Kuensa portable music sequencer
By Andrew Gregory. Posted
There are certain subject areas that seem to draw in computer people like moths to light bulbs. Astronomy is one; as is photography. But the biggest area on the Venn diagram of interests, at least as far as we can tell, is music. Notes are just oscillations, waves with predictable and mathematical definitions. Music was all around us in physics, and we humans have come along and decided that certain notes in certain contexts sound jazzy, or sad, or upbeat. It’s amazing really. And this mathematical nature of music makes it perfect for computerisation – after all, computers are famously very good at mathematics.
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This ongoing project, called Kuensa, is, according to its maker, “a small portable music sequencer which can be connected to USB MIDI and brought out whenever inspiration hits on the go.” It uses a Raspberry Pi Pico to handle the computing, and a Dream SAM2695 module to handle the audio. What we like here is that in order to put the two together, the maker has had to craft not one but two custom PCBs. If these had come out of a factory they’d be much smaller, but as they’re home-made (or rather, home-designed), they’re a lot bigger.
In fact, if you take apart any bit of audio hardware from the eighties, you’ll probably find PCBs that look similar lurking within. Technology that was state-of-the-art just a few years ago (yes the eighties were ‘just a few years ago’ as far as we’re concerned) is within the grasp of anyone with an internet connection and the imagination to use it today. We’ll be keeping a close eye on this project.
Features Editor Andrew trawls the internet for Cool Stuff while keeping the magazine running smoothly.
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