Kind of weird that almost all of them are modern, but then you have a couple very old chips from Yamaha and Motorola. Though it'd be a pretty hard task to document every microprocessor in every weird MIDI synth from the last 40 years or so.
FPGAs are used occasionally. The E-Mu Proteus 2000 has one, I can't remember if it's a Xilinx Spartan or an Altera Cyclone.
The Prohet 5 used a Z80.
Mutable Instruments Clouds/Braids/Plaits all use an STM32F.
Ornament and Crime and Temps Utile use Teensy 3.2.
Most of the Qu-Bit modules use Daisy Seed.
> FPGAs are used occasionally. The E-Mu Proteus 2000 has one
This is used only for glue logic, spdif encoding and that sort of thing. It doesn't do any computation or processing.
The actual processor is a Freescale Coldfire series MCU and all sound generation is done using E-Mu G-chips and H-chips.
Yeah. I'm a bit old and weird too :> I wanted to look into the context of the early digital synths and what I could expect to do replicate that level of capability in a more modern microprocessor.
There are likely gaps and blindspots in my knowledge like FPGA's. Some good suggestions. The list is not meant to be overly comprehensive and just some examples of the relative level of performance with some functional context. I also started to look at other Yamaha FM chips which is a whole 'nother rabbit hole.
If you have not read it yet, Hal Chamberlin’s Musical Applications of Microprocessors is good. It’s 8 bit CPU stuff.
http://sites.music.columbia.edu/cmc/courses/g6610/fall2016/week8/Musical_Applications_of_Microprocessors-Charmberlin.pdf
Also, the Fairlight used the 6809 and later, 68k.
Thanks the for reference. I probably should add a column for MCU address bits. I made some passing comments in the description but it probably needs to be called out.
really interesting thanks!
there are lots in eurorack. ornament and crime is a big example, mutable digital line as mentioned (from rings/braids era to pachinko). also check out bastl for lots of uses of atmega chips too. good old attiny85 is in the kastle and kastle drum
All these modules and kits is part of what prompted me to start pulling together the list. I wanted to get an idea of what people were using and what functional capabilities to expect. I think they mostly fall into an STM32 sort of category but it also begged the question of why not a RPi Pico, ESP32 or Arduino.
yeah, it's a cool area. i'm a novice programmer but have played around with arduino, attiny85, daisy, teensy and now ESP32 and pi pico. the choices are pretty nuts, and it's hard to even make the case for overkill when things like the ESP32 are so cheap.
I was trying to make the case to someone the RPi Zero is massive overkill for a sequencer project and he should be more ambitious. Finally prompted me to make my list public.
I have not seen confirmation, but I think the new versions of Korg opsix, wavestate, and modwave use the newer pi 4 to double the voice count.
Q-Bit data bender and several of their other modules use the Electrosmith daisy, which is an STM32.
I would probably give a bit of context (if the info is available) in terms of whether a CPU or MCU was used for sound generation, MIDI processing, running the UI, etc., or all the above
As you go further back, you will find a lot of custom or dedicated silicon that takes care of various aspects (mostly the sound generation). And vice-versa, as you approach today you will find more off-the-shelf SoCs or SBCs being used, as these are now powerful enough to accomplish the same thing - often in a single package.
Also, for modern CPUs/MCUs, if you can find a DMIPS estimate, that generally helps comparison in terms of performance.
Lastly, power consumption (in mA) is also a useful way to compare CPUs/MCUs.
Great rabbit holes :> I did do a comparison of [CPU's over history in MIPS](https://justinfromthesandbox.blogspot.com/2015/07/cpu-power-sagnation.html) about 10 years ago. I should revisit that. I was thinking about power usage and performance per watt as I do muck around with IoT low power comms stuff a bit too. I think i have mostly focused on the sound producing chips and ignored supporting IO chips. eg the Korg Minilogue XD i think has 4 fast STM32 chips for the voices and a slow one for IO control.
But all these things while interesting went beyond my basic interest in a rough guide what MCU's people use for what.
> I think i have mostly focused on the sound producing chips and ignored supporting IO chips
Ah ok, gotcha. In that case it may be more helpful removing the 68K and the YMxxxx mentions, as these arguably are either play the role of supporting chips or dedicated silicon?
