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Community Feedback 12: Simon Game Musical Instrument

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Community Feedback
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The Learning Circuit

 

 

A community member is interested in taking an old Simon game and turning it into a musical instrument with an added button for a fifth note.  He could then add an audio out to connect to a PC, where he can mix it like a musical instrument.  Ben gives some suggestions on what he could do and this also gives him ideas for a future episode.

 

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wants to know if it’s possible to modify a Simon game into a musical instrument.   He’s heard that the game’s sound was inspired by a bugle.  It has a total of five notes, one for each button and one that sounds when you make a mistake.   To access the fifth note, he’s guessing that it needs to add a button to access the fifth note.  Additionally, he’d like to add a headphone jack as an audio out so that can record the audio to PC for mixing. He’s curious to know if you can get extra sounds or increased functionality from the Simon game.  You can hit two buttons at a time to get another note, giving you 16 notes, but the question is whether you can hack a Simon to turn it into a musical instrument.

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  • I believe the original simon was a custom MB branded chip, certainly many other games of the time were done similarly.  You are right Ben, it would be quite difficult to modify the simon to produce just its sounds ... but it might be possible to design a circuit which produces tones in the same way (simple square waves) and use the simon as a four note synthesizer.  While agree with the teensy suggestion as a midi controller, it may be a bit more fun to modify the simon with an astable 555 and resistors to pitch each note  (G#4, D#4, B3, G#3)

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  • I believe the original simon was a custom MB branded chip, certainly many other games of the time were done similarly.  You are right Ben, it would be quite difficult to modify the simon to produce just its sounds ... but it might be possible to design a circuit which produces tones in the same way (simple square waves) and use the simon as a four note synthesizer.  While agree with the teensy suggestion as a midi controller, it may be a bit more fun to modify the simon with an astable 555 and resistors to pitch each note  (G#4, D#4, B3, G#3)

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