Index and links to resources for smartphone users. 🙂 00:00 sponsored by @PCBWay 00:12 introduction 00:57 getting the PCB and the enclosure 04:04 other hardware needed (and current prices) 05:24 soldering the diodes 06:19 ... the Teensy 4.1 07:39 ... the microswitches 08:25 ... the joystick and the encoders 08:43 assembling screen and case and Pyssla ;-) 11:18 keycap stickers & Barry 11:48 compiling and installing the Teensy firmware 13:18 installing Debian Bullseye on the Raspberry PI 14:00 installing the LMN-3 DAW 14:19 adjusting touch screen settings 15:17 important considerations 16:00 booting the synth (real time) 17:23 uploading samples, creating a .yaml file for drum sets 18:00 UI overview 18:30 adding a plugin (4OSC virtual analog synth) 18:53 short 4OSC plugin overview 20:18 adding effect plugins 20:56 step sequencer 22:25 adding a drum track 23:37 adding a (chromatic) sampler track 24:16 ... improvising on a track ... 24:46 conclusion / my personal opinion on this device and current internet discussions / whom is this for? / call for developers 26:28 demo track 2 (muting and unmuting while playing) 27:53 demo track 3 (Vangelis impression using an external reverb pedal) 29:38 outro, summary Links & Resources The LMN-3 project homepage github.com/FundamentalFrequency PCB Way www.pcbway.com/ (thanks again for sponsoring this video) Raspberry PI 4 amzn.to/3AwFhLk Teensy 4.1 amzn.to/3TgoRj3 Visual Studio Code code.visualstudio.com/ Raspberry PI installer www.raspberrypi.com/software/ The touch screen amzn.to/3PXEpVM Joystick amzn.to/3wAOkK8 Nuts amzn.to/3RfaJEJ Bolts (long) amzn.to/3Cz0BCR Bolts (short) amzn.to/3R1r6oL Diodes amzn.to/3RdMQgT Keycaps amzn.to/3e5quzG Switches amzn.to/3TqMoho Encoders amzn.to/3wAr7b7 Soldering iron amzn.to/3RcdQxT Also, as mentioned by @klangraum, "As an alternative to the Raspberry Pi, compatible single board computers can be used. These are not all affected by the price increase and continue to cost ~€50. But you would probably have to adjust the holes. Examples are: Orange Pi 3, Khadas VIM2, Tinker Board 2S."
Thanks for trying out/building a LMN-3! Incredibly well produced video. Awesome job on the music as well. Things are definitely a little rough around the edges still, but hopefully with it being free and open source more people can contribute and continue to make improvements. Great build!
Thank you very much for watching this ;-) I apologize for being a perhaps a bit negative, but that segment was for some of my viewers who are planning to buy all that hardware without having anything at home already. I hope this video gets some devs on board. Thanks for creating this, it's a fun-to-use instrument.
Hey, question for both of you. I have built the LMN 3 and it works great, except when I add tracks and go to drum sequencer, the app crashes and I have to reboot the pi. Any idea why this is happening? I have two drum kits imported. My drum kits are directories loaded into /.config/LMN-3/drum_kits. I have included .yaml files along with them too.
@@gethsemane0 I got mine built but cant get the pi OS installed correctly. Its on a microSD card reader and plugged in, the screen comes on but nothing comes up. Any ideas?
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
You're right, a bit of competition in that specific field (portable battery powered synth workstations) would be nice. Blackbox is kind of sharing the philosophy, but in the end, there's nothing like OP-1. So if TE decide they need to charge $2k for it, so be it. We always have the choice not to buy it.
Totally. If the Field had been priced more reasonably, the original OP-1 might have seen a price drop as users upgraded and sold their old units, thus making them more attainable. Those newcomers buying on the secondary market could easily have fallen in love with the workflow and upgraded to a field down the line anyway. The $2K price tag just seems like a move to maintain the high price of the original and discourage the old version becoming less expensive. I'll leave it to the rich to decide if the new Field features are worth the extra $1k.
New achievement unlocked. Nice to be a witness of your evolution in RU-vid. Great job. Now it seems plausible I maybe will try to follow your steps. 👏👏👏👍👍
Great explaination and demo. I don't often watch 30 minute videos but you made me watch it through :). It's great seeing so many open source synth projects recently and seeing how they evolve closer and closer to becoming professionally usable.
@@mr_floydst Yeah, I know. I meant to say that I find it cool that there are lots of projects like this at the moment and I they have the potential to become (semi) professionally usable (like you said in the video), which I hope :)
This project has great potential, especially the daw and I think that they should focus on that part altogether IMHO. Making a midi controller using a teensy 4.1 and mechanical keys is expensive. and maybe even unnecessary and could be replaced by a pro micro or more elegant some multiplexers and the RPI GPIO pins. A teensy 4.1 already runs an OP-1 killer with M8 headless. If this project would utilize a generic USB computer keyboard or something like a joypad or maybe even cheap commercial midi controllers like the Akai APC mini this could gain a lot more traction.
