Critter and Guitari have introduced the Pocket Piano Arduino Shield – a board for making the Arduino into a portable stand alone music synthesizer.

Features:

• 25 keys and multiplexer circuitry
• 4 potentiometers, 1 controls output level
• Microchip MCP4921 12 bit SPI DAC
• Passive low pass output filter

It plugs directly into the Arduino board and provides 25 multiplexed keys (2 full octaves), 4 pots, status LED, reset switch, digital to analog converter IC, and a RCA audio jack. The Arduino board with its powerful AVR processor is more than adequate for a wide range of sound synthesis techniques, including additive / wave-table synthesis, frequency modulation, ring modulation, sampling, polyphony and various arpeggiators.

Audio demos are available at the C&G site.

Kit only, Arduino Board not included: $44.95