DIY Lo-Fi FM Drum Machine with Arduino Nano on Breadboard - A Few Beats

video upload by Waiting For Zyo

"Another DIY instrument! This time I used a famous microcontroller: an Arduino Nano (compatible, tbh), a few buttons, and some code to made a really basic (lo-fi) FM drum machine with a built-in sequencer.

Here are some of its features:

• 4 instruments: kick, snare, hi-hat, and tom
• 4 main sound controls: tune, decay, FM amount, and FM ratio
• 4 secondary sound controls: balance, pitch envelope decay, pitch envelope range, and FM feedback
• A full 16-step sequencer with swing and basic parameter locks and on-grid rolls

At the moment, it only has a basic audio output, so I recorded everything into Ableton and added a bit of filtering and some reverb.

These are four beats I made from scratch using only these basic parameters and the internal sequencer.

Enjoy!"