It's always going to be an industry where most released games have a limited impact and there is nothing special about those that become hits. Maybe it doesn't exactly fit but feels like it might.

For context, the Arduino is playing a middle C at 0v to 5v DC and the little oscilloscope is showing the output going to my headphones, biased for an AC line level low impedance output with volume control.

Yeah probably but I'm not concerned with efficiency yet, more concerned with just getting stuff working!

Cricut*

Sigh.

Well I just used one of my wife's hand drills which has a tiny bit and it was slow but worked. Good to know though as if I make more ill want something better.

Also me: Why am I having to buy so many components for circuits in order to make an Arduino based digital synth work?

Oh well, I've learnt a lot about op amps and voltage dividers and biasing and and and and ......

Apparently I really am terrible with circuits as I forgot to connect the end of the ladder to ground. 🤣

Pretty neat and I'm learning lots!

This is a very basic 6 bit DAC (untested) using resistors to set up a ladder of voltage dividers. The first pin outputs half the voltage, the second pin outputs half of that and so on, all added up. This means you treat all pins as a binary number that adds up to the voltage you want.

To generate a test control voltage I need to convert an Arduino's digital output into a single voltage. If you just set a digital pin to a value other than high or low it uses PWM (pulse width modulation) to emulate an average voltage. So I'm learning about DACs to generate a more steady voltage.

I'm not going to UV at all, I'm going to mask for etching direct to copper with the vinyl, no need for any intermediate steps!

Looking this up people have definitely had success with this but it doesn't produce perfect results. But hey perfect is the enemy of good and all I need is some copper PCBs and etching solution, we already have the means to cut vinyl so I've not got much to lose by trying!

So after doing some research (watching YouTube videos of course) I realised that all you need to do is just mask off areas for etching with something. I realised that my wife has a Cricut machine so I can make some vinyl masks much easier than toner transfer or UV methods.

That's quite a turn around especially if you accidentally made a mistake in the design and need it remade ... 😭🤣

All the sites I've seen for this are not local to the UK so if you have any good recommendations I'm definitely open to that!

I'm terrible at circuits and good at software, so it fits my skillset. I also have a couple of Arduinos lying around so I thought why not give it a go! It will still involve simple circuits but nothing that breaks my brain 🤣