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General Terms and Conditions

The general terms and conditions describe and regulate the conditions for commercial transactions of and with Hanabi Sprl owner of the Polaxis webstore. In case of legal complications, legal jurisdiction is exercised in Belgium.
Kits and products from Hanabi are sold with the following terms and conditions. If you don’t understand or agree with these terms and conditions, you should not purchase or construct kits or products from Polaxis

Article 1: Object

These general conditions of sale are those in which Hanabi offers the provision of goods and services by electronic means related to the Polaxis trademark on the Polaxis website: http://polaxis.pswebshop.com

Article 2 : Payment

We only accept Paypal payments. Please note you can make a Paypal payment with your credit card without opening a Paypal account if you do not wish to do so.

Article 3 : Taxes

Orders are subject to pay Belgium VAT (21%). Businesses within the EU and outside Belgium are to be invoiced ex-VAT as permitted by law by providing their VAT N°.
it is the responsibility of the buyer to pay customs charges and any applicable VAT on the import of goods into his country, as well as to ensure that the goods comply with the local laws of the importing country.

Article 4 : Delivery

All orders are shipped from Belgium. We usually ship within 2 business days, but please allow us up to 5 business days after the payment has been received for exceptional cases.
Once the parcel has been shipped, you will receive a tracking number via email – except if the chosen shipping option does not provide any tracking information.
Average delivery time is 2-8 days within Europe, 5-15 days outside Europe. These times are indicative and do not constitute a commitment on our part.
It is the responsibility of the buyer to provide a shipping address where postal services are able to deliver the parcel. In addition, we cannot be held responsible for non-delivery if the provided shipping address cannot be served by the postal service or if the provided shipping address contains errors.
In case of a lost parcel, a minimum of 30 days must elapse before filing an appeal with the carrier. Once the loss is recorded by the carrier, we will reship the goods, except in cases of temporary or permanent unavailability of the product, in which case we will make a full refund of the order.

Article 5: Returns – Retraction

In compliance with the Belgium Consumer Rights Law, the private individual consumer is given a cancellation deadline of seven days from the delivery date of the order.
If you want to return your order, please contact us within 7 days of receipt of your package to obtain a return number. No return package will be accepted without this return number. We only accept returns of complete modules, unopened components bags and unsoldered PCB’s.
As part of a return you are responsible for : the cost of returning the goods as well as any damage that may occur during the return transportation (including lost package).
Belgium taxes and customs may apply if you send from a country outside the European Union.

Article 6: Warranty

Items sold in kit are not warranted: It is your responsibility to install the kit properly by carefully following the installation instructions found on our website. Technical support is available from our web forums.
Before buying a kit, make sure you have the skills needed for its installation, its possible debugging and maintenance.

Article 7: Legal information

Trademark: Polaxis is a trademark of the company Hanabi Sprl
Enterprise N°: 0881.386.243
VAT N°: BE0881386243
Address:
Rue Saint-Hubert 521d
Vezin 5300
Belgium

Shipments and returns

Your pack shipment

Packages are generally dispatched within 2 days after receipt of payment and are shipped via UPS with tracking and drop-off without signature. If you prefer delivery by UPS Extra with required signature, an additional cost will be applied, so please contact us before choosing this method. Whichever shipment choice you make, we will provide you with a link to track your package online.

Shipping fees include handling and packing fees as well as postage costs. Handling fees are fixed, whereas transport fees vary according to total weight of the shipment. We advise you to group your items in one order. We cannot group two distinct orders placed separately, and shipping fees will apply to each of them. Your package will be dispatched at your own risk, but special care is taken to protect fragile objects.

Boxes are amply sized and your items are well-protected.

The idea

Mozzi by Tim Barras is an outstanding library that allow the Arduino to produce complex and exiting sounds with almost no additional hardware.
(In fact MozMo uses the hifi mode that requires … 2 resistors and a cap !) The idea was to build a dirty cheap modular synth exploiting the vast potential of this library.

Features

• Arduino compatible with Usb connection
• Powered via Doepfer 5v bus or via Usb (via jumper)
• Uses Mozzi Hifi mode
• 2 potentiometers
• 2 CV entries
• 1 gate entry
• 1 audio out
• Depth : 40 mm
• Size : 6 hp

Panel

Soundcloud

Here is one example

Check my Soundcloud for more demos

Schematic

Examples sketches

I am building a collection of Mozzi sketches adapted for this module.
(wait for the page to load as there a few Soundclouds files embedded)
You can help me to build this collection by sending me your best sketches.

Github

All the hardware files and the Arduino sketches are kept under my Github repository

Assembly

If you plan to build one, have a look a this https://www.evernote.com/l/AAUrhQ524SpHc4VzwlT0_xva_Gbh5OW4n_8

Shipping

I keep a few pieces of each components and I can ship :

• pcb
• panel
• programmed Atmega328p
• full kit
• assembled module

Next

• re label panel entries A2 A3 and pots A0 A1
• install onboard 5V regulator

Schematic

Here is the schematic. Nothing really special : A simple RC filter I have used before with the Talkie library and a few pots to fiddle with the various functions. All the entries (cv and gate) are now protected with diodes to allow connections with modulars synths modules using higher voltages. A simple 7 segment to show the current playing mode. I plan to use the dot as the clock led

PCB

I am ordering 8 Pcb from Beta Layout.
Here is the preview I got by uploading the file to their web site

Software

Added female voice used in the talking clock

New sound demo

Here is the setup : a clock with variable pulse width is triggering the sound and stepping a sequencer feeding cv to the module. A bit of reverb is sometimes added just for fun

More demo on my Soundcloud

Github

You can find all the files (hardware & software) on my Github

Next

• To share the Mouser cart
• Module assembly
• Eurorack Panel design

Credits

This arduino based module works thanks to a clever library : Talkie from https://github.com/going-digital/Talkie 

I have already used this library to build a Talking clock

It is so simple to use that building a sound module requires only 5 pots and a button to get going.

