SnapBeat Hardware Sampler
One of my earliest musical memories is playing with this keyboard my dad got me when I was young. It’s now a rare collectible model, and I wish I had kept it. It had a built-in sampler and my friends and I had so much fun sampling noises and then playing them back on the keyboard, pitched up and down. Well, the SnapBeat Hardware Sampler brings back that easy, fun sampling that I remember so fondly!
The SnapBeat uses a really unique idea — each channel uses a Nuvoton audio recorder IC. You know, those chips that get used in voice memo takers, etc. I didn’t realize that they could actually sample with a high enough rate to get 20kHz, so it’s a very simple and easy way to build a sampler! Add on an Arduino Nano, some key switches, a display and a rotary encoder and you’ve got yourself a neat little sampler!
You can manually play back each channel just by tapping the key for that channel, but it also supports MIDI control which definitely makes this a useful addition to a synth setup. This listing is for the bare assembled board, and though there is a version with a case available, I’d personally think about 3D printing something unique and stylish to fit in with your current synth setup.
Check out the video below for a demo of the SnapBeat in action:
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