Combining Two Projects and Staging the New Project

The ESP-32 CYD Board.

The "Cheap Yellow Display" development board that will be my metronome and sync Babel fish.
(image source: Random Nerd Tutorials)

For about 3 years now, I've been doing "research" into the technology behind various old and new school tempo sync techniques and, in parallel for the last 18 months, a metronome. I've decided, they're probably the same tool with different interfaces. The advantage, as I see it, is a device to rehearse my parts with a metronome that's simpler than my drum machine, but can then sync my DAW, "stripe" a track on my digital multitrack recorder and sync my drum machine via USB MIDI, DIN Sync and serial MIDI, respectively. Then, for playback, has the recorder as Master (via DinSync) to sync the metronome, the DAW (via USB MIDI) and the drum machine. (Via Serial MIDI.) Foot tap as a sync master, too, is also in the scope, hence "MIDI Babel Fish." Not to mention keeping my looper in lockstep with the DAW, drum machine or DINsync from my DAW.

However, regarding the branding, because it brings "everybody," new and old, together at a central station and, because it'll be my busy little helper in my musical "garden" of old and new tech, I'm changing the branding for the new, combined project to "RetroGnome." Get it? Metro/Retro and Gnome! I hope to bring it to a level where it can become a popular open source, open hardware project on the Gits. Meanwhile, because I suspect that this blog has a readership of one (me proofreading), I'ma use this space to log the links for tools and learning. RetroGnome - the MIDI, DIN Sync and

Having also recently discovered the "Cheap Yellow Display" (official title: ESP32-2432S028R), more than half of the hardware dev is already done. With a touchscreen display, Serial in/out and a one or 2 GPIOs available on the board as breakout pins, it should be able to handle tap tempo and DINSync, too. By using the LVGL library, the touchscreen interface possibly will be easy to setup, too, although, it's simple enough and possibly easy enough to just drive the CYD's touchscreen interface directly, but setup a few different functions for each necessary screen layout. That's for ongoing experimentation.

Author's Note: So, it turns out my "top secret project" prototype has stopped working and is in the post back from my Tassy mate for whom it owes its existence. So, there's a lot of redesigning of that going on at the moment. Too much shit to do, too little time. I shall press on with both, just not as quickly with either.

Beginning the Nuts and Bolts

So, here's a list of libraries, repos and tutorials I have to work through as I design and develop...

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