Analog3 is a software/hardware hybrid synthesizer system.
This is a software-controlled analog synthesizer project.
One of the advantages of analog synthesizers is smoothness of its voice. Sound of analog VCO is so beautiful and has some special taste that is hard to be reproduced by digital/software oscillators.
However, it has significant disadvantage when you want to put complex modulations. For example, typical analog envelope generator has only four parameters (A, D, S, and R) which are too simple to create rich musical expression, especially at the attack part. Software/digital envelope generators have much more parameters, but analog parameters are fundamentally limited by number of knobs to be on the panel.
Digital/software control works much better for such complex control. Analog3 is an effort to take advantage of both analog and digital synthesis. Signal flow to make sound goes analog circuit paths, e.g., VCO, VCF, VCA. Modulations can be made digitally or in conventionally analog.
An Analog3 system has a CAN bus and each module connects to the bus to exchange information such as
- configuration
- performance data (similar to MIDI messages)
- control values (namely digital CV)
The network has a special module called "Mission Control". It organizes modules such as identifying them and assigning IDs, helps connecting individual modules. It also provides user interface to help operating the system.
Analog3 also aims to solve another issue of analog synthesizers that their panels would ~become too complicated if you increase number of parameters. An Analog3 module can have more parameters than ones provided on the panel. These hidden parameters can be tweaked externally. Also, multiple parameters can be associated to a knob to simplify the manipulation.
This repository maintains the common part of the Analog3 project that includes:
- Module communication protocol specification
- Software library (TBD)
- Mission Control - Manages modules
- Can Controller - C library to enable CAN interface with various microcontrollers / Raspberry Pi
- CV-Depot - MIDI/CV converter with Analog3 interface