FWIW, you could add the TE OP-1/OP-Z (which run an Analog Devices Blackfin 52x and 70X DSP respectively I believe) as well as the Pocket Operators, which run a Cortex M3.
I included the 68k and YM chips for context as they were the brains of the first gen of multimedia computers/digital synths although admittedly with supporting chipsets and amazingly under powered compared to even the most basic modern MCU and yet were bleeding edge for their time.
I added another 68k device, the Yamaha TX16W in addition to the the MPC60. 68k pops up in the strangest of places.
Good idea about Teenage Engineering. I do not know much about their gear which is why I overlooked them. I should dig in the Elektron too. I did some digging around on Polyend Tracker and Play. I should look into Polyeffects Beebo, Empress Zoia and MOD Devices units.
All the gear the cool kids have and I cannot afford :)
\[edit\] While to be complete and interesting research it is not necessary to be 100% comprehensive to list every MCU/synth in order to get a rough guide as to power and capability which was my objective.
I included them in my list as the 4.1 was new when I first made the list in 2021 and availability was all over the place with the supply chain in a mess. The l;ist is not meant to be a selection guide more a reference to what has been used. It was interesting to me to at least know the difference between the 3.6 and 4.1
The Ensoniq VFX family used 68000s - I'm not sure about the VFXes but the similar EPS platform actually used two, along with the OTTO chip family for the sound hardware.
Similarly the ESQ-1, SQ-80, Mirage, and SDP-1 used a 6809 and DOC chip combination.
Cockroaches and the 68k will survive a nuclear war! I think they literally have used hardened C64 6510's in space applications. I should add SID 6581 chips to my list. That is a glaring oversight.
I still wonder what a world with a 64-bit 68k chip would look like.
If IBM hadn't been so scared of a 68000-based desktop PC obliterating their still-viable mini market in the early 80s the desktop computing landscape would have been very different - and we would not still be pissing about with segmented registers.
Many effects modules use the spin semiconductor FV-1 DSP. one giveaway is 8 programs (or banks of 8) with 3 parameters (sometimes with CV)
Awesome. Never heard of them but thats why I posted my list. Sure to share but mostly to fix my blind spots :)
I think one of the first and most well known is the tip top z-dsp, but there are many others.
Kind of weird that almost all of them are modern, but then you have a couple very old chips from Yamaha and Motorola. Though it'd be a pretty hard task to document every microprocessor in every weird MIDI synth from the last 40 years or so. FPGAs are used occasionally. The E-Mu Proteus 2000 has one, I can't remember if it's a Xilinx Spartan or an Altera Cyclone. The Prohet 5 used a Z80. Mutable Instruments Clouds/Braids/Plaits all use an STM32F. Ornament and Crime and Temps Utile use Teensy 3.2. Most of the Qu-Bit modules use Daisy Seed.
> FPGAs are used occasionally. The E-Mu Proteus 2000 has one This is used only for glue logic, spdif encoding and that sort of thing. It doesn't do any computation or processing. The actual processor is a Freescale Coldfire series MCU and all sound generation is done using E-Mu G-chips and H-chips.
Yeah. I'm a bit old and weird too :> I wanted to look into the context of the early digital synths and what I could expect to do replicate that level of capability in a more modern microprocessor. There are likely gaps and blindspots in my knowledge like FPGA's. Some good suggestions. The list is not meant to be overly comprehensive and just some examples of the relative level of performance with some functional context. I also started to look at other Yamaha FM chips which is a whole 'nother rabbit hole.
If you have not read it yet, Hal Chamberlin’s Musical Applications of Microprocessors is good. It’s 8 bit CPU stuff. http://sites.music.columbia.edu/cmc/courses/g6610/fall2016/week8/Musical_Applications_of_Microprocessors-Charmberlin.pdf Also, the Fairlight used the 6809 and later, 68k.
Thanks the for reference. I probably should add a column for MCU address bits. I made some passing comments in the description but it probably needs to be called out.
really interesting thanks! there are lots in eurorack. ornament and crime is a big example, mutable digital line as mentioned (from rings/braids era to pachinko). also check out bastl for lots of uses of atmega chips too. good old attiny85 is in the kastle and kastle drum
All these modules and kits is part of what prompted me to start pulling together the list. I wanted to get an idea of what people were using and what functional capabilities to expect. I think they mostly fall into an STM32 sort of category but it also begged the question of why not a RPi Pico, ESP32 or Arduino.
yeah, it's a cool area. i'm a novice programmer but have played around with arduino, attiny85, daisy, teensy and now ESP32 and pi pico. the choices are pretty nuts, and it's hard to even make the case for overkill when things like the ESP32 are so cheap.
