Red Hot PCB: A Drum Machine in Your Pocket

This week’s Red Hot PCB is a drum machine that comes from Curious Sound Objects. It can be used by anyone from beginners curious about music to full out musicians.

Here’s the Head of Direction & Design, Nickolas Peter Chelyapov, talking about the build of the Bitty:

“Bitty is a pocket drum machine and synthesizer. Because there are four buttons and two knobs, the focus becomes on ‘playing’ it rather than programming patterns and listening to the same thing over and over (which is how many electronic instruments end up being used).”

A unique aspect of the Bitty is it’s an Arduino-based device. That means it is fully programmable, and most audio software written for regular Arduino (Unos, Nanos, etc) will work out of the box.

Nickolas talks about the intent of the Bitty here:

“The speaker is an aluminum car door panel speaker. Size-wise it’s probably the largest device to speaker ratio found on a small electronic device. This way it can be as loud as possible for a little thing so one could play it outside with friends in the backyard. Like I can play drums along with a friends guitar. I personally think the social aspect of playing music is one of the greatest joys in life.”

Follow Curious Sound Objects on Instagram and check out their YouTube Channel to see some demos of their awesome product!

Shout out to Nickolas from Curious Sound Objects for his contribution to this Red Hot PCB post.

Did you enjoy this post? Let us know in the comments below!