Zeppelin Design Labs MACCHIATO Manuale utente

MINI DIGITAL SYNTHESIZER

Owner’s Manual

MACCHIATo

MACCHIATO

MINI-SYNTH DIGITAL SYNTHESIZER

Quick Start Guide and Reference Manual

NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DAMAGE OR HARM THAT MAY COME TO ANYONE OR ANYTHING THROUGH THEIR PRODUCTS. THE MACCHIATO SOFTWARE IS UNDER THE

CREATIVE COMMONS SHARE-ALIKE LICENSE, WHICH MEANS YOU ARE FREE TO ADD OR BUILD UPON THIS SOFTWARE IN ANY WAY YOUR CREATIVITY ALLOWS, BUT ANY

DERIVATIVES MUST BE SHARED USING THE SAME LICENSE.

031517

QUICK START GUIDE ................................................................................................ 3

REFERENCE MANUAL............................................................................................... 5

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 5

FEATURE LIST ...................................................................................................... 6

REAR PANEL FEATURES ........................................................................................ 8

TOP PANEL FEATURES........................................................................................ 10

PROGRAMMING THE MACCHIATO MINI-SYNTH...................................................... 17

PRESETS................................................................................................................. 18

SCHEMATIC........................................................................................................... 19

QUICK START GUIDE

Look for the companion demo video at http://zeppelindesignlabs.com/product/macchiato/.

1. POWER UP Use a 9V DC power supply or a battery.

• 9V DC power supply (“wall wart”, strongly

recommended): Must be rated for 200mA minimum,

with center-negative polarity. Look for this graphic

on the power supply. Your synth won’t work with a

center-positive power supply. Simply plug the cable

into the back of your synth under the “9V” label.

• 9V battery: Use a high-quality alkaline battery, like Energizer. (Don’t waste your money on cheap

batteries!) Open your cabinet; insert the battery into its holder; snap the contacts into place; and

then push down to snap the battery into the holder.

2. PLUG IN A LISTENING DEVICE Plug in headphones or powered desktop speakers into the

AUDIO OUT jack on the back of the synth; or run a cable to the LINE IN on your computer, or the

AUX IN on your stereo. In a pinch, you can monitor the synth with the little on-board speaker, but

this will gobble up batteries a lot faster and will not sound as good.

3. TURN ALL THE KNOBS TO THE LEFT except OCTAVE and CUTOFF. Turn these all the way to

the right.

4. TURN IT ON Press the red power button on the back of the synth. If you built a cardboard case,

be careful how you squeeze your synth; you don’t want to crush the cabinet.

5. TURN IT UP Tap some keys while you slowly turn up the VOLUME Knob #9 at the far right.

CAUTION: ALWAYS TURN THE VOLUME DOWN BEFORE YOU PLUG IN HEADPHONES! The

signal may be louder than you expect and could hurt your ears or damage your headphones.

6. SHAPE YOUR SOUND The first four controls on the left affect the basic sound of the synth:

• WAVE SHAPE Turn to choose between Sine, Triangle, Saw and Square.

• OCTAVE Turn to move up through four octaves, from high (4) to low (1) and back.

• ATTACK Turn slowly while tapping the keys to increase the time it takes for a note to fade in.

• RELEASE Turn slowly while tapping the keys to increase the time it takes for a note to fade out.

7. SHAPE YOUR FILTER The next four controls affect the LOW FREQUENCY OSCILLATOR (LFO),

which affects the LOW PASS FILTER (LPF), which in turn applies all sorts of effects to your note.

• Turn CUTOFF left and right while playing. It acts like a tone control. Full left cuts off more of the high

frequencies for a soft, warm, muffled sound. Full right gives a bright, crisp sound. This effect is most

noticeable when playing a Square Wave, and least noticeable with a Sine wave.

OUTER BARREL

POSTIVE

CENTER PIN

NEGATIVE

200mA MINIMUM

• Turn RATE and DEPTH up halfway. Your synth now has a distinct “wawawawawah” sound.