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.
Thanks Floyd, as always informative and entertaining, I agree with you if the improvements are implemented it will really be something. As always respect.
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.
I may have been too negative in my summary and I didn't want to dampen anyone's enthusiasm - thing is, one year ago this project was all over the internet because people absolutely hated the new OP-1 and Teenage Engineering's price policy. Thus, many news sites dubbed this "an open source OP-1 killer". I think that might have been slightly exaggerated. :) Other than that, this device is fun. I didn't check for updates for some months now, perhaps I should.
@@mr_floydst This video helped so much with the build. Like the M8, I think it will get better as it evolves with the more people that get into it. At the end of the day though, its all about the fun I think . :)
Another great and entertaining video of a massive uphill climb to achieve minimum musical equipment reward! I Love it, made me inspired to dust off my old raspberry PI and start my own experiment! ❤❤
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.
Thanks for a great introduction to this project. Something to keep an eye on for the future. For the moment I am having far too much fun with M8 Headless and my other gear.
As an alternative to the Raspberry Pi, compatible single board computers can be used. These are not all affected by the price increase and continue to cost ~€50. But you would probably have to adjust the holes. The GPIO header is one and the same standard for all of them. Examples are: Orange Pi 3, Khadas VIM2, Tinker Board 2S and so on.
@@mr_floydst Nice. I don't know if you mentioned it in the video. There is also an emulator for Linux on GitHub with which you can test the software 1:1 beforehand.
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!
Thanks for sharing! Some time ago, I bought one of those velocity sensitive computer keyboards that made the headlines one or two years ago to see what it's all about and if those can be exploited for musical purposes. I didn't have time yet to explore that a bit more...
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.
Great idea! But you could start by getting a cheap second hand Razor Huntsman Mini and try to parse it's USB output. Or disassemble it. It has velocity sensitive key switches that are not clicky. (I bought one recently to see if it can be exploited for musical shenanigans)
It's running on a PI3, so a decently sized USB powerbank should get you through the day. And yes, I guess you can fit it into the enclosure without any problems.
My apologies and you have been incredibly gracious with your time (love your videos!) but I got the Bullseye OS on the SD card and put it in an adapter to put in the USB of the R Pi and the screen is on but nothing boots. What am I missing? Thanks for all your help!
Hi! Yes, that's possible. You need a DAC that extends the GPIO port so you can connect the screen, then just configure it in Linux. As the screen is sitting in elevated position, there's some room there for an audio hat.
I think you could shave off some mm, but the RasPi+screen is relatively thick and you could only reduce it's height by connecting the screen with a cable, and mounting the RasPi somewhere else. That's a lot of work on the 3D printed parts.
Congrats on the great work! Just out of curiosity, you think it would be possible to run Dirtywave's M8 software in this hardware? Since the headless version actually runs in a Teensy "connected to a host computer", which in this case could be the Pi. I think the M8 software is way more "finished" than the LMN-3.
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
Should definitely be possible, but you'd need to add power supply and perhaps a multiplexer to the setup, which most propably would need a revision of the PCB. BTW this is not my brain child - I only made this video in order to promote the idea, which was developed by FundamentalFrequency (github.com/FundamentalFrequency )
Thanks for the video. Despite how much I like DIY synths, their assembly and quirkiness, this time I shall take the side of @playpm and his GAS therapy: I cannot see how using LMN3 is better than using laptop (and a few encoders, of course).
Well, you should watch my conclusion at 24:46 ;-) (I know no one watches a half hour video to the end) Here's a tl;dw: This thing (at the moment) is for developers and people who enjoy building stuff. Most of those people will already have most of the parts you need at home, aside from the PCB. Most of the "tinkerers" are likely to have a 3D printer, too. The fun is in building and developing here, and making music is a bonus. ;-) If you don't have the parts at home, I strongly advise _not_ to buy them, you will be disappointed!
I'm not sure what to make of @playpm 's videos - I mean of course he's right. Most of the music created on the average hobby enthusiasts hardware setup can be made on a $10 smartphone from 2015 or a laptop from 2007 (and I'm not excluding my own musical output here, which is mostly supersaws with a healthy dose of Strymon) For me, musical instruments are an investment. Most of the times, I buy used, and in my experience, market value goes up over time. I never sold at a loss (up to now). Plus I think you should at least have one instrument with a good keyboard and controllers.
@@mr_floydst Thanks for the lengthy reply. Indeed I wrote my comment in the middle of the video and watched it till the end, becoming glad that this opinion is not uncommon 😉
I was thinking, " how on Earth does he remember which keys represent which notes?', and then I looked properly the layout of the lower part of the keyboard 😅 I love that enclosure. A simple yet great idea. By the way, I've decided to name your demo track at 27:53 - 'The Arrival' (I really enjoyed that)
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.
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.
Hi, you need to buy the joystick from the list of components. It's neither of both, it's a standard component for DIY projects. The washers are there for surface-mounting the encoders in a metal case, for example. You don't need them here.
