Teenage Engineering's PO-32 acoustic modem and synth implementation

 (github.com)

40 points | by ericlewis 3 days ago

4 comments

  • socks 8 minutes ago
    Hey ericlewis - this is cool! Can I ask how you figured it out?! Doing this for my PO-33 was on my bucket list. I thought I might have to resort to voltage glitching to get a firmware dump, which is currently beyond my skills.
  • gxd 41 minutes ago
    This reminded me of when people used to transfer games over the radio: https://www.racunalniski-muzej.si/en/40-years-later-a-game-f...
  • larme 2 hours ago
    That's amazing. I wonder how accurate is the synth engine?
    [-]
  • kmeisthax 1 hour ago
    > The PO-32 is not receiving finished drum audio when you transfer a sound or a pattern. It receives structured data:

    Wait, isn't this what MIDI is for?

    [-]
    • itishappy 2 minutes ago
      Not quite. It's sending sound parameter information (e.g. filter cutoff at 12khz, resonance at 1.6, Q of 0.89) instead of note information (e.g. start playing note A4 with velocity 80). You could absolutely use a MIDI CC channel to convey this information. The OP-32 chooses a different route and encodes this into an audio signal so that it can transmit it over the air using the speaker/mic instead of a wireless stack.

      I bet it sounds like a dial-up tone!

    • Elidrake24 1 hour ago
      Sure, but being able to share the 'data dump' at the end of a Youtube Video is so much more fun/likely to be used.

      https://youtu.be/TLzAyouLQxw?si=mm6goX-cMyEZkwOI&t=102

    • iamjackg 1 hour ago
      All it means is that the PO-32 is not a sampler, it's a synthesizer, so it receives a "preset" for the synth rather than an audio sample.