[musictech] BBB Paint and Play Drum Set: Blog1- Introduction

Table of Contents

Introduction:

After long thinking about musictech design challenge Project, I have decided to design Open source, Low Cost and innovative Drum set using BBB as main sound generating Unit, and ESP8266 Based drum sticks and pedals. 

Paint and Play Drum Set includes,

     1. BBB as Drum bit MIDI Synthesizer.

     2. Two Wearable Pedal

     3. Two Identical Drum Stick

     4. And Drum set is just any surface painted with different color and shapes act as Drum parts (Toms, Cymbals)

1. BBB as Drum bit MIDI Synthesizer: I will use BBB as MIDI Synthesizer to produce drum sound using either pure data or other Software synthesizer.

low cost USB sound card will be used for provide Audio output from BBB. Low Cost WiFi USB Adapter will be used to provide wireless connectivity between Pedals, Stick to BBB using UDP Protocol.

2. Two Wearable Pedal: This will be ESP8266 based shoes attachable module. ADXL345 accelerometer on this module detect pedal kick and velocity of the same which is converted to corresponding MIDI note by ESP8266 and than sent to BBB over WiFi using UDP. Also neopixel leds on this module produce lighting effect based on Pedal kick velocity. The module is powered by Lithium single cell or 3 cell -NiMh Pack.

3. Two Identical Drum Stick: This will be ESP8266 based module attached to the 3D printed hollow drum sticks. Accelerometer detects hit on drum and than detected MIDI note will be sent to BBB using UDP via WiFi link. Here TCS3200 Color sensor module will be used to detect color of the surface on which stick got hit to recognize different Toms and Cymbals based on its different surface color. Neo pixel led strip on Drum stick produce lighting effect on stick as per different Toms and Cymbals and velocity of hit.

The entire project will be Open Source and Main challenge for me for this project is to produce meaningful blogs as per Open source documentation guide lines so any one can replicate this project or modify as per their need.

I have given name "Paint and Play Drum Set" to this project because one can paint any surface or simply any paper with different color and shapes in artistic way and program the stick to recognize each color as different MIDI note...

I will try my best to use only open source software for Hardware/PCB design and other coding.

Your valuable suggestions, comments and even criticisms are welcome here,

Ravi