Building and playing the LMN-3 DIY open source synthesiser

hey @mr_Floydst could this concept work for a more 3d printed versions of a lumatone its a microtonal piano with hex keys and i can afford a real one but id love to make one especially because i have a resin printer now

What are the washers and bolts that come with the encoders for? I bought a set of 5 and was wondering...and was the Joystick from a PS2? I got one from an xbox/ps3.4 and it didnt fit the motherboard.

My Drum sample quits the entire lmn-3 program when I try to launch it. Have wav samples in a folder with the appropriately formatted text file in it's directory. Hmm.. any help?

Teensys are now around 30 bucks and Pi 4B I have found for 60. I have access to a 3D printer so that lowers overall cost. 250 cost for parts and for another 120 a 2nd can be made based on the parts bought for the 1st! Made two of them that have a black case and black/white keys so it looks like a piano. Its been so fun and use it way more than when I had an OP1.

Are all these 3D printed parts flat? If so, they could probably be made with laser cut wood instead, right?

I don't think it will work in real life. For example: There is no waffle sound. This makes it unusable for most projects.

so ive been playing with fl studios for a little bit now, 3 years or so non serious production and ive come to realize the potential using the typing keyboard as a midi instrument. I dont own a piano keyboard so, fl allows you to play your typing keyboard as a piano, they inturn also allow you to transpose any key and choose any mode if you are looking for a specific set of notes to play, on top of that in the files you can change the layout of the keys to your liking via a txt file, meaning many many many custome layouts and set ups are possible, endless really. only thing im missing now is a stand alone midi modular pitch wheel/bend.... that'll take the typing keyboard from novelty to legitimacy. the Touche SE is the closest thing to that, that ive found being pretty reasonably priced. those two things together allows for me to never need an actual midi keyboard, imagine stepping out on stage with a laptop typing keytar 😂 now if that doesnt get people interested idk what would... 4 rows of octaves to play that can all be accessed with one hand with minimal movement. just gotta be creative and seeing what you've built makes me want to pursue my idea even more!

Very interesting...! Before I dig full video, does it have a mic sampling, like good old Casios ? ;-) (subscribed)

Wow. Like it

the track you created is dope

really cool that there now print services and really cool to see how a synth is build

Great video, for a very interesting looking project. The unit does sound good but the UX and UI look like they were designed by engineers for engineers (and not in a good way 😊). Simpler controls and a decent, unified UI would be very interesting in the future.

One does not simply kill the hipster god.

How about the lag between pressing the button and the sound? It is hard to understand through video, but when you tried to play, all your notes were later than the music.

I've been trying to find some good buttons that are single pole double throw, so by timing the disconnection from one throw until the connection of the other throw, velocity can be determined. There's a good number of inexpensive switches that are SPDT, but most of them are stiff and/or clicky, requiring some rework to make them more suitable for synth. I'd love to see somebody put together a campaign for key switches that have a tiny microcontroller in them and can be daisy chained in a manner similar to neopixels and offer velocity information. 5 pins, maybe.. clk, din, dout, vcc, and gnd.. and velocities can be given as numbers of bus clocks.

oh hey love ur vids only thing id change when ur nwraping the product an just when we can see arts of ur body dont add the camera in there beacoes its kidna of irritating when i wanna look on the product and soeone is staring at me.......

Awesome video. Do you have a mastodon handle?

I wonder if we could mount the M8 firmware onto this?

And the open-source demons rear their heads again. Not even changing the boot sequence to load X directly into the DAW or just using a featherweight window manager instead of the default environment. The sample management is absurd as well, but fair enough since it's meant to be a set it once kind of affair.

You lost me at build

What's the latency like?

OMG not sure if I need one of these, but I love building computers and computer-y things!

Would it be possible to add RGB for the keys? Maybe with hot swap sockets to give a bit of height for them? So many great bits of idea gold, ikea spacers, layered case allowing cable routing, screen print orientation on the resistor's (i know that is common but you pointed it out so nicely) all around awesome

OSOP-3!
Open Source Operator 3!

OMG! Amazing~ Thank you!

😮

It's too bad that PCBWay doesn't sell an entire kit or I'd do it.

WHO would like to build this for me? Cost?

Nice job wtf

So very happy to see a detailed, quality video about this build process. when i first found the project a few months ago i was very excited and scrambled to get my hands on all of the components and got to work despite my lack of experience with any electronics or raspberry pis or linux. I got through the physical build process but hit a wall when it came time to set up the firmware and actually unite everything in a complete unit, and gave up due to my lack of knowledge with linux and vscode. now i am inspired to pull it back out and finish with a video of someone going through the process to follow. Thank you very much, whether I am able to use this complete my project or not, you've earned a enthusiastic subscriber

Great video, thanks!

Are you eventually going to create different presets based on the keyboard “language” setting?

Thanks for the full walkthru. It looks like we've gotten to the point where we have various chips which can be programmed for specialized uses and yet somehow we seem to keep using the same old idea of one central processor and external specialized processors.

Teenage Engineering OP-1 Field KILLER. YES

@Floyd Steinberg -  are you looking to sell one of the white PCB's?

👍

sadly im with you a year later lol

Wait, what's the Teensy do? Don't tell me it's just to read all of the keys and knobs and stuff.

Buying a 3D printer costs more than four times the price of the synth.

We need a company to make an actual op1 killer because teenage Engineering is just pissing in our eyes.

Thanks Floyd, as always informative and entertaining, I agree with you if the improvements are implemented it will really be something. As always respect.

Everything sounds better with a bit of Big Sky.

The best thing about the Pi 4, easy booting from USB 3 stick and not worrying about sd cards randomly breaking completely. A full minute even from first boot to get the desktop just seems wrong after getting so used to that. Renoise being released on ARM is also a massive deal, you don't even need a microscope to read the fonts like in Kontakt! Put a touch screen, decent DAC on the top and you're got one of the absolute best and most powerful samplers ever made. Midi (with easy port redirection and all sorts), Ableton Link and plug-in supoprt is also handy, shame they're impossible to get now, I'd have about 5 because even with the 8GB Pi4 it soon adds up.

WOW, just wow.

Are 75$ the price for one PCB and 3D print, or for all the 5 PCBs together or just for one each?

The M8 also runs on a Teensy. I wonder what it uses to display the graphics. It might be an option for this device as well

Well balanced explanation and demonstration. This synth does have potential. Your video expertise gets better and better.

I love the IKEA spacers. I'm going to start use that