• Slowly turn RATE back and forth to control the rate at which the LFO oscillates. At full left, the speed

is zero, and the LFO effect freezes.

• Turn DEPTH right to increase the effect of the LFO, and left to decrease it down to no effect at all.

• LFO SHAPE Turn to choose between Sine, Saw, Ramp (which is a backwards Saw) and Square.

Note the distinct effect each shape produces.

REFERENCE MANUAL

INTRODUCTION

The Macchiato Mini Synth by Zeppelin Design Labs is a versatile little synthesizer you can build and

mod yourself. This guide contains detailed information about each of its many features, and instructions

for modding the source code or uploading software updates.

The Macchiato’s brain is a little computer chip, called a microcontroller. It is an ATmega644PA by

Atmel. On the printed circuit board, just to the right of the serial number is a little port into which you

can plug a special cable. This allows your computer to communicate with your Macchiato. We wrote

the Macchiato’s software in the Arduino development environment. If you are familiar with Arduino

programming, you can re-write the source code and customize the performance of your synth.

Arduino does not deal well with audio, and neither does the ATmega micro! To harness the tremendous

computing power of microcontrollers, and take advantage of Arduino’s ease-of-use, Tim Barrass

developed the Mozzi Sound Synthesis Library for Arduino. This is a free, open-source collection of

software tools that you add to your Arduino installation. It uses “wave-table” technology and pulse-

width modulation to produce fabulous 8-bit waveforms.

The software in the Macchiato was developed by Zeppelin Design Labs. It incorporates elements of

the Mozzi library by Tim Barrass. Both are covered by the Creative Commons Share and Share Alike

license. You are free to modify and redistribute the Macchiato code, as long as you give attribution to

its creators.

FEATURE LIST

TOP PANEL

1. Wave Shape Select: Sine, Triangle, Saw, Square

2. Octave Select: 1 (C2-C3) through 4 (C5-C6)

3. Attack: 28 ms – 2500 ms

4. Release: 25 ms – 3000 ms

5. LFO Shape Select: Sine, Saw, Ramp, Square

6. LFO Rate: 0 Hz – 20 Hz

7. LPF Cutoff Frequency: Approximately 220 Hz – 1440 Hz

8. LFO Depth: Ranges from 0% (no effect) to 100% (LFO modulates Cutoff frequency down to 220

Hz, maximum effect)

9. Output Volume

10. LED Power Indicator

11. Speaker

12. Capacitive Touch Keyboard, 13 keys, 2-note polyphony

REAR PANEL

1. Audio Out (accepts 3.5mm TRS or TRRS male jack)

2. 9V DC Power Input

3. Power On / Off

4. MIDI IN

ON THE PCB

1. Battery Holder (upper left)

2. ISP Header (directly right of serial number sticker)

The following paragraphs are keyed to the above Feature List, and contain detailed information about

how each feature works and how you can use it to best advantage.

REAR PANEL FEATURES

1. AUDIO OUT

This is a line-level Audio Out. It accepts a typical 3.5mm headphone jack, TRS. TRS = Tip-Ring-Sleeve,

a stereo jack with three segments. (The Macchiato Mini-Synth is a monaural device.) The earbuds used

with smartphones are sometimes TRRS style (Tip-Ring-Ring-Sleeve, 4 segments). These will work fine too.

The Macchiato can easily drive your headphones. It sounds great played through powered desktop

speakers. It should sound fine plugged in to the AUX or LINE IN input of any stereo system. It should

sound good when you plug it into the LINE IN jack on your computer.

NOTE: Computer sound cards use a variety of voltages as “line level”; there are multiple standards

in use. Consequently, your Macchiato Mini-Synth may sound “hot”, that is, really loud and maybe

distorted when plugged into your PC. Just keep the volume knob VERY LOW.

