DC28 Jam Con Badge

Instrument-tuner on a badge for DEF CON 28 in 2020.

Robb

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Description

A musical instrument tuner on a badge, sensing just one important pitch: concert A 440Hz.

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I'm using a Teensy 3.2 for prototyping because,

It does fast signal processing because its processor implements Cortex m4,
It's a decent Arduino-compatible experimenting board,
It seems to be power-consumption efficient, using much less power than Teensy-4, Raspi, etc.

This project is 50/50 hardware and software, but the Hackaday.io classification makes me choose just one. I'm thinking that the software (programming) will take more work than the hardware. I'm just going on my knowledge of commerical musical instrument tuners --- it's taken a number of years for them to get "good". And highly rated ones cost over $100 US. So I'm assuming that the programming may be tricky. Especially "locking on" to the pitch being played, and being useful as a tuner, not simply a frequency readout.

I'm looking into trying ML with TensorFlow light to determine whether the incoming sound is an in-tune note.

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Prototyping starts tonight
Robb • 08/21/2019 at 21:36 • 0 comments

And, my prototyping order arrived! I'll use these to test the Arduino Code / CircuitPython and the whole idea. Then I'll design a circuit and PCB using just the necessary components.
These are basically the parts used in the AdaFruit Trinket Sound-Reactive LED Color Organ and FFT: Fun with Fourier Transforms projects.
Prototype parts are ordered
Robb • 08/21/2019 at 20:47 • 0 comments

I've ordered the parts to build AdaFruit's Tone Detection project. It's just two parts plus LEDs, and it can detect the Close Encounters tones. I'm going to use this as a jumping off point for coding an instrument tuner.

I also ordered a NeoPixel Ring, which will open up great possibilities for showing when a played note is out of tune, and how far off it is. E.g., a rotating light pattern that can slow down as the note gets closer to A-440.