I am in the process of sourcing all the parts to build one of these. Since you've already done a video about the headless m8, you should try running it on the LMN-3 hardware.
@@mr_floydst I think that the entire keyboard is technically a midi input so maybe they do show up? If you do move forward with this message me. I was planning on making a splash screen to allow the user to choose LMM-3, m8C (not the web version), or Desktop and would be happy to do it sooner if it has value for your video. BTW I was able to get m8c to work on my RPI 3 with a small hiccup with getting it to go fullscreen.
@@mr_floydst , Thank You for answering! Will sure follow how this your device might advance in future :) Just in case, a youtube place where another amazing DIY stuff is going on, including DIY sampling demonstrated (ESP32 based), open sources, I think: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7uSobNW7_A4.html
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?
Thanks for watching! Hmm. Just some educated guesses: - did you use filenames containing blanks or other non-ASCII chars? If so, rename your files so they only contain A-Za-z0-9 - try other sample formats, frequencies, bitrates, mono/stereo
Hi, thanks for watching. Yes of course, but I think the 4OSC synth does sound pretty good by itself, especially with the stereo spread feature. BTW I started a small series of videos in which I send random sounds through the nightsky pedal to check if that sounds awesome: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nhH4wevu5eM.html ;-)
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.
There is a bit of lag on this device, but here it's more likely I messed up the audio sync on the video. Audio latency can be adjusted in the usual ALSA config files
To be honest, it's a rough estimate for what you'd pay for 1 PCB and a full 3D print of the case and the keycaps. I mistakenly ordered only 2 instead of 4-6 of the intermediate pieces of the 3D printed case (so I had to use those IKEA pearls). If you manage to find 4 other people who want to buy the PCB, you'll end up somewhere between $7 and $10 for the PCB, depending on the thickness and the color you choose.
Thanks for watching! Latency is "barely noticable" but I didn't measure it. Generally speaking, there are a lot of ways to tackle latency in Linux, from the kernel, audio subsystem settings to the hardware used.
I spent months saving up and building this thing and I guess there is a problem in the the teensy or a solder joint. My best guess, just a bit disheartening, but that's the love of being a raspinerd. I know I was really careful on the soldering and this in not my first solder project and have a bunch of DE soldering the switches to even look due to the top. I am not upset just let down on myself, the only weird thig was the compiling of the teensy never was above 4 seconds each time I tried that process from ground zero. perhaps a fresh install of rasp would do the trick. I was just curious if you had any trouble shooting on your quest. @@mr_floydst
Or I am fumbling on the teensy part, its just hard to tell what is and isn't working as far as the teensy side of the project, I was going to check continuity with a multimeter next weekend when I get some more free time. Love your vids thanks regardless
I had no hickups on the way, so to speak. As you assumed, a cold solder joint most likely is causing the problem. I recently bought an $60 electronic microscope which really helps identifying bad joints and other problems.
My plan was to give it to people who join my patreon or join this channel on RU-vid, but haha, no one seems to want to do that. So yeah, I might sell one. Please contact me be mail fs at floydsteinberg dot com or via twitter chat @ mr_floydst
I have one left - please send an email to fs at floydsteinberg dot com and we can talk about the details. Or join the Discord server linked in this video's description!
Thanks for watching! I think this device is a great proof that it's possible to realize cool things with the tools at hand. Here's a proof the thing works, but unfortunately, optimizations never arrived. :-( (e.g. a Teensy 4.1 which is used here to run the controller is very well capable of running the whole system, synths, samplers, screen and all, no need for an additional PI).
@@mr_floydst Wait, what? Teensy is only for peripherials? I thought it's used for sound and raspberry for display, since driving big display with reasonable frame rate is not an option for even very performant MCUs.
Ah, ok. No - this keyboard is a custom MIDI controller, the layout will always be the same and it's not possible to set it up differently. It's just I bought keycaps instead of printing them myself.
As my place is full of DIY stuff I rarely use, you could buy the one in this video either with or without a PI. Contact me by mail: fs (at) floydsteinberg dot com
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.
Well, yeah, the "not optimizing the base OS" part is my fault, I was too lazy to do it in this video. ;-) At the time, this project had just made it out of the door, but there was considerable hype because the controller vaguely resembled a certain other mini synth which had caused a shotstirm with it's price tag back then. ;-)
You're correct, I too find the lack of waffle sounds deeply disturbing. Thankfully, the internet has a solution for that ( www.pond5.com/search?kw=waffle&media=sfx ) ;-)
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.......
Thanks for your feedback. I'm afraid I won't change that because data shows this style of presentation is quite well-received and leads to more retention.
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
Hi, building a MIDI controller yourself is definitely possible. You need some multiplexer chips and a lot of key switches. And some custom made PCBs, of course. Programming the controller firmware isn't too hard, as there's plenty of documentation around on the MIDI protocol. I think the amount of resin needed to print a whole Lumatone keyboard is ginormous ;)