CAUTION: ALWAYS turn the volume knob ALL THE WAY DOWN when plugging anything in to the

Audio Out jack. The output signal may be louder than you expect and could hurt your ears or damage

your audio gear.

NOTE: The capacitive-touch keyboard will behave more reliably when there is something plugged in

to the Audio Out jack.

2. 9V DC POWER INPUT

We recommend use of a 9V DC power supply (“wall wart”)

rated for at least 200mA, with center-negative polarity,

such as the one offered by Zeppelin Design Labs as an

accessory to your Macchiato. This is similar to a typical

guitar pedal power supply. Your synth will not work with

a center-positive power supply. If you obtain your power

supply from a source other than Zeppelin Design Labs, examine the symbol shown here, and compare

it to your power supply. The barrel needs to be 5.5mm in diameter with a 2.1mm diameter pin. Check

for center-negative polarity before you buy!

Besides providing stable, robust power and saving you the expense of batteries, using a power supply

expands and solidifies the ground plane of the Macchiato, which will make the capacitive touch

keyboard more responsive and reliable.

Plugging in a power supply disconnects the battery. Your best power arrangement is to install a decent

battery as a backup, and then use a power supply instead.

For battery selection and installation, see “On the PCB: Battery Holder”, below.

OUTER BARREL

POSTIVE

CENTER PIN

NEGATIVE

200mA MINIMUM

3. POWER ON/OFF

Push the button in to turn the synth on. The red LED on top of the synth will light up. Push the button

again to turn the synth off. The LED will go out.

Be careful how you hold the synth when turning it on and off. If you built a cardboard case for it, take

care not to squash it.

4. MIDI IN

You can control your Macchiato Mini-Synth with any MIDI controller device. Just run a standard 5-pin

DIN MIDI cable from the MIDI OUT of your controller to the MIDI IN of the Macchiato. That’s it. You can

now play any note from any register on the controller and your Macchiato will happily respond. You

can play the capacitive touch keyboard simultaneously with the MIDI, though the synth is still limited

to its two-note polyphony.

The Macchiato only responds to Note and Velocity information. It uses “Velocity not equal to zero” to

turn a note on, and “Velocity equals zero” to turn a note off. It is not otherwise velocity-sensitive. The

Macchiato will not respond to any other controls like modulation or pitch bend, although it could be

programmed to do so. Check in with Zeppelin Design Labs for releases of mods and patches you can

download and flash to your Macchiato for increased flexibility.

TOP PANEL FEATURES

WAVEFORM CONTROLS

The first four knobs to the left on top of your synth control the waveform and amplitude envelope of the

notes you play. These controls establish the basic sound of the synth.

1. WAVE SHAPE SELECT

Rotate clockwise to select Sine wave, Triangle wave, Sawtooth wave, or Square wave. These names

reflect the actual shape of the waveform as viewed on an oscilloscope. Note the little icons on the label,

and the figure below. Each wave shape has a distinctive sound. The Macchiato’s sine waveform has

no harmonics (overtones) added to it. What you hear is the fundamental: one pure, single frequency.

As you move around the dial, the waveforms add more and more harmonics (overtones), for a fuller,

richer more complex sound. The higher-order waveforms are more responsive to the filtering controls

(knobs 5-8) because they have more harmonics available to be filtered.

You will find each waveform has an octave in which it sounds best.

SINE

SAWTOOTH

TRIANGLE

SQUARE

OCTAVE SELECT

Rotate clockwise to select the octave. The Macchiato will play through four octaves, from C2 (65.4

Hz) through C6 (1046 Hz). You can press and hold a note, and then change to a different octave. The

original note will continue to sound as a drone while you play a melody over it in another register. The

synth only has 2-note polyphony though: if you touch two keys simultaneously with your melody-hand,

you will lose your drone. See “Capacitive Touch Keyboard”, below.

You can access more notes by using a MIDI controller with your Macchiato. See MIDI IN, above.

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