIC general purpose module, that makes the whole thing be a full working system. Details are explained on the web page linked above, or click on the www button below to get to my music page where there is a link at the top to the EChucK web page.

At this time I must wait for income to make the circuit boards and to set up a PC for running the software, so things are sort of on hold. In the meantime I will design more modules."

follow-up to this post

EChucK Miniature Module Synth

via Inventor on this electro-music.com thread:
"Hi, I get positive responses when I mention this project so I thought it would be worth doing. It is a simple, inexpensive, miniature synthesizer. Instead of being rack-mounted with panels and jacks and cables, it exists as little bitty circuit boards that get hooked together by wire.

Circuits will be very simple one-chip dealies, classic opamp and 555 type circuits, passive and active filters. Pots are thumbwheel type and switches are DIP switches or similar. Interconnect is with mini-screw terminals or to save cost, soldered wire.

The boards may be arranged in any configuration physically. If you want to make a ring of three oscillators, well, that would look like a ring. You could make a BuckyBall or a Christmas Tree with LED modules that responded to microphone input, flashing the lights in response for example. So the system is it's own block diagram, physically in 3D space.

In exchange for super low-cost and 3D structure, we give up precision and quality. This is not the synth that you create your masterpiece on, it is the synth that you play with your kids on. Or make a gift for your loved ones. It's a poor man's synth, so to speak.

So I was advised to write this post to evaluate interest in the project. I've just created two of the initial modules and I am having fun with it, but the real fun is in collaboration and working as a team. I really enjoy the community spirit of electro-music.com and I'd like to participate in this way. Oh, the boards would be sold through electro-music.com just like the klee, etc.

So what do you think?"

Followed by:
"I have just thrown together a quick and slightly humorous little web page with a description of EChucK plus links to the first two boards: a 9V power board and a microphone input board. The page is here:

http://www.freedomodds.com/music/echuck/index.html

Have a look, have a laugh, and enjoy thinking about the concept, whether you are interested enough to participate or not. Oh, and thanks for clicking on the poll above, that helps."

Excerpt for the archives:
"EChucK is Born!

Conceived in the mind of a genius paranoid schizophrenic (that's me), EChucK was born in mid 2008. EChucK is a very inexpensive modular synthesizer that breaks all the traditional synthesizer rules!

Rather than mount expensive, super-accurate circuits in a rack and patch it together with connectors and cables, in EChucK we connect little bitty circuit boards with classic analog and digital circuits together using stripped wires. Instead of paying hundreds of dollars US for each module, EChucK modules will tend to be around ten dollars US or so each.

Because of the distributed nature of EChucK modules, we can build geometric structures like chains, rings, BuckyBalls, or Christmas trees - the possibilities are endless. In addition to having a life of its own, EChucK modules can connect to the audio i/o of your computer for interfacing to any software you like including ChucK, iTunes, and Audacity. You can even send out audio to a guitar amp or stereo for loud jammin' tunes - or your studio equipment for that matter.

EChucK is also inexpensive enough to be sold as a toy for young teens and older kids, plus it brings out the kid in adults as well. This is the main page for EChucK, see below for links to the open source hardware and software that fun-loving enthusiasts have contributed for you to enjoy. It's all free (protected by the GNU General Public License) except the hardware, which is low in cost. So read on and enjoy EChucK, it's a blast!"