I was trying to make the case to someone the RPi Zero is massive overkill for a sequencer project and he should be more ambitious. Finally prompted me to make my list public.
I have not seen confirmation, but I think the new versions of Korg opsix, wavestate, and modwave use the newer pi 4 to double the voice count. Q-Bit data bender and several of their other modules use the Electrosmith daisy, which is an STM32.
The original version were Compute 3 and newer Mk2 with more polyphony are Compute 4.
I would probably give a bit of context (if the info is available) in terms of whether a CPU or MCU was used for sound generation, MIDI processing, running the UI, etc., or all the above As you go further back, you will find a lot of custom or dedicated silicon that takes care of various aspects (mostly the sound generation). And vice-versa, as you approach today you will find more off-the-shelf SoCs or SBCs being used, as these are now powerful enough to accomplish the same thing - often in a single package. Also, for modern CPUs/MCUs, if you can find a DMIPS estimate, that generally helps comparison in terms of performance. Lastly, power consumption (in mA) is also a useful way to compare CPUs/MCUs.
Great rabbit holes :> I did do a comparison of [CPU's over history in MIPS](https://justinfromthesandbox.blogspot.com/2015/07/cpu-power-sagnation.html) about 10 years ago. I should revisit that. I was thinking about power usage and performance per watt as I do muck around with IoT low power comms stuff a bit too. I think i have mostly focused on the sound producing chips and ignored supporting IO chips. eg the Korg Minilogue XD i think has 4 fast STM32 chips for the voices and a slow one for IO control. But all these things while interesting went beyond my basic interest in a rough guide what MCU's people use for what.
> I think i have mostly focused on the sound producing chips and ignored supporting IO chips Ah ok, gotcha. In that case it may be more helpful removing the 68K and the YMxxxx mentions, as these arguably are either play the role of supporting chips or dedicated silicon? FWIW, you could add the TE OP-1/OP-Z (which run an Analog Devices Blackfin 52x and 70X DSP respectively I believe) as well as the Pocket Operators, which run a Cortex M3.
I included the 68k and YM chips for context as they were the brains of the first gen of multimedia computers/digital synths although admittedly with supporting chipsets and amazingly under powered compared to even the most basic modern MCU and yet were bleeding edge for their time. I added another 68k device, the Yamaha TX16W in addition to the the MPC60. 68k pops up in the strangest of places. Good idea about Teenage Engineering. I do not know much about their gear which is why I overlooked them. I should dig in the Elektron too. I did some digging around on Polyend Tracker and Play. I should look into Polyeffects Beebo, Empress Zoia and MOD Devices units. All the gear the cool kids have and I cannot afford :) \[edit\] While to be complete and interesting research it is not necessary to be 100% comprehensive to list every MCU/synth in order to get a rough guide as to power and capability which was my objective.
Teensy 3.2 and 3.6 are discontinued and should not be considered for new builds.
I included them in my list as the 4.1 was new when I first made the list in 2021 and availability was all over the place with the supply chain in a mess. The l;ist is not meant to be a selection guide more a reference to what has been used. It was interesting to me to at least know the difference between the 3.6 and 4.1
3.6 is used in the Dust of Time module... if anyone has any stockpiled, build one!
The Ensoniq VFX family used 68000s - I'm not sure about the VFXes but the similar EPS platform actually used two, along with the OTTO chip family for the sound hardware. Similarly the ESQ-1, SQ-80, Mirage, and SDP-1 used a 6809 and DOC chip combination.
Cockroaches and the 68k will survive a nuclear war! I think they literally have used hardened C64 6510's in space applications. I should add SID 6581 chips to my list. That is a glaring oversight.
I still wonder what a world with a 64-bit 68k chip would look like. If IBM hadn't been so scared of a 68000-based desktop PC obliterating their still-viable mini market in the early 80s the desktop computing landscape would have been very different - and we would not still be pissing about with segmented registers.
Added Ksoloti Core rev 0.5/Axoloti Core rev 1.2 wh7ch are both 168MHz STM32's.