Last month Google unveiled their new NSynth Super
artificial intelligent touchscreen synthesiser which is available via Github
allowing you to use the code to create your very own music maker. If you are
still a little unsure how to combine the required hardware to build a NSynth
Super Andrew Black has produced his own NSynth Super using the Raspberry Pi
mini PC and has Kindly published instructions allowing you to create your very
own.
A NSynth Super can be created using a Raspberry Pi
3, potentiometers, rotary encoders, and the Adafruit 1.3″ OLED display. Magenta
also provides Gerber files for you to fabricate your own PCB if you would
prefer. But be aware that the build isn’t easy and does require a few soldering
skills to assemble the PCB. “NSynth (Neural Synthesiser) is a machine learning
or “AI” algorithm from Google and collaborators that uses a deep neural network
to learn the characteristics of sounds, and then to create a completely new
sound based on these. More than simply mixing sounds it actually creates an
entirely new sound using the acoustic qualities of the original sounds.”
Andrew explains a little more
about the project. “Open NSynth Super is an experimental physical interface for
NSynth that is based around a Raspberry Pi, custom PCB and a simple laser-cut
enclosure. It comes provided with turnkey O/S images that bundle preconfigured
software and firmware, along with sets of example sounds — meaning that you
don’t have to go through the extremely resource-intensive process of generating
audio files in order to start experimenting with the synthesiser.“
