In his latest video, synthesist Floyd Steinberg takes a look at the new AMYboard, a 10HP Eurorack-compatible synthesizer that lets you load a variety of synths, with digital and analog audio, MIDI, and two CV channels.
The AMYboard can act as a sampler, play WAV files, or let you make your own synthesizer setups in code from bare oscillators, effects, and filters. AMY is open-source and runs on all sorts of hardware.
Topics covered:
00:00 multitrack demo ( generation TikTok repellent )
00:29 hi, what’s this?
01:18 hardware overview
01:44 the Amyboard web page
02:32 virtual analog engine walkthrough
02:51 oscillator shapes / PWM
03:33 tuning
03:51 LFO
04:24 effects (chorus, reverb, delay)
04:42 filter
05:50 amp envelope & equalizer
06:20 demo: plucked sound
06:50 some things to consider
07:17 filter sweeping
07:41 Micropython integration: multitimbrality, sequencing, fm
08:39 a multitrack demo (with MPC Live 3)
09:59 conclusion: a no-brainer. really
10:42 do the YouTube thing!
Pricing and Availability:
AMYboard is available now for $29.90 USD. It can be powered over USB or a 10-pin modular power cable, and comes with a 10HP laser-cut faceplate.
This is another very interesting playground / ecosystem.
Many have come and fizzled in the past, so I hope this gets supported to thrive.
I was intrigued. I ended up ordering one. In the above demo, I can hear quite a bit of digital whining noise. He ends up editing so that you don’t hear that noise in the clear very much. It’s possible that is because he’s powering via USB and it’s picking up some noise there. I guess that’s to be expected at this price.
It’s possible it won’t be very useable for recording, but adequate for informal jamming, tinkering, and whatnot.
Well done. A veritable hit, thanks to the Open Source community.
I’ve ordered one.
Including shipping to the UK it cost me just under £29 at the conversion rate at the time.
That’s incredible value for something so versatile as this.
As a sound source on it’s on it’s own it’s good value. However, when you consider that you can also use it as a multi module it’s absolutely insane value.
Midi to CV module? Yeah.
Load WAVs and use it as a sampler? Yeah.
Effect module? Yeah.
Plus loads more. And that’s just right out the box before getting your hands dirty with programming!
Big respect to the Shore Pine Sound Systems people for this.
Someday, there will be a product that “even has the digital whine of the 20’s Amyboard it is such an authentic reproduction.”
I’ve bought 2 of these.
But I also urge anyone with a hankering for something small and fun to play with: remember you probably have hardware that supports a lot of very very cool synths dumped into a drawer in your house. If you’re like me, you might have 2 or 3. That is to say: old Android or iPhone.
You’re just a USB breakout cable away from audio/midi I/O – especially if ypur device has a headphone jack.
Apps like SythOne, any of the AudioUnit stuff, and many many more can all be supported on an old phone and have keys and buttons mapped to a controller.
I just received my AmyBoard a couple days ago. It’s a cool thing.
I use a USB powerbank for power, and my Kurzweil K2061’s as a MIDI source.
The sound quality is great. I cranked my mixer inputs, and there was NO noise (despite what can be heard in some demos). It’s likely that when connected to a computer, the noise on the USB bus will unavoidably impact the noise floor.
Unfortuntely, the jacks on my unit were not properly aligned when they were soldered on, so I couldn’t get the acrylic panel’s holes to line up, and it just wouldn’t go on. I even broke the panel trying to get it to go in. It would have been nice to have the acrylic panel as a handle, rather than directly flexing the circuit board as I connect things to it. I contacted the developers yesterday.