Signs of Life

Written By DayDreamer Synth

First blog post of many which will share the design and prototyping process of the DayDreamer Synth1.

In this post, we demonstrate the VCOs and VCAs functioning with a TLC5940 PWM controller serving as a DAC. The TLC5940 gives us 4096 discrete steps form 0V to 5V. The DayDreamer gets 4 octaves of notes by using a look up table to output the appropriate voltage from the DAC for the right pitch on the VCO and amplitude on the VCA.

In this first video, some test code using buttons and potentiometers demonstrates two VCOs functioning with the TLC5940 DAC

In this second video, I give a brief demonstration of how a look up table is implemented to turn MIDI inputs into discrete notes.

VCO inspiration comes from here:

https://electro-music.com/forum/post-292718.html

VCA inspiration comes from here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMrCCx6uqcE

Ripple reduction circuit to turn TLC5940 into a suitable DAC for VCO and VCA comes from here:

https://www.edn.com/cancel-pwm-dac-ripple-with-analog-subtraction/

DayDreamer Synth