OTTO Synth Project Suspended

You might remember the OTTO Raspberry PI based synth inspired by the Teenage Engineering OP-1 posted back in 2018.

Frank Reggiani wrote in to let us know the project has been suspended. Details from the OTTO Patreon page:

"OTTO Update, May 2022

In February, this project rounded 5 years. When we started, neither of us had worked on a real codebase before, and never even read the datasheet for an electronics component. Over the years, the project has gone through quite a few changes, in scope, structure and ambition. In 2020 we launched Bitfield Audio, rented a small office space, and started working on the project with a goal of commercialization. In 2021 we both got full time jobs, and Bitfield Audio and OTTO had to take a back seat.

At this point, we have decided to stop OTTO development, at least for the time being. This has been a very hard decision for us, as we have worked on this for five years, but we simply do not have the resources it would take to finish the project.

From a hardware-perspective, the global chip shortage hit the project hard - forcing us to rework hardware parts several times because of out-of-stock components, etc. Also, on both the software-side and more broadly in terms of features and design, OTTO still builds on a foundation that was laid 5 years ago, when we didn't know what we were doing, and the past year has been spent fighting these fundamental issues.

Also, since we started, the groovebox space has been expanding, and in 2022 the OTTO lacks the defining feature that would make it worth the wait. OTTO seems to be in an inbetween-space where it is too complex for us to finish alone, but where the complexity has not translated into the 'killer features' that would make the complexity worth it.

We would like to release everything we have to the open source community, and hope to find the time and energy to polish up the existing parts at some point. If any of you have ideas where all the stuff developed for OTTO could be of use, please let us know and we can focus on the parts that can do some good.

Also, this is not the end of Bitfield Audio. We are exploring other projects that could be a better fit for the time and resources we have available.

Finally, we would like to give our deepest gratitude to everyone who has helped and supported us over the years. This includes all open source contributors, especially Bastian (Spatz), Thibault (Nebular Noise), Albert, Stephen (adorbs), and everyone who contributed UI, samples and code. We also want to thank the people who supported us on Patreon - You made it possible for us to put a lot of hours into OTTO while studying, and funded our prototype parts and board iterations.

We hope for your understanding

Sincerely,

Tobias and Jonatan, aka Bitfield Audio"

https://bitfieldaudio.com/
https://instagram.com/bitfieldaudio
https://github.com/bitfieldaudio

Meet OTTO - New Raspberry PI Based Multi-Engine Based Synth Inspired by the OP-1

Details via Github:

"Making electronic music is awesome! But for most of us, it requires a lot of setup, a lot of moving a mouse around on a laptop that's probably not quite equipped to handle realtime audio processing. Don't you wish you had one single device, which was xbuilt to do it all for you, easily and on the fly?

Introducing the OTTO!

The OTTO is a complete hardware and software solution, with synths, a sampler, effects, sequencers, and studio modules. The interface is modal, easy to use, simple, but most of all, it encourages experimentation. The graphics are quirky, and the workflow is minimal.

That sounds cool and all, but haven't I heard about this before?
— You

Yes, the OTTO is heavily inspired by the OP-1, in fact it started off as a direct clone, but these days we try to take a different spin on an idea that is fundamentally the same.

At this point it might be important to mention that the OTTO is not, and will never be, a commercially aimed product. It is open source by nature, in both hardware and software. If you want an OTTO, you're going to get your hands dirty, if not with the code, at least with the hardware.

Now that proper introductions are made, we would like to invite you to our discord server where we hang out and discuss all things OTTO.

The OTTO is basically going to be a Rpi3 (or other similar boards, we are looking into that), a screen, a DAC, 4 encoders and some 30+ buttons/keys. Some of us are currently building prototypes, and the formfactors and features vary greatly. Below this you see two OTTO hardware prototypes. Feature wise they are similar, but the first one is hand-wired, lasercut, and uses arduino pro micros for handling the keys/encoders. The second one is 3D printed, uses a PCB with onboard microcontroler etc.

As you can see, the OTTO can be built very differently depending on your skills, your avaliable resources and tools, and your priorities. You can also have other features than these two, for example the DSP all supports velocity sensitive keys.

You can find more info about the first prototype design on the "Otto Proto One" on this dedicated repo, and @cester-ino's over at his repo

The software

The software is written in (very) modern C++, and the goal is to be as modular and flexible as possible.

Technology
Core C++ 17 (you will need a very new compiler.)
Graphics C++ wrapper on top of NanoVG, with swappable backends, currently GLFW and EGL are available.
Audio/MIDI Designed to be swappable, though currently the only one available is jack.
DSP C++ and Faust (compiled down to C++)
It is possible to run the software on the desktop, with keybinds emulating the physical buttons and encoders.

For build instructions, check out the wiki.

Backbone

While OTTOs may differ on a lot, some things are fairly set in stone :

A Raspberry Pi (or similar) at the core, running a minimal Linux distro.
A >= 320x240 RGB screen, preferably AMOLED.
~30 hardware buttons, so nearly every feature has its own button.
4 colour coded rotary encoders (full credits to the OP-1 for that idea), as the main controls. Each screen has a maximum of 4 variables which will be coloured corresponding to their encoder.
Roadmap

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