smol frens

I have a weakness for a small box that does one strange musical thing well.

Before I made the Pikocore or the Zeptocore, I made the nyblcore. It was my first hardware device. It used an ATtiny85, held 8 kB of audio, ran from one AAA battery, and fit three knobs around a circuit board that was already too small for my fingers.

The entire sample memory was about 1.2 seconds at a very questionable fidelity. I considered this plenty.

I wanted nyblcore to feel like the tiny synthesizers and DIY kits that I kept seeing online. These were instruments that one person, or a very small group of people, had decided should exist. They often had exposed circuit boards, unusual controls, and a very particular idea about making sound. Their limitations did not feel apologetic. The limitations were the instrument.

I still keep a list of these devices. Some are polished products, some are kits, and some appear in a small batch before disappearing for a while. All of them are small, but the ambition is high. Here are some of my smol frens.

bytebeats, pocket computers, and very concentrated grooveboxes

The Prismatic Spray II by Distropolis Goods is a stereo bytebeat synthesizer with two independent engines. It has more than sixty equations, presets, MIDI, a filter, and a browser visualization. Bytebeat can begin with a short mathematical expression, but Prismatic Spray turns those expressions into a complete instrument. The abundance of colorful knobs also makes it look like a small control panel from a spacecraft made primarily for fun.

ParipiDestroyer by SYNTHERNET might be the most appropriately sized thing on this list. It is a tiny acid bass machine with a synthesizer, distortion, delay, a sixteen-step sequencer, four patterns, slide, accent, sync, and a keyboard made from a handful of buttons. It can run from one AAA battery. The original project began years ago and eventually produced hundreds of units through crowdfunding, though current batches tend to disappear quickly.

The name is much larger than the synthesizer.

The PGB-1 by Wee Noise Makers takes the opposite approach to size. It is still pocketable, but it puts six digital synthesis tracks, two sample tracks, direct sampling, parameter locks, conditional triggers, effects, and song construction into that space. It is open-source too. This is not a novelty version of a groovebox. It is a serious groovebox that happens to weigh very little.

The Woovebox is another tiny device that refuses to be simple. It is a synthesizer, sampler, sequencer, and complete music workstation made as a long-running personal project. It weighs about 68 grams. The interface rewards learning, and its firmware continues to grow because the maker is clearly still thinking about it.

The shieldXL by Denki Oto is a DIY route into the open-source Norns world. It combines a Raspberry Pi with encoders, a screen, stereo line input and output, and MIDI. What I like about it is that the hardware stays fairly modest while the software can become hundreds of different instruments. A little black box can be a looper today, a sequencer tomorrow, and something that has not been written yet next year.

The MMXX T-APE by PhonicBloom is harder to classify, which is usually a good sign. It combines bytebeat, granular-like textures, touch keys, light sensors, sequencing, delay, and a wavetable layer. It looks like laboratory equipment for investigating a very small transmission from another planet.

The Gecho Loopsynth comes from the same extended family of ideas. It can behave as a polyphonic synthesizer, looper, sampler, effect, and environmental listening instrument. Built-in microphones and sensors let the room become part of the patch. The wooden versions are beautiful, but I am also fond of the brightly colored plastic ones because they look like electronic sea creatures.

Pluto by Modern Sounds has two voices, two sequencers, a small touch keyboard, five modulation channels, MIDI, CV, audio input, delay, and reverb. There are no menus. It is compact because the design is concentrated, not because the controls have been replaced with a phone application.

small things for making rhythms

The groov-e by Ellitone generates three layers at once: drums, an atmosphere sample, and a four-voice polyphonic synthesizer. A probability system keeps making decisions inside each layer, so the groove continues changing instead of returning to one perfectly repeated bar. It feels less like programming a sequence and more like teaching a small object how to wander.

HOME BAKE INSTRUMENTS has made an entire pantry of miniature music machines. DRUM MINT 83 fits seven rhythm parts, sixteen steps, pattern chaining, swing, flam, overdrive, phrase generation, and stereo delay into a board that fits inside a mint tin. BREAK MINT applies the same idea to breakbeats. There is also ACID MINT, FM MINT, GROOVES, and more. It is not only one small device. It is a complete alternate history of electronic music stored in tins.

Hailstorm by Rainy Day Electronic Instruments combines a four-voice drum synthesizer with four sample voices. The touch strips can program triggers and record changes to level, pitch, decay, shuffle, and effects. It has dedicated mute buttons, MIDI, analog clock, and pattern chaining. I especially like that the interface does not resemble a reduced desktop computer. It was designed around how hands move across it.

