SEEDS

8 bit oscillator / synth voice

The SEEDS is a complex powerful 8 bit oscillator and can be used as a complete synth voice.

Philosophy/Rationale
Probably the most interesting thing about modular synthesizers is how we can try new things and get unexpected results. This is especially nice in live improvisations, but modular synthesizers can be a bit slow, there. Patching up about four or five modules to get a simple melodic sound takes a lot of time when you have a musical idea right now it would be nice to get a basic sound more quickly, that you could then extend.

Another question is where one would start setting up a modular system. It would be nice to be able to get a single module that can create an interesting sound that any other module could add something useful to. From both of those perspectives the Seeds should make sense, at least to some people.

On the sound-design side you might notice some 90's popular music influences.
There are two reasons for that. First of all; those sounds are a natural match for the rather modest (8 bit, 16MHz) Atmel chip on the Arduino Nano we're using. That music was made using digital synthesizers using the processors available at the time, and those had to make the most of the chips available at the time, which were quite comparable to the Nano. The second reason is that those sounds are a lot of fun. Once that link became clear it became more a of a guiding principle than a potential problem; it seems more sensible to lean into such links than it is to resist them.

To install the firmware on your SEEDS you need the Arduino IDE installed on your computer and install the CH340 driver to communicate with the Adruino Nano.
The latest Adruino IDE can be downloaded from the Arduino website: https://www.arduino.cc/en/main/software
The CH340 driver can be found here: https://sparks.gogo.co.nz/ch340.html

The firmware will be updated regularly so you might want to keep an eye on it to get fresh sounds in your SEEDS every now and than.

https://www.ginkosynthese.com/product/1070494/seeds-assembled