eurorack-blocks

The eurorack-blocks project allows to develop your own custom Eurorack module for either prototyping or fun in the comfort of your day-to-day IDE with the C++ or Faust language, or using the Cycling '74 Max environment, testing and debugging in a virtual Eurorack environment, and when ready, to auto-magically generate all the needed files to manufacture the eurorack module for you to use in a real Eurorack modular system.

eurorack-blocks is using Daisy Patch Submodule, a DSP platform for Eurorack synthesizer modules. It features a lightning fast STM32 processor, high fidelity stereo audio codec, and enough RAM for 10 minute long buffers — all with standard signal levels and conditioning for the Eurorack ecosystem.

The documentation as well as the Getting Started guide can be found on Read the Docs.

The full project's manifest can be read here.

// Bypass.h

#include "artifacts/BypassUi.h"

struct Bypass {
   BypassUi ui;

   void process () {
      ui.audio_out = ui.audio_in;
   }
};

// Bypass.erbui

module Bypass {
   width 8hp
   material aluminum black
   header { label "BYPASS" }

   control audio_in AudioIn {
      position 4hp, 40mm
      label "IN"
   }

   control audio_out AudioOut {
      position 4hp, 80mm
      label "OUT"
   }
}

raf:bypass$ erbb configure 👈 Generate IDE projects
raf:bypass$ ls -l artifacts/
drwxr-xr-x  7 raf  staff  224 Feb  9 18:31 actions
drwxr-xr-x  3 raf  staff   96 Feb  9 18:31 daisy 👈 Daisy firmware build files
drwxr-xr-x  3 raf  staff   96 Feb  9 18:31 simulator 👈 Simulator build files
-rw-r--r--  1 raf  staff  109 Feb  9 18:31 Bypass.code-workspace 👈 Visual Studio Code Workspace
drwxr-xr-x  3 raf  staff   96 Feb  9 18:31 project_vcvrack.xcodeproj 👈 Simulator Xcode Project
raf:bypass$ erbb build simulator 👈 Build the simulator for VCV Rack
...
** BUILD SUCCEEDED **
raf:bypass$ open /Applications/Rack.app 👈 Test in VCV Rack and iterate
raf:bypass$ erbb build hardware 👈 Build the hardware files for manufacturing
raf:bypass$ ls -l artifacts/hardware/
-rw-r--r--   1 raf  staff     387 Feb  9 18:31 Bypass.bom.csv 👈 Bill of materials
-rw-r--r--   1 raf  staff   15696 Feb  9 18:31 Bypass.dxf 👈 Aluminum panel milling/drilling
-rw-r--r--   1 raf  staff   32731 Feb  9 18:31 Bypass.gerber.zip 👈 PCB Gerber files
-rw-r--r--   1 raf  staff  116908 Feb  9 18:31 Bypass.kicad_pcb
-rw-r--r--   1 raf  staff    4754 Feb  9 18:31 Bypass.pdf 👈 Aluminum panel UV printing
drwxr-xr-x  12 raf  staff     384 Feb  9 18:31 gerber
raf:bypass$ erbb build 👈 Build the firmware
ninja: Entering directory `.../eurorack-blocks/samples/bypass/artifacts/daisy/out/Release'
[191/191] LINK Bypass
OBJCOPY Bypass
raf:bypass$ erbb install 👈 Upload the firmware
Enter the system bootloader by holding the BOOT button down,
and then pressing, and releasing the RESET button.
Press Enter to continue...
...
raf:bypass$

Sample Projects

Before reading sample code, make sure to grasp the concepts in the documentation. Sample projects are a good place to continue learning:

• bypass is the example used above,
• drop shows the usage of almost every blocks,
• reverb illustrates how to utilize all the platform memory,
• kick illustrates how to use factory samples and make big programs,
• faust describes how to use the Faust functional programming language,
• custom illustrates how to use custom silkscreens, boards and manufacturers,
• frohmager is the recreation in hardware form factor of the legendary Ohm Force multi-band resonant filter (closed-source).

Cycling '74 Max Patches

First make sure to read the Max integration documentation. Sample projects are a good place to continue learning:

• reverb uses Gigaverb.
• drop shows the usage of almost every blocks.

Setting up

Setting up the development environment is described in the documentation. Integrations might have also their own Set up documentation, so make sure to read this as well.

Structure

eurorack-blocks/
   blocks/
   boards/
   build-system/
   include/
   max/
   src/
   submodules/

• blocks contains all the atomic blocks hardware for design validation and software tests,
• boards contains all the boards hardware to design with,
• build-system contains the build system used to build and deploy the tests and samples,
• include contains the software implementation of the blocks,
• max contains the Cycling '74 Max integration,
• src contains the software implementation of the blocks,
• submodules contains the software dependencies as submodules.

License

All files in this repository, excluding submodules/, are provided with the CC BY-SA 4.0 license for the hardware part, and MIT license for the software part, except:

• The Cycling '74 Max Gen DSP Source Code,
• The D-DIN Font, under SIL Open Font License,
• The Indie Flower Font, under SIL Open Font License,
• The Arpeggio project, under the MIT License,
• The Custom panel artwork, under the Creative Commons CC0 License.
• The Ohm Force Frohmager, under its proprietary license.

Some files that get installed in build-system/toolchain during erbb setup are not part of this repository, but redistributed during the installation phase, with the following licenses:

• dfu-util under the GPL version 2,
• Cairo under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 2.1 or the Mozilla Public License (MPL) version 1.1,
• libcapstone under the 3-Clause BSD License,
• Fontconfig under the MIT License,
• Freetype under the Freetype license or GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2,
• libftdi, which library is licensed under LGPL 2.1 (not any later), and EEPROM programmer is licensed under GPL 2 (not any later),
• libhidapi, under the GNU General Public License, version 3.0, BSD-Style License or more liberal original HIDAPI license,
• libpixman under the MIT license,
• libpng under the PNG Reference Library License version 2,
• libusb under the GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1,
• Xorg libraries under the MIT license,
• openocd under the GPL-2.0-or-later
• GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain under various licenses, navigate to build-system/toolchain/gcc-arm-none-eabi-10.3-2021.10/share/doc/gcc-arm-none-eabi/license.txt for a complete list,
• KiCad under its license.

Redistribution of your firmware for commecial purposes only have a subset of those licences:

• Modules which firmware was code generated by Gen from a patcher is dual licensed under the Cycling '74 License for Max-Generated Code for Export or GPLv3.
• Eurorack-blocks framework is under the MIT license,
• libDaisy is under the MIT license,
• GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain libraries under various licenses, navigate to build-system/toolchain/gcc-arm-none-eabi-10.3-2021.10/share/doc/gcc-arm-none-eabi/license.txt for a complete list.

Redistribution of your panel, if using the font in this repository:

• The D-DIN Font, under SIL Open Font License,

To fullfil attribution, users will generally put the ERB logo and the URL to this project, on their PCB like in this example (courtesy of Oms in serial)