The Metal Fetishist by Body Synths is a percussion synthesizer built around looped random sequencing and a substantial amount of distortion. It can make kicks, noise, drones, glitches, and microtonal melodies, then feed them through more distortion. It seems less interested in keeping a beat than discovering one that was hiding inside a damaged machine.

Scrooge by Neutral Labs has five analog voices that are powered by their incoming trigger signals. Its sequencer can store parameter changes and generate patterns, but the sounds themselves are deliberately unstable. Neutral Labs calls it a sequenced malfunction generator. I appreciate a product description that tells you exactly where the fun is.

The Mystic Drums from Resonance Circuits is a ten-centimeter loop instrument that moves among percussion, glitchy sequences, and drones. There are only a few controls for the beginning, length, and speed of its loops. It is the kind of device that can contribute an entire rhythmic environment without requiring a project file or a screen.

drones and other pets

The DRONE from digdugDIY has four interacting analog oscillators, each with pitch and volume, plus a master control that starves the circuit of voltage. This is a favorite kind of analog design for me. The circuit is not trying to conceal how unstable it can become. The oscillators compete for power, and their disagreement is the music.

digdugDIY has been making pedals, noise boxes, altered samplers, and other handmade audio devices for years. The shop feels less like a product catalog and more like a signal intercepted from an abandoned spaceship.

The OVUM by Crows Electromusic has five independent analog oscillators with immediate controls for volume, pitch, and tone. There is no screen, quantization, or button combination to remember. It is a very direct proposal: here are five tones, put them together and listen to what happens.

Elmyra 2 is a four-voice digital and analog drone instrument with polymetric sequencing, patch points, a filter, delay, and touch controls. It also has modifier slots where ordinary electronic components can change the circuit. A capacitor or diode becomes part of the instrument's interface, which makes experimentation feel properly physical.

The Double Knot by Lorre-Mill is a pair of analog voices connected to two shift-register sequencers. It can produce melodies, percussion, noise, and patterns that continually feed back into each other. The wooden case and banana cables make it inviting, while the circuit inside is busy constructing its own strange logic.

MOON by Landscape is a four-channel passive analog drum synthesizer. It has no normal power supply. Incoming gates and control voltages provide the energy that makes each voice sound. The electrical relationship between a trigger and the resulting noise is exposed instead of corrected. Even the source of power becomes a musical parameter.

The Duos by Hikari Instruments is a stereo chaos synthesizer built from shift registers, feedback, filters, and low-pass gates. It makes pulses, noise, drones, and animated stereo movement. The large central control looks like it should steer the whole object, and in practice that is not entirely wrong.

The Röntgen by Tilde Instruments is slightly larger than some of its friends here, but its idea belongs on the list. Two analog oscillators, waveshapers, random shift-register sequencers, banana patching, and stereo delay form a complete improvisational instrument. It is compact in the more important sense that everything in it participates in the same idea.

what nyblcore taught me

Nyblcore was much less capable than nearly every instrument above. It had 8 kB of storage, a very small processor, no removable media, and no external synchronization. Loading another sound required programming the chip. The tempo wandered a little. I made a browser tool to help with the audio, but the basic object remained stubbornly small.

That was the point.

I learned that a device does not need to do everything to feel complete. It needs a clear relationship between the controls and the sound. It should invite a person to touch it before reading very much. It should also be possible to leave it on a table, notice it later, and immediately want to make a noise with it.

Nyblcore led to Pikocore, which gained an RP2040, much more sample memory, eight buttons, four knobs, synchronized effects, sequencing, clock input and output, and eventually a browser sample manager. Pikocore kept the small-board spirit, but gave the sample enough space to become a whole piece of music.

That led to Zeptocore, which moved to an SD card, twenty buttons, longer samples, more effects, MIDI, and a much deeper performance interface. Zeptocore is more ambitious, but I still wanted it to have the immediacy of a small DIY object. The circuit board remains visible. The controls remain the enclosure.

I do not think a small instrument is merely a large instrument with features removed. The good ones are designed inward from a particular musical action. They can be more personal because they do not have enough room to be neutral.

That is why I keep this list. These devices remind me that one person can have a peculiar musical idea, turn it into a circuit board, and send it into the world. Sometimes the result has five oscillators. Sometimes it remembers 1.2 seconds of audio. Sometimes it runs on one AAA battery and has a name that barely fits on the PCB.

The devices are smol. The ambitions are not.

If you make something that belongs in this group, please send it to me. There is always room for another fren.