About this project

Hello Kickstarter! Thanks for checking out my project and helping to turn my blood, sweat and tears into a real product.

My goal in designing the Rockit 8 Bit Synth is to make an inexpensive open-source synth kit. For musicians, Rockit will be a source of gnarly full-blown synth sounds and, for hackers and electronics enthusiasts, Rockit will be an engaging electronics project and a platform for synth exploration. I'm near the end and I'm glad to report that Rockit rocks on both counts. The synth makes deep fat bass, chip noise leads, sci-fi robot weirdness and eveything in between. The hardware is well-documented and the code is written in easy to follow C with ample comments, so the average electronics geek will find a project with enough depth to keep them busy for a good while. If you'd like to read about the design process and the design in depth, visit hackmeopen.com.

Specs:

Fully Open Source Hardware and Well-Commented C Software Design

Digital Analog Hybrid Circuitry

2 Digital Oscillators with 16 waveshapes, updateable to more

2 Low Frequency Modulation Oscillators with 10 destinations

Innovative Digitally-Controlled Analog Filter with Low-Pass, Band-Pass, and High-Pass with Envelope Control and External Audio Input 

Analog Voltage-Controlled Amplifier with Envelope Control

Drone/Loop Mode for Playing by Itself

19 Knobs to Twiddle and 8 Switches

Full MIDI Input and Output

Sound Patch Save and Recall

What's in the Kit

The Rockit kit Includes the circuit board and all the electronic components necessary to build the synth, along with a wall wart power supply. The kit does require soldering, but I'm also making it available in fully built form, for the moment by yours truly. Neither form presently comes with a case.

What's the money for?

The money I'm raising is to purchase parts for the first run and to provide the fuel to keep it going.  If all this works out, the synth will eventually be available in kit and finished form on my website, hackmeopen.com.  I'm planning on making derivatives and expansions of this design.  In the end, I'd love to free myself from the chains of corporate engineer bondage to pursue creating open source hardware audio electronics.