Software

I have slightly modified the original library to allow hacking it with various pots. The code is hosted on my github I edit the code and library directly from my favorite IDE : UECIDE

Functions

Mode

For the moment I have added 4 modes or sound banks :

• digits
• voltmeter (reading the CV voltage)
• frequencemeter (fake mode just saying “Hertz” instead of “Volts”)
• alphabet
• nato alphabet

I plan to add a 5th mode with a large vocabulary and a 6th mode with weird sounds

CV

CV signal change the words or phrase to be said

Gate

Pressing the button start the complete sound in trigger mode. (regardless of it’s length)
If the trigger switch is off, the gate will start the sound and hold it as long as the gate level stays up. Very useful to create crazy rhythms.

If the cable is plugged in, the gate is triggered via an external signal

Trigger

Choose between trigger mode or gated mode

Bend

If bend is on, the bend pot … distords the sound.

Speed

Change the speed

Pitch

Change the pitch

Sounds

First test of the differents functions. Manual gate via a button

Looping a sequence in Ableton Live to trigger gate & cv while I play with the mode /speed /pitch / bend knobs

Next

I am now working on a PCB and a panel.
I will upload these details and the schematics in a next post.

The almighty SSI-263 speech synthesizer chip

As you can read on the Wikipedia page, the SSI-263 is the other name for the Votrax SC-02.
It is becoming quite difficult to find, much harder then it’s little brother the Votrax SC-01 but I finally got one by buying a Mockingboard B on Ebay.
The SSI-263 is TTL compatible and need only very few component to be added. It is very easy to connect it to an Arduino but is much more complex than the Votrax-SC01 to program.

Nanpy

As I planned to make many software iteration and process the text to speech routine from Python, I decided to use Nanpy on the Arduino to « relay » the instructions to the chip. I guess I could also use Firmata to do the job as I am using really basics stuff like writing bytes on various pins.

Schematics

The SSI-263 datasheet is quite easy to find and so the programming guide via some Google search but the best one I found is the Votrax SC-02 version that has an extra page at the end with a nice and very simple schematics to get started with .

As I plan to build a shield for the Arduino, I started to draw this in Eagle too :

You can download the Eagle version here
The chip needs a 1-2 MHz clock signal. I am using a Attiny 45 to do the job because all the timer pins are already in use on the Arduino. I have described how to use the Attiny45  to do this in a previous post

Books

The best reference to get started is the article from Steve Ciarca : “Build a Third-Generation Phonetic Speech Synthesizer ».
A complete version is available on Google books. Ciarcia, Steve, “Build a Third-Generation Phonetic Speech Synthesizer,” Byte, March, 1984, p 28. (SSI-263)
There is also a reference to the SSI-263 and to many other speaking chip in “Chip Talk: Projects in Speech Synthesis” but the chapter mainly refers to Steve’s article.
The book is still available in some second hand book shop (I got mine via Amazon). The information provided is minimal but it’s fun to ready about all these veterans speaking chips.
Prochnow, Dave, Chip Talk: Projects in Speech Synthesis, Tab Books, Blue Ridge Summit, PA: 1987. ISBN is 0-8306-1912-7 (hard cover) and 0-8306-2812-6 (paperback).
Have also a look here : http://www.redcedar.com/sc01.htm. The page is regularly updated and makes an excellent starting point.

Code

Here is the  Main code

The text-to speech is performed via a lookup in the CMU Dictionary (The dictionary can be install with these instructions : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11911028/python-arpabet-phonetic-transcription)

It return an arpabet version of the text which is then translated into the Votrax allophone table.
(thank to this modified Arpabet to unicode script)
The allophone chain is then sent to the chip
The code is very basic and doesn’t use the SSI263 registers to their full potential : the voice generated is very robotic … but I like it a lot

Souncloud

Listen to the chip saying the Issac Assimov’s 3 laws of robotics with 2 different voice settings :

Todo

Next thing I will try is to add prosody or even make it sing
On the hardware side I plan to add a RC filter with  an amplifier and add a midi in to the circuit .. so stay tuned.

Clock

Wiring

Talkie
I’ve discovered this great library here https://github.com/going-digital/Talkie 
They have done an impressive job. The library is provided with a large vocabulary.
It is a software implementation of the Texas Instruments speech synthesis architecture (Linear Predictive Coding). It is just amazing to discover what  the atmega168 can do. By the way the library works only with 168 and 328 16MHz based Arduino.
Audio
Just for fun to hear the script counting …

And then the clock saying the time

Hardware
To build this clock you need :

• An arduino Uno
• A temporary switch
• A speaker
• A DS1307 clock

I plan to add and infrared detector to allow the system to say the time by just waving a hand in the dark.
Code
I have mixed the example code provided in the talkie library to process and say numbers (Volmeter) and the vocabulary from the Vocab_US-Clock example.
The sketch wait for the button to be pressed and then read the clock’s time.
It first greet the listener for the moment of the day (morning,afternoon, evening) and then say the time