LEGO tinkerer Peter Cocteau has created a complete DIY drum machine out of a LEGO Mindstorms NXT brick and 2 motors. Dubbed the NXT-606, it’s a monophonic sample playback device, with 24 percussion and FX sounds.

Peter says:

It has taken a very very long time to program with NXT-G. NXT’s processor does only one thing at once and it was difficult to make real time operation with good sound synchronisation.

Check it out in this video demo:

Very cool. It’s got a great lo-fi sample rate of just 8Khz, a swing function, variable instrument velocity and can hold 96 measures of patterns.

Peter has made the software component from the drum machine available for free. You can download it right here.

He adds:

During developement I’ ve tried few things that worked but take some memory, so I gave up this option:
-synchronisation to any flashing light (with light sensor), it is easy to make led flash on MIDI synth.. so I was able to synchronize my NXT-606 to any sequencer.
-control Wah-Wah effect. Some Wah-Wah guitar effect are controlled by led so it was easy to control it from NXT output.

If you own a LEGO Mindstorms and want to install the software, here are the instructions:

How to install NXT-606 on your own NXT brick ??
System requirements: 1NXT (firmware1.05 ), 2 motors (to select menu and trim value)

1. Download and unzip FreeNXT-606.zip
2. Open NXT-G graphic editor and then open NXT memory manager window.
3. Erase all files in your NXT brick (system file too)… NXT-606 software is big !
4. You have to download each file to your NXT brick one by one: FreeNXT-606.rxe, all sounds and all pictures.
5. You can play !!!!!!

NXT-606 manual:

• motor A: select menu
• motor B: trim value
• Shortcut: Left and right NXT buttons to navigate from step to step. Center button to stop/play or to save when “save” menu is selected.

via nxtacy,synthtopia, rekkerd

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